Profit Meets Purpose: Find Your Company’s Soul

Profit Meets Purpose: Find Your Company’s Soul

Every so often the business world awakens to a new reality. We’re in the midst of one today that directly addresses a question keeping most CEOs up at night: How do I deliver long-term, sustainable value that motivates employees, engages customers, strengthens my brand, and delivers the profitability my stakeholders demand? The answer is simple, yet transformative. As we move through the 21st Century, companies need to find their moral purpose—something that lives within the soul of their business, which can translate into a form of good that is beneficial to both their bottom line and to mankind. Profit meets purpose . . . the clarion call of today.

Companies rising to answer this call are well positioned to become the iconic brands that define this era, which has moved beyond digital to one of social consciousness. Proof of this profound shift came from a surprising call to action from BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink in his 2018 annual letter to CEOs, which sent shock waves through the financial community:

Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose. To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. . . . Without a sense of purpose, no company, either public or private, can achieve its full potential. It will ultimately lose the license to operate from stakeholders.

Laurence Fink, BlackRock CEO

As the head of a firm that manages more than $6 trillion in investments, this influential investor is completely changing the dialogue and, in the process, sounding the alarm to the C-suite. “It may be a watershed moment on Wall Street, one that raises all sorts of questions about the very nature of capitalism. . . . But for the world’s largest investor to say it aloud—and declare that he plans to hold companies accountable—is a bracing example of the evolution of corporate America,” said New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin. He added that Fink’s argument in part rests on the changing mood of the country regarding social responsibility.

Proving that point are findings from an April 5, 2018, Covestro survey of U.S. Fortune 1000 CEOs on business and purpose .The survey found that a full 69% of senior executives say the 

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act of balancing profit and purpose is having a positive, transformational impact on business, with half or more reporting such impacts as they integrate a purpose-driven approach into various functions. Four out of five (80%) agree that a company’s future growth and success will hinge on a values-driven mission that balances profit and purpose, and 75% believe these types of companies will have a competitive advantage over those that do not.

Beyond CSR

What we’re talking about here is a reinvented good, which is markedly different from simply implementing a traditional CSR effort—typically a siloed initiative that is completely separate from a company’s business focus, product development, marketing, etc. By contrast, this “better good” is centralto the organization’s core mission. It is a fundamental value that is infused into the company’s bloodstream so that it runs horizontally through every facet of the business—from R&D and marketing to finance and HR.