How Primacy of Purpose Can Make Your Strategy Successful
There’s an old Army saying that “no plan survives first contact with the enemy.” (I’m sure some navy or marine guy out there will attribute this comment to their branch of service but to be clear, it came from the Army… well, actually it came from Helmuth von Motltke but his version was much less pithy. Gotta love his helmet though…). This principle holds true in business as well.
You can put together the mother of all PowerPoint presentations, make massive strat plan binders for the Board of Directors or the heads of your business unit, create Excel models that cause the lights to dim when you run them and lay out huge project plans in MS Project. The thing is, as soon as you’ve briefed your plan, it’s irrelevant. The world has changed. Oil spikes. Consumer sentiment. A presidential election. New regulations. Disruptive technologies and even more disruptive competitors. Not to mention natural churn in the labor markets (see “Talkin ’bout My Generation“).
In these changing times, it’s easy to get “off strategy” and chase things that seem important. Unfortunately you can end up behaving like a puppy in a park (Ever seen a puppy in a park? They chase EVERYTHING that looks interesting.). The only thing that can save you and keep you “on strategy” is something called “primacy of purpose.” I think primacy of purpose and a clear vision and mission are so critical to success that I spend tons of time working with our clients on strategic planning programs. Failure to invest in your strategy pretty much guarantees failure.
Primacy of purpose is rooted in a mindset that you have to provide guidance on where you want to go but not always how to get there. Adopting this mindset will enable your organization to be infinitely more flexible and help them quickly spot new opportunities that are “on strategy” as well as solve crises with faster decision making “rights.” Indulge me while I explain using a military example.
Let’s say your battalion’s orders are to watch the north side of the convoy route and prevent enemies from attacking your convoy from the north. You’re blithely tooling along the road and, surprise!, the attack comes from the south. Now, remember, the battalion has been given orders to watch the NORTH side. They can achieve their stated objective by preventing attack from the north. Even if the convoy is destroyed by the attack from the south, the battalion has achieved its task-oriented mission. Sure this is an exaggerated example but I’m relating it for training purposes. Let’s now look at a battalion that has “primacy of purpose” in contrast to the task-oriented one above.
The purpose-focused battalion is given orders to protect the convoy from attack so it can resupply the front line troops. The battalion is told the attack will likely come from the north but their primary purpose is to guard the convoy. Now when the attack comes from the south, what happens? Of course – the battalion will protect the southern flank, destroy the enemy, and protect the convoy. By being “purpose” focused versus “task” focused, they have more freedom to make decisions and achieve what the true goals are.
Hopefully you’re seeing the application of this mindset to the business world. Do you give your organization tasks or are they given a purpose? If they’re given tasks, they’ll comply and perform the tasks. If they’re given a purpose, they have freedom to make decisions to achieve said goal. Their roles are more fulfilling, they’re more empowered, and the likelihood of you achieving your purpose goes up dramatically.
If you tell your team to create new products using new formulations coming out of your R&D group, they’ll do just that (even if R&D has nothing cool and innovative to offer). If instead the team knows its purpose is to find innovative new products your customers will buy by the bucketload, they might seek out acquisitions, go to other business units to collaborate on new offerings, etc. Primacy of purpose creates new degrees of freedom and helps ensure the team focuses on what REALLY matters – the end result you’re desirous of.
Give them a purpose and let them surprise you with their creativity. They’ll succeed more often and be happier in the process of doing so.
This sounds a lot like what I actually do at work – remind everyone what the big picture is (which stayed the same), and thus which way meets the priority – while the project evolves and shifts.
Hi Mike,
I love your focus on importance of purpose. I could not agree with you more that purpose should drive the direction and strategy of a company.
Where I was disappointed in your article is that you did not define what exactly primacy of purpose is and how a company defines it.
When I work with clients around purpose (or even purpose statements), I find most confuse vision or mission with purpose. Purpose (or a company’s reason for existence) is very different than vision or mission.
A great example to differentiate the 3 is JFK’s vision to land an American on the moon by the end of the decade. That was the vision. What few really understand is the WHY behind it (or purpose). It’s clearly stated in his State of the Union speech. The purpose was to make the US the #1 most powerful nation in the world. At that time, the Soviet was ahead of the US in space technology. Also the Bay of Pigs disaster only reinforced the power of the Soviet in alliance with Cuba.
A powerful sense of purpose not only creates company cohesion in direction. It mobilizes an energy force within an organization like no other that pulls a company forward.
As you can tell, I love the topic of “purpose” and was so glad to see your article. It’s a topic that is seldom discussed. Or if it is discussed, it is confused with vision or mission.
Denise Corcoran
The Empowered Business
Good Article! The historical references help to point out time honored Truths and put them into meaningful context.
The use of military verbiage is real world, results driven. Kudos and Thank you.
RJB
Gen Dwight Eisenhower had an excellent variation: “In preparation for war, I have always found plans to be useless and planning to be indispensable”.
He brings a bit more street cred than Helmuth von Motltke