Harmonization of Personal and Organizational Purpose

Abstract

Examples of successful purpose-driven organizations show that corporate and personal purposes both play a crucial role in building high levels of unity, which arises from a genuine connection between the individual and the organization. Built upon recent research on plural identity and authenticity at work, we analyze the essence of this connection along with the processes that ensure it remains vibrant over time. A two-sided view of purpose is developed, suggesting the harmonization of personal and organizational purposes across two basic dimensions: purpose fluidity and purpose synergy. The first is related to the exchange of meaningful representations between personal and organizational purposes. The second relates to the way personal and organizational purposes partly or fully integrate with each other.

Full text

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© e Author(s) 2019
C. Rey et al. (eds.), Purpose-driven Organizations,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17674-7_2
2
Harmonization ofPersonal
andOrganizational Purpose
CarlosRey andIvanMalbašić
Like most companies, Unilever has lived under a set of corporate values that have
been the mainstay of the organization for decades. In 2014, inspired by these
principles, the company launched a program called “Brand Purpose” with the
intent of transmitting the corporate purpose across all the brands. In the same year,
the company started another program called “Personal Purpose” in which it
encouraged the employees, all over the world, to nd their own meaning in the
work they did.
Today, more than half of the Unilever brands have implemented Brand Purpose
and more than 30,000 employees have participated in the personal purpose
program. e internal results of the company have indicated that those brands in
which purpose was implemented grew twice as fast as those which did not. And
the employees who implemented their personal purpose had less burnout, greater
productivity, and more innovation.
As we have seen at Unilever and many other companies, evidence from the
eld shows that purpose is being infused increasingly at both the corporate
and the individual levels. Behind this practice is the idea of connecting
individual purpose to that of the organization—what we refer to in this book
C. Rey (*)
Universitat Internacional de Catalunya,
Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: carlosrey@uic.es
I. Malbašić
Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
e-mail: ivan.malbasic@foi.hr

18
as unity—making its way into companies in what clearly seems to be a con-
stant upward trend. In this chapter, we are going to see the essence of this
connection and consider its fundamental nature, along with the processes that
ensure it remains vibrant over time.Built upon recent research on plural iden-
tity and authenticity at work, a two-sided view of purpose is developed, sug-
gesting the harmonization of personal and organizational purposes across two
basic dimensions: purpose uidity and purpose synergy. e rst is related to
the exchange of meaningful representations between personal and organiza-
tional purposes. e second relates to the way personal and organizational
purposes partly or fully integrate with each other.
Connecting theTwo Sides ofPurpose
Scholars typically refer to purpose from a perspective that moves from the
organization to the individual, and so organizations typically dene a purpose,
then communicate it to their employees to oer a sense of purpose in their
work. With this approach, employees need to incorporate the purpose of the
organization into their own viewpoint in order to give higher meaning to
their eorts. Consequently, individuals see their work as more than just a
simple task, understanding it as something that contributes signicantly to a
higher cause. To the extent that employees internalize the organizational pur-
pose, it aords them an opportunity to transcend the task themselves, giving
them a more meaningful understanding of their work. In this regard, the
organization’s ultimate purpose “provides” a sense of purpose to its employees.
We can see this, for example, in the anecdote about the well-known NASA
janitor who said, “I’m not mopping oors, I’m putting a man on the moon.”1
e study of this case and others investigates how leaders and their rhetoric
motivate employees to internalize an organization’s purpose. Like this study,
much of the traditional research around purpose over recent decades has been
based on this notion that purpose ows from the organization to the individual.
However, there is another side of purpose, an equally important and
impactful side, that has been much less explored in management literature. It
is the perspective that argues purpose must also be created and moved “from
the individual to the organization.” In this perspective, individuals derive a
sense of meaning in their work from their personal purpose. And this plays a
crucial role in the development of meaning because one’s own purpose is an
enormous source of motivation. It endows any task with deeper meaning,
while reinforcing the individual’s value system. When individuals approach
their work from personal purpose, their aspirations are encouraged, and they
C. Rey and I. Malbašić

19
become more energized in their current roles.2 Personal purpose “empowers
individuals with timeless strength in the midst of change.”3 More than merely
fullling a task or doing a job, employees feel they are “being themselves at
work,” incorporating into the organization their unique purpose in life.
Some may think that this is attainable only for those in high positions or in
vocational professions, but it is not. e work of ISS Facility Services in fos-
tering purpose development in their employees, for instance, oers convinc-
ing examples of how one can create a higher sense of purpose even for
mundane work. is is the case of the ISS cleaning professional, who works
in a Næstved Municipality school in Denmark. She reects upon her passion
for serving others through her statement: “By keeping the school clean, I help
the students focus on learning and developing their talents—while I do the
same in my job every day.” Or consider a general worker in charge of cleaning
and changing the bed linen at the Tzu Chi Hospital in Taiwan who expressed
his work as: “Helping patients on the way to recovery with a clean sheet.”
ese examples challenge the understanding that some tasks have less per-
sonal meaning than the work found in professions such as medicine or educa-
tion,4 and indicate that nding meaning at work is not a matter of the kind of
work you do but, rather, of the kind of person you want to be.
Such examples of purpose at work, seen in the employees referred to above,
can be as powerful and meaningful as “putting a man on the moon” was for
the NASA janitor. By connecting the personal purpose with work, people nd
a much greater understanding of the transcendence of their eorts, and more
importantly, reinterpret those eorts over time.
e combination of these two notions of purpose—“from organization to
individual” and “from individual to organization”—oers a more comprehen-
sive view of the full potential of purpose in organizations. is duality of
purpose not only suggests that a company “inspire” the individual, but also
that a company “is inspired” by the personal purpose of each of its employees.
Indeed, the purpose of the organization can provide guidance for each indi-
vidual, but it should not replace the experience of every employee to discover
his or her personal purpose at work.
is is consistent with research that has “demystied charismatic/transfor-
mational leadership” by demonstrating that, in purpose-driven organizations,
individuals connect their work not only to the collective purpose, but also to
their own personal purpose.5 is can also be seen in the research regarding
plural work identity harmonization.6 When harmonizing purpose, individu-
als connect the corporate purpose with their personal purpose, nding plural
sources of meaning and a sense of purpose in their daily work. Following this
framework (see Table2.1), harmonization enhances the understanding of
2 Harmonization ofPersonal andOrganizational Purpose

20
how personal and organizational purposes support each other by dynamically
exchanging meaning (purpose uidity) as well as intersecting it to enrich each
other (purpose synergy). is requires overcoming the “myth of two separate
worlds” in which work identities are completely disconnected from non-work
identities.7 In the two-sided notion of purpose, individuals authentically
receive meaning from the purpose of the organization and the organization
authentically receives meaning from the purpose of each employee. It is related
to what some call the “ideological currency” that enhances the psychological
contract between the employee and the organization.8
NurturingFluidity
Purpose uidity explains how individuals and organizations exchange mean-
ingful representations of purpose at work, enhancing the sense of purpose
when owing dynamically between personal and organizational purposes. In
other words, uidity is not just using one representation of purpose (personal
or organizational), but combining both at the same time, owing from the
personal to the organizational and vice versa, as is shown in Fig.2.1. Fluidity
then is based on what an organization’s purpose means to the individual as
well as what the individual’s purpose means to the organization.
Fluidity is a powerful source of meaning and personal ourishing. It occurs
when employees see and experience that contributing to the corporate pur-
pose helps them to develop their personal purpose in life. Following the previ-
ous example, uidity can be illustrated by such examples as “helping to put a
Table 2.1 Harmonizing purpose in organizations
Purpose
harmonization Description Examples
Fluidity Reinforcement between
personal and organizational
and purpose
•Providing employees with
representations of impact to the
organization and its beneficiaries
•Helping employees reflect on their
purposeat work
•Acknowledging the purpose of
each employee
Synergy Intersection between personal
and organizational purpose
•Hiring for fitting into the
organizational purpose
•Discovering purpose that already
exists in organizational members
•Designing career paths around the
connection between personal and
organizational purpose
C. Rey and I. Malbašić

21
man on the moon reinforces my personalpurpose of making an impact on
society.” Of course, purpose uidity does not come by simply elaborating
creative axioms, but from these connections becoming profoundly ingrained
in the minds and hearts of individuals.
We have seen many practices that foster purpose uidity. is is the case,
for example, of Novo Nordisk, a company that makes medicines for diabetics,
and requires that all new employees spend a day with a diabetes patient.9 It is
also the case for ISS Facility Services, where top managers spend one day a
year performing frontline positions, such as cleaning or maintenance, in the
premises of their clients. ese practices are a source of what some call “a
beneciary contact,”10 helping individuals to experience and gain greater con-
sciousness of their organization’s purpose.
We could oer many testimonies of people who, with pride and gratitude,
refer to how such practices have helped them become both better persons and
better citizens. Indeed, one of the unmistakable signs of a purpose-driven
company is that, in an ordinary and sometimes unnoticed way, it positively
inuences the families and personal relationships of their employees. By
encouraging various representations of the corporate purpose, employees nd
greater sources of meaning from which to choose. What does the purpose of
the company in which I work mean to me? And how does it help me in the
development of my purpose? ese are central questions in the workshops at
Bimbo, for example, where 130,000 employees reect upon their personal
purpose along with that of the organization.
Besides, uidity is related to the question: what do various individual
employee purposes mean for the company? Consider, for example, the case of
KPMG. After dening the corporate purpose as “inspiring condence and
empowering change” the company did not embark on a typical slogan-based
communication campaign. Instead, partners and managers, with the compa-
ny’s purpose as a backdrop, were encouraged to connect compelling stories
and personal examples about their own purpose. Following this, the rest of
the employees were invited to do the same, combining reections on the cor-
Personal
Purpose
Corporate
Purpose
Purpose
fluidity
Fig. 2.1 Purpose fluidity
2 Harmonization ofPersonal andOrganizational Purpose

22
porate purpose with sharing their own accounts of how they believed they
were making a dierence. As a result of maintaining this practice over time,
recruitment improved, employee turnover decreased, and the company
climbed 31 places on Fortune’s list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For.11
Fluidity requires thatcompanies recognize the relevance of each employee’s
purpose. It means placing the person at the center of the organization and
appreciating his or her dignity and uniqueness. In this way, fostering uidity
at scale is a means to embrace diversity in organizations, as “the idea of embed-
ding plurality in purpose is that we share a common humanity, and people are
kept at the heart of the business enterprise.”12
Consider, for example, the business philosophy of the German company
dm-drogerie markt13 expressed by the motto: “Here I’m a person. Here I’m
shopping!” Initially, it referred to their customers, but naturally started to be
used to refer to the employees as well: “Here I’m a person. Here I’m work-
ing!” ese two simple sentences are the backbone of dm’s business. ey
express the purpose of dm, that is, respect for people, or more precisely, respect
for the value and uniqueness of each individual. dm explains this motto by
stating that it is a commitment to put the individual at the center of every-
thing, whether he/she is a customer or a worker, oering to every person the
right to emphasize his/her individuality. For dm, embracing diversity is much
more than a matter of quotas, but of respecting each individual as he or she is.14
Fluidity allows individuals to connect personal and organizational purposes
without necessarily identifying them. is is especially relevant for the many
positions and professions that are not commonly thought of as professional,
such as the worker in a factory or the cashier at a supermarket. is is
becauseuidity is based on concordance,15 and refers to the extent to which
the organizational purpose can be used by employees to express their authen-
tic interests and values.
We observed this reality in the practice of a store manager at Decathlon,
which he called “the 15 minutes of purpose” meeting. At the beginning of
each day, store employees gathered and exchange tales and anecdotes from the
previous day about how they promoted the corporate purpose of “making
sport accessible to many” (e.g., how an employee helped advise a customer on
how to best prepare for a triathlon, or helped another customer nd the best
bicycle for his particular needs). However, we saw in many cases, that more
enthusiasm was expressed for stories not related to sports but rather, to other
themes that were signicant to the one explaining it (e.g., “I helped a young
boy nd a good present for his girlfriend”; “I made a sad client have a good
time shopping in the store”). Speaking with the employees, we observed that,
even the ones who were not very passionate about sports, by making mean-
C. Rey and I. Malbašić

23
ingful connections of their personal purposes with the company’s purpose,
gained a better sense of purpose in their activities.
Keeping the dynamic uidity “alive” is about what some have called “mak-
ing every-day-work meaningful.”16 And since uidity goes in two directions,
it is much like friendship or trust. We can trust someone, but if we do not feel
that person’s corresponding trust in us, our own trust will be short lived. e
same happens with purpose uidity. If individuals do not see that the organi-
zation values their personal purpose in life, sooner than later they will become
distant to their organization’s purpose and purpose uidity will be lost.
FacilitatingSynergy
When a company hires someone, it hires much more than a particular set of
knowledge and skills. A person’s greatest potential lies in hisor her personal
life’s purpose, in the enthusiasm and determination through which he or she
wants to contribute to the betterment of society. It is a desire that exceeds the
eld of labor, but does not at all exclude it. e desire we all have to make a
dierence and contribute to make a better worldis a company’s true source of
innovation and creativity, and represents the key to our willingness to con-
stantly improve ourselves, whether that be in knowledge or skill. e greatest
asset of an organization is the personal purpose of each individual and one’s
aspiration to be useful and to leave a mark. Many companies are well aware of
this reality and harness it. Consider, for example, how the Indian IT services
HCL Technologies promotes what they call the Employee Passion Indicator
Count (EPIC), which is used to identify the key “passions” of employees and
to steer them toward jobs where these could be put to best use.17
Purpose synergy is found at the junction of company purpose and personal
purpose (see Fig.2.2). Purpose synergy is the place of overlap between the
Personal
Purpose
Corporate
purpose
Purpose synergy
Fig. 2.2 Purpose synergy
2 Harmonization ofPersonal andOrganizational Purpose

24
company and the individual, where the interests of the company and its indi-
vidual employees combine to reach its most perfect form. It is not a simple
exercise in self-development, one that is disconnected from the company pur-
pose. Nor is it an exercise in indoctrinating employees with the corporate
purpose. It is not about training courses or communication campaigns. It is
about channeling the potential of the person’s purpose within the context of
the company’s purpose. Purpose synergy reveals what the person best brings
to the company and vice versa. us, synergy occurs in part of the company
purpose as well as the individual’s life purpose.
Consider, for example, the case of Alpha Omega, a high-tech medical
device company in Israel devoted to the purpose of improving peoples’ lives.
Its founders, Imad and Reem Younis, have been committed, from a very
young age, to the purpose of developing work environments where Jews and
Arabs can work together in harmony. And in leading their company, they
incorporate this personal purpose into the corporate purpose. ey hire Jews
and Arabs alike, employees who not only excelled at their work, but also share
in a dream of creating inclusive work environments. At Alpha Omega, the
purpose of improving peoples’ lives is dened as “Joined together to improve
people’s life,” creating a strong synergy between organizational purpose and
the personal purpose of the founders and employees. As Imad has said, “it is
like putting my soul inside the company’s soul.”18
When organizations develop purpose synergy, employees nd more energy
and sense of purpose in their work, and feel like “putting their soul into their
work.” One way to create synergy is by recruiting employees who have per-
sonal anities with the organizational purpose. Especially when creating new
companies, this is one of the most powerful ways to create synergy. Another
way, especially relevant in the case of existing employees, is to nd and foster
a purpose that already exists in the organization. Following the principle of “If
it is real, it is possible,” it is about “nding examples of people or teams within
the organization that exceed the norms, examining the purpose that drives
their excellence, and then imagining it imbuing the entire workforce.”19
The Joint Effect ofFluidity andSynergy
Fluidity and synergy have common drivers, but are dierent from each other.
Fluidity allows the connecting of personal and organizational purposes with-
out necessarily identifying solely with one or the other. With synergy, how-
ever, both personal and organizational purposes partly or fully identify with
one another, meaning that the organization incorporates the purpose of the
C. Rey and I. Malbašić

25
individuals and vice versa. We could say that uidity helps organizational and
personal purposes get closer, while synergy integrates them. Fluidity helps to
create unity, synergy is the result of the unity itself.
But together with these fundamental practices, synergy must be reinforced
and sustained by constant uidity. Because if employees do not ow at work,
even the existing synergy can be snued out. Fluidity helps not only to create
synergy, but also to sustain it and keep it alive. is explains why, despite
recruiting people who have a great anity for the corporate purpose, synergy
will not occur if employees, for example, see that the organization is not true
to its purpose or if they feel that the organization does not respect the dignity
and uniqueness of employees’ purpose. And this can happen even in profes-
sional jobs, like those of doctors or teachers, where purpose synergy usually
comes as part and parcel with the profession.
In short, the phenomenon of shared purpose is an inspiration for both
individuals and organizations. Employees should continually seek what is, or
what could inspire them at work, embracing a deeper understanding—that
the purpose of their work is much more than earning a salary or having good
working conditions. Companies, on the other side, should see their employ-
ees not just as human capital or means of return, but as individuals with
invaluable potential with dierent ideas and personalities that provide an
inexhaustible source of creativity. And the responsibility for connecting pur-
pose lies with both—organizations need to be truly interested in what their
employees want to contribute to the world, while at the same time employees
should see their work as a way to fulll collectiveaspirations and dreams.
Notes
1. Carton, A.M. (2018). “I’m not mopping the oors, I’m putting a man on the
moon”: How NASA leaders enhanced the meaningfulness of work by chang-
ing the meaning of work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 63(2), 323–369.
2. Craig, N., & Snook, S. (2014). From purpose to impact. Harvard Business
Review, 92(5), 104–111.
3. Covey, S.R. (1989). e 7 habits of highly eective people: Powerful lessons in
personal change. NewYork, NY: Fireside/Simon & Schuster.
4. Ariely, D., Kamenica, E., & Prelec, D. (2008). Man’s search for meaning: e
case of Legos. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 67(3–4),
671–677.
5. Bono, J.E., & Judge, T.A. (2003). Self-concordance at work: Toward under-
standing the motivational eects of transformational leaders. Academy of
Management Journal, 46(5), 554–571.
2 Harmonization ofPersonal andOrganizational Purpose

26
6. is framework explains that authenticity at work occurs in two sequential
processes. e rst, synchronization, is about the way individuals understand
their own work within the available organizational identities (e.g., “putting a
man on the moon”). e second, harmonization, is related to how individuals
understand their work combining self-identities (e.g., “I want to make an
impact on society”) and organizational identities. Harmonization enhances
the understanding of how the work and self-identities dynamically exchange
meaning (“identity uidity”) and how they enrich each other (“identity syn-
ergy”). Caza, B.B., Moss, S., & Vough, H. (2017). From synchronizing to
harmonizing: e process of authenticating multiple work identities.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 63(4), 703–745.
7. Ramarajan, L., & Reid, E. (2013). Shattering the myth of separate worlds:
Negotiating nonwork identities at work. Academy of Management Review,
38(4), 621–644.
8. ompson, J. A., & Bunderson, J. S. (2003). Violations of principle:
Ideological currency in the psychological contract. Academy of Management
Review, 28(4), 571–586.
9. Birkinshaw, J., Foss, N.J., & Lindenberg, S. (2014). Combining purpose
with prots. MIT Sloan Management Review, 55(3), 49.
10. Grant, A.M. (2012). Leading with meaning: Beneciary contact, prosocial
impact, and the performance eects of transformational leadership. Academy
of Management Journal, 55(2), 458–476.
11. Quinn, R. E., & akor, A.V. (2018, July–August). Creating a purpose-
driven organization. Harvard Business Review, pp.78–85.
12. Hollensbe, E., Wookey, C., Hickey, L., George, G., & Nichols, C.V. (2014).
Organizations with purpose. Academy of Management Journal, 57(5),
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13. One of the largest drug chains in Central and South-Eastern Europe, estab-
lished in 1973in Karlsruhe, Germany, that sells cosmetics, healthcare items,
household products, and health food.
14. ere are many interesting aspects of purpose uidity at dm. One fascinating
part is the story about the founder and owner of dm. Just when everybody
thought that he had done everything possible for his “capitalism with a
human face,” the world was astonished to learn that he had decided to leave
his fortune not to his children (and he had seven!), but to give it away for
charitable purposes. is resonates even more when one realizes that his
wealth is estimated at more than a billion euros. is amazing decision was
for him reasonable, as it was based on a principle deeply ingrained in his per-
sonal purpose: “ere is no shame in becoming rich, but it is a shame to die
rich.”
15. Sheldon, K.M., & Elliot, A.J. (1999). Goal striving, need satisfaction, and
longitudinal well-being: e self-concordance model. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 76(3), 482.
C. Rey and I. Malbašić

27
16. Almandoz, J., Lee, Y., & Ribera, A. (2018). Unleashing the power of purpose:
5 steps to transform your business, IESE Insight, 37, Second Quarter, 44–51.
17. Birkinshaw, J., Foss, N.J., & Lindenberg, S. (2014). Combining purpose
with prots. MIT Sloan Management Review, 55(3), 49.
18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejLoKiBzL94&t=237s. Retrieved
January 30, 2019.
19. Quinn, R. E., & akor, A.V. (2018, July–August). Creating a purpose-
driven organization. Harvard Business Review, pp.78–85.
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2 Harmonization ofPersonal andOrganizational Purpose