From the course: Doing Good to Build a Profitable Business

Using a mission to drive engagement

From the course: Doing Good to Build a Profitable Business

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Using a mission to drive engagement

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- It's a simple but powerful fact, employees who believe in the organization's mission will invest more into their work projects. One of my favorite examples is the story about the Soviet Space Program which started back in the early days of developing the Russian three man capsule, Vostok 1. This capsule was so small that the cosmonauts weren't able to wear spacesuits. Because of this, one of the engineers warned the chief designer that the slightest air leak would kill everyone board. So, what did the designer do upon hearing this? He appointed the engineer to be one of the three cosmonauts. He believed this would motivate him to make the capsule as leak proof and as safe as possible. My takeaway from that story is that for goodness to appear in our companies, we need to start by building a culture that has an air-tight mission. One that's employee centered and has a compelling purpose for them to believe in. Your mission is your reason for being, for doing what you want to do. A good way to measure if your measure has a big enough purpose is to ask yourself, what would the world be missing if my company no longer existed? In other words, how does your mission affect others positively? This is the kind of purpose people want to have when it comes to their work. Younger generations expect it now as part of their career. It's becoming less of an exception and more of a norm. REI is a great example. Part of REI's mission is their passion for being outside and enjoying the outdoors. Back in 2015, they wanted to represent their mission by starting a campaign using the hashtag #OptOutisde. So that year on Black Friday, they closed all their stores to show that their mission of wanting more quality time in the outdoors was more than just a bunch of sales to them. They promoted outdoor activities that day instead of encouraging shoppers to purchase on their website. Modeling their mission this way was not only inspiring internally, externally represented to the world that REI truly believed in what they did. This is how an airtight mission with the risk of losing sales but the purpose of living out what they believed in ended up with results that were incredible and long lasting. Having a mission helps you to stand out from your competition, gives your team a collective goal to work toward and motivate your team to perform at their best. This only can happen when your mission is clear and easy to understand and articulated over and over. It takes deep root when it's modeled whenever possible.

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