10 tips for crafting a purpose statement your people will actually live by
Purpose is a strategy not just a statement. That’s a view Holly Branson, Virgin’s Chief Purpose and Vision Officer, expressed on LinkedIn recently — and we couldn’t agree more.
But to keep your purpose at the forefront of people’s minds, it’s still vital to be able to sum it up in words that are clear, concise and compelling.
Here are 10 tips for crafting a purpose statement that will resonate with your people — and inspire them to action.
1 Focus on the why, not the what
An effective purpose statement will tell people why you exist and the difference you make to people. So in thinking about your purpose, dig into questions like:
Why does what we do matter?
What makes us unique?
What would the world be like if we didn’t exist?
Questions like these will help you capture exactly what it is you do to make the world a better place.
2. Talk about those you serve
To get to your why, don’t simply list products or services. Instead, talk about how those products or services improve life for your customers or clients. Or, if you’re a non-profit, the people you support. So go out and ask them what they think:
Who are they and what matters to them?
What do they love about you?
What’s in it for them to choose you over your competitors?
3. Avoid tech talk and biz babble
A good purpose statement talks about your why and references those you serve. A great purpose statement will talk about your why using the words of those you serve.
So ditch industry or internal jargon in favour of down-to-earth, relatable, human language. None of us leverages or aligns things at home. Nor do we deliver innovative solutions to stuff outside of the office.
And yet when we get to work, there’s always that temptation to use this kind of language. And, if you’re not careful, that can bleed into your purpose statement.
Here’s a real-life purpose statement that fails to use the customers’ language:
Our purpose is to transform the digital productivity of SMBs in Northern Ireland by providing subscription-based, enterprise-class cloud computing solutions that are secure at any time, in any place and on any device.
Let’s assume SMBs stands for small and medium businesses. Now, ideally, you wouldn’t include any abbreviations in your purpose statement. And, as someone running an SMB, I can tell you I’ve never once turned to my co-founder and said: we need to transform our digital productivity with a subscription-based, enterprise-class cloud computing solution.
Although, as users of things like Squarespace, Google Drive and online accounting software, we no doubt experience such “solutions” everyday.
If this company had talked to their customer, I guarantee they’d have ended up with a very different (and far more compelling) purpose statement.
4. Don’t make it sound like it was written by a copywriter (even if it was)
Another trap that’s easy to fall into if you don’t listen to how your customer speaks is to produce writing that sounds like writing. Or, more specifically, writing that sounds like meaningless marketing speak.
Here’s an example from a well-known take-out pizza firm:
Our purpose is to feed the power of the possible.
Now, what sensible human being, on ordering a take-out pizza thinks I want to be fed with the power of the possible?
What regular pizza chef or delivery person thinks my work means I’m feeding people with the power of the possible?
What does it even mean to be fed with the power of the possible?
To avoid making this mistake, listen to your customers. How do they feel about you? What do they say about you? And, above all, how do they say it?
5. Keep it short
The longer your purpose statement is, the harder it will be for you and others to recall and repeat. And if people can’t recall and repeat the purpose, they won’t be able to live by it.
For maximum useability, make the statement something you can incorporate into a sentence naturally and easily. That way, you can refer to it often in speeches, pitches, stories, emails or even short, chatty Slack posts with your people.
So how short should a statement be? How long is too long?
Research on memory shows that most people can remember and repeat between five and nine items in a list.
Similarly, with a purpose statement, any more than nine words puts it well into hard-to-recall and hard-to-use territory. So make nine your absolute max.
6. Delete any “ands”
One way to limit the length of your purpose statement is to challenge yourself to avoid using the word and in it.
The word and can be a sign you’re overcomplicating things, as in this mouthful from an insurer:
We help customers realize their hopes and dreams by providing the best products and services to protect them from life’s uncertainties and prepare them for the future.
Try remembering that when you’re in front of a group of employees or investors!
7. Be specific
Your purpose statement should be specific to your organisation. It should be recognisably you and not, say, a competitor (let alone an org in a different industry).
Here’s an example of a statement that fails this specificity test:
Our purpose is to deliver impact and lead the sector.
Could you say what this company actually does? What sector they’re in? Or how, exactly, they’re delivering impact? If you were their employee, would you know when you're delivering impact (and when you’re not)?
Here’s a much better purpose statement, for a helpline for serving people in a profession known for its high levels of stress and suicide:
To provide emotional first aid for dentists in distress.
This is a great purpose statement. It’s short, simple and super-niche — not to mention emotionally compelling.
8. Paint a picture
A good purpose statement is concrete, not abstract. It will paint a vivid picture in people’s minds of what you exist to do.
Here’s a famous example from the early days of Microsoft:
A computer on every desk and in every home.
Now this is both concrete and inspiring. It paints a vivid picture of what success looks like.
In fact, I guarantee, you’ve got a picture in your mind right now of a computer on a desk in a home office — a picture you’ll still be able to recall tomorrow.
9. Don’t mention profit
Purpose goes hand in hand with profit — but they are two distinct things. And to have an impact, your purpose statement needs to appeal to the heart, not the profit motive.
So never state that your purpose is solely to deliver for your shareholders, like this real-life example from a UK-based company:
Our purpose is to grow the long-term value of the group.
The customer is completely absent here, except as the means to an end: the organisation's growth.
It’s a terrible purpose statement because it’s basically saying “our reason to exist is to exist — but bigger and richer”. Try getting your employees to get out of bed for that mission!
10. Manage stakeholders’ tendency to wordsmith for the worst
Let’s imagine you’re some kind of ethical body in the healthcare industry and you’ve come up with a first draft of your purpose statement.
Let’s imagine your draft purpose statement is:
To help medics make the right decisions.
It’s easy to remember, it’s simple to say, and it captures the org’s positive impact on the world.
But as that first draft does the rounds, chances are it will grow as more and more people pitch in.
And that’s how a pretty good draft turns into something like this:
Our purpose is to be the ultimate source of trustworthy guidance and advice to members of the healthcare community, helping them to make ethically informed and therapeutically appropriate decisions.
Now, this statement is grammatically correct and not unclear.
And maybe for those who contributed their feedback, it has the benefit of being precise. Of being inclusive of all the various aspects of the organisation’s work.
But here’s the problem: it’s going to be completely unusable in anything other than a standalone way.
When the org’s CEO is standing in front of employees or investors, she’s never going to be able to remember that mouthful.
In the heat of the moment, she’ll inevitably default to helping medics make the right decisions. How do we know this? We’ve seen it happen (with a purpose statement we weren’t involved with).
See our blog post How to stop good mission statements from going bad for how we try to head this tendency off at the pass.
