"If you want to be successful over the long haul, you have to have a sense of purpose that is clearly articulated and embedded in your organization and processes, but you also have to live it. There can’t be two sets of rules."--Punit Renjen, Chairman of the Board, Deloitte
I caught up with Deloitte Chairman, Punit Renjen, to discuss the release of the firm's third annual Core Beliefs and Culture Survey, as a follow-up to my profile of him last year that struck a chord with the Forbes Insights audience and was my second most read story of the year. Here's what Punit had to say about this year's study...
"The difference between last year and this year’s version of the study is that, in addition to reaffirming the premise that 'purpose' is a driving force for business success, it points out that focusing on purpose rather than just profits builds business confidence. And we wanted to explore that notion, given the current climate of uncertainty and slowed economic recovery.
We wanted to see if purpose has any correlation to building business confidence. We found that both short term as well as long term, there is a very tight correlation. Eighty-two percent of respondents who work for an organization with a strong sense of purpose, say that they are confident that their organization will grow this year, compared to 48 percent of those who did not have a strong sense of purpose. We found that very interesting. So that was the first point.
The second point was that a strong sense of purpose drives businesses to take the long view and invest for growth. And that manifests in multiple ways: Businesses with a strong sense of purpose invest in new technologies, for instance, or expand into new markets more than organizations that don't. Employee development and employee commitment is another area of correlation.
The third was that a sense of purpose inspires confidence among all stakeholders. We knew this in the past two surveys that we've done. It just brought this out into greater relief.
The fourth was the correlation between not only articulating and embedding a sense of purpose, but also the idea of leaders living by that sense of purpose, and leading by example. What was disconcerting to us was that nearly a fifth of the respondents said that even though their organization had a sense of purpose, their leaders didn't live by that code of conduct and as a result that didn't have the same positive impact.
The topic is starting to resonate, particularly around this notion that you have to look beyond just short term profits. Don't get me wrong. An organization, to be successful over time, must generate extraordinary profits. But the point that we are trying to make is, that in order to generate extraordinary profits, you must have a focus that is beyond profits. You need to focus on how you serve your clients, on how you hire, retain and develop the very best employees, the relationship that you have with regulators and with stakeholders and the relationship that you have with the communities that you live and work in.
And if you do that right, describe for your organization the reason for existence that encompasses those four areas, and then embed it in everything that you do and live by it, you will generate over time extraordinary profits. I think that discussion is starting to resonate with business leaders, though I have to say that it is hard, because, we are, as a business community, too often focused on very short term, bottom line results."
