Our first Coffee & Collaboration of the year kicked off on February 9th with a great discussion on purpose for conscious business leaders. C3MD President Camille Mazelev welcomed everyone and then turned the conversation over to Past President Liz Richardson who shared some great insights on Purpose and what her company, Indigo Ink, has been working on and toward for years.
She started with some definitions, because – let’s face it – people often confuse purpose with vision, mission, values, or your “why.” So that we could all start from the same place, here’s what she shared:
Definitions for Purpose | Vision | Mission | Values
Purpose = The difference you wish to make in the world.
Vision = How the world will look once your purpose is fulfilled.
Mission = Core strategy that must be undertaken to fulfill your purpose.
Values = What you will and will not do to fulfill your purpose.
Liz also shared a favorite quote which she has posted very visibly in her office: “The means must be consistent with the end you are trying to create.” An important reminder that helps her stay grounded and intentional.
At Indigo Ink, their purpose is “to end human suffering as it pertains to the workplace.”
While their vision is a multi-page document (too long to share here) that describes what it looks like when they’ve succeeded. Here’s a snippet of their 2028 vision they created in 2019 for 2023.
“Another component to ending workplace suffering has been our collective culture that values and respects each other’s human dignity and personal responsibility. We seek to understand and appreciate how our actions or inactions affect those around us. We don’t think “that’s not my job,” but instead we all help each other. For instance, just today, our press operator noticed that the recycling bin in the project manager office was almost full so they emptied it.”
Their mission or core strategy is: prioritizing personal and professional growth both internally and externally and developing and focusing on serving their core market of artist-creators and creatives – helping our clients to thrive in their own working lives. An example of internal strategy are what they call weekly Thursday “mini TED Talks.” They ask all team members to take a turn at sharing something that’s important to them with the rest of the team. They also host a quarterly IndigoEdge Webinar Series for clients.
Their core values are: Beauty|Innovation|Goodwill
These specific values are of utmost importance when making decisions about what we will and will not do in our daily operations and in forming our business strategies.
The group had a great discussion around purpose and how to communicate it with your team and other stakeholders. She left us with some great questions to contemplate. When thinking about your own organization — or if you are not currently a part of a purpose-driven organization, think about your own life purpose — ask these questions:
- What is the problem your organization hopes to solve?
- Why does the problem exist? What are the root causes?
- In what way is your organization becoming part of the solution?
- How will you know when you’ve succeeded?
C3MD’s Coffee & Collaboration events are always a great way to start the day!
— Wendy Baird, C3MD Board Member
_______________________________________________________________________
We appreciate the blog contributions of our conscious business community. The views and opinions expressed on the blog are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Conscious Capitalism, Inc.
Feel free to reach out to us via email, and/or follow us (and engage) on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook.