The Purpose Paradox
Organizations with a vital purpose must be cautious with the culture they create inside themselves.
As a little girl, I spent many hours listening to the sermons in church. Many speeches dealt with the love that Christians bring to the world. The pastors talked about this mission, emphasizing how important it is to be an excellent example of love and respect. For me, these thoughts seemed very coherent and vital. And I was only surprised again and again by how little I could see this love and respect for one another in the church community. I was stunned to see how members treated each other. How much unkindness and disrespect I could see when I looked around me. I had the feeling that the more often the mission was preached, the less this mission was felt inside the community. I found this heartbreaking and disturbing.
As a young woman, social psychology was my favorite area during my psychology studies. I was particularly interested in the factors that influence human interaction. I was interested in what constitutes good cooperation, what characteristics make a lively culture possible, and what role good leadership plays. And I learned that there are a lot of steps that we can take to create a space where human beings can flourish, and human creativity can enable us to do great work.
After my studies, I worked for many years as a systemic consultant in Non-Profit Organizations. I worked with engaged human beings that care for our planet, animal welfare, an open society, health, human dignity, and justice. And I made a discovery that made me think. It irritated me that precisely what the organization wanted to change in the world seemed to be out of focus in the organization itself. On the contrary, the very thing the organization was fighting for in the world was often very little felt inside the organization.
In organizations fighting against the exploitation of our planet, people were not taking care of their resources and exploited themselves. Animal welfare was not automatically connected with the welfare of people inside the organization. Fighting for human dignity in the world was not associated with treating people with respect in their workplace. Caring for health did not lead to a healthy environment inside.
What I perceived reminded me of an old saying: The shoemaker’s children always go barefoot. This Proverbial saying from the mid-16th century emphasizes that the family of a skilled or knowledgeable person is often the last to benefit from their expertise. The same holds for professional organizations fighting for a better world. The human beings inside are often the last to benefit from expertise about health, saving resources and energy, wellbeing, human rights, and dignity. I call this Purpose Paradox.
Why bother about culture? Don’t we have an essential purpose in the world?
In my experience, the biggest threat to an organization with a vital purpose is not lack of funding or turbulent times but rather itself and its purpose. What I experience is the more an organization cares for an essential purpose in the outside world, the less energy is left to care about this purpose in the “inside world” of the organization. I discovered purpose blind spots, fundamentalism, achievement traps, and utilization.
When we look a little closer and focus on a personal level, we see what this could mean for paradoxical effects a purpose can unintendedly create.
Purpose Blind Spot
When we focus too heavily on our impact and our purpose in the world, our energy is diverted from the perception of ourselves and the awareness of how we interact with each other. We become blind in a sense. We don’t see what is missing within the organization because we focus only on what we are missing in the world and want to change.
Purpose Fundamentalism
If we assume that our focus in the world is the right one, if we are firmly convinced that we have the solutions and the people around us are the problem, this will affect our relationships and actions. We become dogmatic and obsessed with being right. The end justifies the means; the idea is more important than the fellow human being.
Purpose Achievement Trap
If achieving our goals in the outside world becomes more important than respecting and encouraging the people we work with, inhumanity will destroy our goodwill. The Purpose is contaminated with intolerance and the exploitation of others. It becomes a shadow of itself.
Purpose Utilization
In recent literature on purpose-driven organizations, I have come across a perspective that, in my view, is pretty dangerous. The orientation toward a common purpose was justified because it leads to higher employee engagement, less sick leave, and more success in the “campaign market.” From my point of view, this use of a common purpose leads to its emptying of meaning and cynicism.
Purpose-Driven or Purpose-Connected?
In my experience, we must be careful with the idea of purpose-driven organizations. Being driven is quite tricky and not related to the freedom and responsibility of human beings. I have seen many adverse effects of a strong purpose drive in organizations. I have seen exhausted people, toxic work cultures with destructive discussions about what is right or wrong, a lack of listening and dialogue, righteousness, injustice, and power games. I have seen many human beings suffering for the greater good.
“The end cannot justify the means when human dignity is at stake. Human dignity must be respected above all.” Source: europarlament.europa.eu
Flourishing organizations are rather purpose-oriented or purpose-connected than driven. These organizations connect fighting for a better world with conscious caring for the inside world. Cultures of care create engagement, energy, and a spirit of community. In cultures of care, we find high engaged people, less sick leave because of a more healthy environment, more creative campaigns, and more sustainable impact.
Organizations must be the change they want to create
Organizational culture is not a feel-good moment, is not a soft factor but rather a vital factor, a context that creates or destroys vitality and values. Therefore, organizations with a vital purpose must look inside themselves and enable a way of working where this purpose is connected and lived by its leaders, caring for people and the culture in the organization.
To be aware of the organization’s purpose means to be mindful of the Purpose Paradox. Leaders need to create common grounds for deciphering cultural dynamics. Leaders can act as social architects and culture gardeners and care for the organization as part of a living and striving planet. Leaders can be an essential part of a flourishing organization.
From insights to action
To show leadership in turbulent times, leaders must be aware of themselves and the organization differently. Unleashing the potential of an organization
needs awareness of the world around us, awareness of human beings, and the dynamics of living systems.
“The machine must function as best as it can to enable us to change the world” is not working. This old industrial age paradigm, where people were cogs in a machine and had to function, is deeply connected with the problems we see in our world today. Changing the world around us starts with caring for ourselves and our organizations. It begins with changing ourselves.
Overcoming purpose paradox effects
Be aware: the most crucial focus of leadership is culture! Leaders in NGOs are often much more focused on campaigns and impact in the outer world than on creating vitalizing spaces inside their field of responsibility. People who fight for a better world deserve good leadership! Good leadership is about creating vitalizing environments for human beings.
Connect mission statement and culture statement. Transform what you fight for in the outside world into an idea about what you care for in the organization. Have both perspectives in view, inside and outside.
Care for a culture of belonging. Fighting for change in the outer world is quite exhausting. People need organizations as spaces where they can regain energy and feel connected. Where they feel their contribution to the whole is seen and where a feeling of community protects hope for a better world.
Be aware of your very personal purpose paradoxes as a leader. During the lockdown, I worked a lot on webinars about the quality of leadership and culture. One part was about deep listening and independent thinking. My daughter was in the other room doing homework. This evening she said to me, Mum, I would be glad if you could listen more to what I think.
Care for the energy of yourself and others. If achieving our goals in the outside world becomes more important than our well-being and health, our joy of living, our connectedness with one another, and the beauty of nature, we will not be able to create sustainable change.
Trust the living system! See yourself as part of a greater good. I am convinced that our human hubris, our conviction that we must control and manage everything to achieve sound effects, prevents the unfolding and flourishing of human potential in organizations. Connecting with our purpose — and not falling into the purpose-driven trap — needs an awareness of the power of living systems. “How can we all care for what is most important and then let the system care for itself?”
Purpose-connected organizations are shaped by meaning, shared values, caring for people and culture, and the intention to create something good for the world.
If the purpose paradox seems familiar to you and your organization, please share your experiences and stories with me. I am currently working on ways to become aware of and overcome the purpose paradox. I am convinced that organizations can be more powerful and more sustainable change agents in the world when they connect purpose and culture in a lively way.
Dorothe Liebig, Berlin, April 2022
