Vision Integration: Build Everything Around Purpose

Why do you or your teams do what you do? What is the impact you are aiming for? What is the purpose of it all?

Purpose serves as the divining rod for our application of energy and resources. The more willing we are to "hear" our purpose—our calling—and embrace the power of its simplicity, the sooner we will increase our efficiency, effectiveness and impact. This applies to the individual as well as the organization.

Learning to articulate purpose requires openness, discipline and focus. It also requires support from outsiders such as mentors, consultants, coaches and associates, who help reflect and reveal what is most valued within ourselves. Effective leaders know this, and have mastered the art and discipline of vision integration through humility, self-awareness, perseverance and accountability.

Purpose is extremely pragmatic and strategic. For example, it becomes much easier to detect when actions, projects and investments go "off track," reducing response-time and providing a clearer path of retreat that realigns with purpose. This path also leads back to our core competencies and values, as these are never separate from purpose.

The alternative is a crap-shoot based on swirling and unpredictable shifts in external events and opinion. Remaining ignorant about purpose quickly reveals inefficiencies of scale and application. Ignorance is highly impractical, not to mention wasteful and often painful.

With even a slight amount of faith in the strategic benefits of purpose-driven approaches, one can quickly benefit from its power and efficiency. Where does this faith first appear? In our motivation. An intentional decision to aim—and adjust our aim along the way—at what matters most to us. This requires courage initially, but we quickly gain confidence through experience, noticing that aligning effort and resources around purpose consistently produces rewarding, effective and understandable outcomes, which in-turn further facilitate decisions and distribution of resources. The result is a healthy feedback loop of meaningful integration and positive long-term benefit and impact.