What is the purpose behind a company ‘purpose’?

It’s funny… It’s not until a clinic owner has had years of being in business that they start realise the ‘purpose of the purpose’. Once they realise it though, they tend to have this epiphany moment of…

“OH, this is where I’m supposed to start!”.

It’s ok. It takes time for you to go through the whirlwind of establishing your business first to finally have some breathing space so that you can reflect, manifest and perculate on exactly why you started your clinic in the first place…

Simple question: What is the reason for your clinic’s existence?

The truth is, the measure of whether or not a business is ‘successful’ doesn’t really reside in whether or not it’s profitable or how popular it is… but rather, whether or not it fulfils the intended purpose for its existence.

The way I see it is that people’s resistence or “gloss over” on establishing a company purpose is simply because lots of clinic owners just don’t understand the ‘purpose of the purpose’… It’s all well and good to establish one, but how are we supposed to use it? Or is it one of those things that get put on the wall that no one ever talks about?

Purpose: Freedom is a common reason why!

Here are 5 ways to use your purpose

1. What types of services you offer:
   If your purpose is to empower, then there wouldn’t be a whole lot of passive stuff included. What about if the purpose says that you provide support, then maybe the service offerings are centred around caregiving and providing aid. Picking your words carefully allows you to do what you say you will do and equally make it clear as to what you specifically don’t do.
   Question: Do your company purpose reflect the service offerings you provide? Does it impact how you go about providing the services at your clinic? Do you push back on offering things that aren’t in line with your company’s purpose?

2. This is why your team choose you:
   Why should any interview candidate even choose your business to interview with? There are job opportunties galore! Team members are looking for purpose, for belonging and place that they feel they can demonstrate their skills that they worked so hard to develop. Building meaning behind what they do and making the business ‘purposeful’ is a surefire way of helping team members stay driven, motivated and inspired long term. The major issue we are seeing in allied health clinics right now is that team members are not comfortable with incongruous daily actions with what the leader’s intention is. Havig integrity - ie. doing what you say you will do and upholding the standards is exactly what being ‘purpose-driven’ is.

3. Informs how you measure success:
   Throw out traditional metrics. The metrics you use need to be reflective of the specific parts of your purpose which are measurable. By connecting the purpose with metrics, your team will understand how what they do is being measured and the purpose is the whole reason they chose to belong inside your business to begin with. The disconnect happens when there is no congruency between what you say you do and the way you measure success.
   Question: How are you measuring success? Is it in line with your company’s purpose?

4. It underpins your marketing message:
   The reason why you exist is what you base your message on. Your story, the rason why people love you and your team. The tribe you create love you because they believe in what you stand for. Flaunt it. This is what makes you different, so the more you hide it, the harder it’s going to be for someone looking for you to find you.

5. The intent behind every action:
   An intent is linked to your motivation. We want our team to be motivated by something internal, something that will give them intrinsic satisfaction - not merely a reward. This is the path to career satisfaction, loving what they do. It’s the long lasting serotonin based joy that we want to be linked to what they do on an every day basis. This is where we avoid the insatiable reward based motivations that are short term - like more money. Linking as many things as possible to the purpose of the company is how things can get done with enthusiasm rather than feeling like they’re dong arbitrary tasks on a treadmill.

The purpose of a company purpose is that it is the main measure of success. The way the business lives and breaths should reflct the purpose for why it exists in the first place. In some cases, once clinic owners realise this, there is a “aha” moment followed by an overwhelmed feeling as they realise how disjointed their business actually is. This is exactly what happened to me too!

That’s why we’re running a workshop on it! Click up top to join, but if you want you can also do some 1on1 work with DrNick or the team to get you on the right track. If you’re interested book in a free call with DrNick HERE