In my last blog I referred to Idris Mootee’s blog post where he also represents the importance of a corporation’s purpose as key to strategy. No I would like to expand on that and explain why I call it the corporation’s Soulful Purpose.
A corporation is not just a collection of equipment worked on by employees to produce some products it hopes to sell. Rather a corporation is in fact a living entity just like a human being with a very core reason for existing. Is it just a fete of our legal system that corporations are treated as a person in the eyes of the law, or is there something more?
Every entrepreneur knows that starting an enterprise is like giving birth. They watch their child grow from a mere concept into something that is eventually self supporting. And like a child it goes through many growth cycles. Almost every entrepreneur knows that their organization is a living being with a soulful and a purpose for being.
How does one identify the corporation’s soulful purpose? It is like asking what your personal soulful purpose is, what is your reason for existing? And one way to begin the process of discovering this is to ask, what the world would be like if you didn’t exist. What would the world be missing? And rest assured there is a very definite purpose for everyone’s existence (think of the movie “A Wonderful Life”).
The same is true for the corporation. Every corporation has a very deep and purposeful reason for existing. Find it, communicate it, live it, and you will find almost magical results begin to appear.