CHAPTER TWELVE
INSPIRING ORGANIZATIONS
Many have written about President Kennedy’s visit to the NASA space center in 1962, where he stopped to speak to a janitor on his tour, saying: “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?” “Well, Mr. President,” the janitor responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”1
An organization has a responsibility to inspire both its employees and its clients. In today’s world of dynamic global markets, it has never been more important for organizations to ignite inspiration, internally and externally. Inspiration at the organizational level is a source of competitive advantage. The way employees assess their experience as workers is the same way customers assess organizational brand. In fact, the ability of organizations to consistently inspire employees and consumers directly impacts the strength and sustainable success of their brands.
Inspiration operates at multiple levels within an organization, from the individual to the work team or business unit to entity-wide. When these levels are all aligned, they create a self-sustaining system of inspiration that propels itself. An inspiring system drives extraordinary results.
At the highest level, inspiring organizations have a purpose that sparks inspiration for all stakeholders associated with the organization—from employees to clients, vendors, board members, stockholders, and the like. Inspiration can also be found within the systems and structures that organizations put into place. For example, how the organization hires, onboards, socializes, and develops employees; how they track productivity (including offering paid time off for employee passion projects); what metrics they use to indicate success; how they celebrate milestones; and how they connect to their community are all opportunities for engines of inspiration to be sparked. Inspiration also lives in an organization’s strategy—how it guides teams of individuals to collaborate for success. Finally, and perhaps most important, inspiration in organizations lives within and among its individual contributors. People in inspiring organizations feel tightly connected to one another. They lift one another up, demanding and challenging one another to greater heights.
“There isn’t anything more motivating than people who are inspired… Just last week, someone on my team turned down an offer for double the money because they’re inspired and believe in what we’re doing and their ability to impact and make a difference towards that. Getting to know each person, understanding their story and where they’re going, linking that to the vision, that high-ground statement or maneuver, is literally the whole game, and it’s more powerful than the biggest salaries and anything else in the world.”
—Alex White, Vice President of Content and Programming, Pandora
When the system is in sync, individual, team, and whole entity operations of the organization are aligned and driving one another forward. There is a reciprocal nature to the way the elements of an inspiring organization interact; one feeds the inspiration of another, which, in turn, fuels inspiration to another. For example, an organization that selects and hires people based on how their values match the organization’s fosters an employee base that is sparked by a common purpose. Those employees then develop and implement structures and systems that enact the values, further fueling collective inspiration, which then binds the employees to one another ever more tightly. This constantly reinforcing system builds on itself when all the pieces are aligned to one another and toward inspiration, producing and being fueled by both possibility and invincibility. With greater vision and confidence, an inspiring organization achieves more and has greater positive impact than it otherwise could. Inspiring organizations exceed expectations.
Traditionally, organizations measure success through metrics that look at revenue, rates of turnover, profit, market share, intellectual property, and the like. Inspiring organizations excel in these areas of business success. In addition, the return on inspiration for organizations that cultivate an inspiration-driven system is an increased capability for ongoing high returns. Inspiring organizations are more innovative, productive, and responsive to market shifts; they are characterized by richer collaboration and information sharing and have greater talent magnetism—the ability to attract and retain talent (see below).
Organizations, like individuals, have a unique inspiration fingerprint. That is, inspiration will be sparked and sustained differently depending on the organization. For example, engineering firms versus public relations firms, or retail outlets versus professional offices, all differ in how they inspire. What is common to all inspiring organizations is a strong sense of purpose—why the organization does what it does. In some cases, that purpose has to do with how it benefits others, or how it benefits us all, as in the case of Organic Valley.
DRIVEN BY A COMPELLING PURPOSE
What is now known as Organic Valley—seller of organic dairy products, vegetables, and meats—was founded more than thirty years ago by a group of seven farmers who had a commitment to healthier growing and eating and a desire support smaller family farms. The number of farms in the United States has precipitously declined in recent decades.2 And the farms left are much larger, often squeezing out the little guy, who is at a severe competitive disadvantage.
Enter the Organic Valley co-op. Its founding co-op farmers felt inspired by a common vision to start a collaborative organization that would benefit all its members. Today, the organization consists of more than two thousand co-op farmers across North America and over nine hundred employees, based primarily at the company’s headquarters in Wisconsin.
From the outset, Organic Valley’s co-op farmers established a common purpose: growing and raising food in a manner that is healthier for the soil, for the animals that provide the milk and eggs, and for the people who consume the food, all while providing farmers with a living wage. That common purpose drives all decisions, fuels their continued participation in the co-op, and sustains the bonds that have formed through the years. Organic Valley hopes to pass down family farms to future generations. It is that common value that has unified the group.3
Although the roles of the founding farmers have evolved through the years, with George Siemon taking on the title of CEO, their values and purpose have remained the same. They proudly proclaim on their website: “We’re not driven by profits; we’re driven by principles.… Our farmers share the costs of getting their products to market, and they share the profits when the company does well. But along with everyone who works here, they share a vision of a healthier, more sustainable food system. Everything we do is a collaboration toward that goal.”4 That common purpose united a small group of farmers and continues to inspire the organization’s growth and success, resulting in healthy revenue growth for the member farms.
“One thing that I have had the benefit of seeing and learning, particularly at Organic Valley as a collaborative business, a collaborative structure, is the power of groups, of people, and the important role that inspiration can play and what one individual can do in that group and then what that group can do in a movement or culture or community.”
—Leslie Kruempel, Mission Executive, Organic Valley
INSPIRING ORGANIZATIONS START WITH PURPOSE
Part of what makes Organic Valley’s story noteworthy is that its core values and purpose are a key source of inspiration. In fact, it would be very difficult for an organization to be inspiring without an exciting, compelling, possibility-fueled purpose that gives meaning to what it does and to those involved in its operations. Purpose is an inspiration engine that is crucial at the organization level.
The success of purposeful organizations reflects a newer perspective on how organizations can and should thrive. The purpose of for-profit organizations, versus not-for-profits, is, at their core, making money, and increasing revenue and profits requires cutting costs, innovating, increasing efficiency and productivity, and the like. Historically, success has required more of a financial focus than anything else; in today’s economy, this narrow focus may hurt companies more than helping them. There’s a disconnect between what individual employees need from work and what organizations are providing.
In today’s economy, what author Aaron Hurst refers to as The Purpose Economy,5 people connected to one another and their work through purpose drive extraordinary financial results. Individuals demand inspiration in their work, and when inspired, they give more of themselves based on traditional financial incentives alone.
“Inspiring organizations infuse the organization’s purpose and values in its structures and systems, rituals, habits, tools, and how people make decisions so they are in daily behavior, daily nudges for creating huge impact.”
—Bud Caddell, Founder, Nobl
The research bears this out. In Firms of Endearment6 author Raj Sisodia, Franklin Olin distinguished professor of global business and Whole Foods Market research scholar in conscious capitalism at Babson College, and his colleagues found that organizations that balance the needs of all stakeholders achieve financial greatness. Sisodia and his coauthors showed that firms that balanced the needs of all stakeholders including employees, outperformed the S&P 500 by fourteen to one over a fifteen-year period. Sisodia later partnered with Dave Mackie, CEO of Whole Foods, to cofound Conscious Capitalism, which expanded on the fundamentals of Firms of Endearment to codify purpose as a critical aspect of a conscious company:7 firms of endearment are purpose-driven firms.
Conscious Capitalism International (CCI) is another inspiring organization that looks to both the short term and long term—as in a fifty-year view—to translate possibility into reality, CEO Alexander McCobin said in our interview with him.8 Part of the Conscious Capitalism credo reflects the organization’s higher purpose of elevating humanity through business: “Conscious Capitalism is a way of thinking about capitalism and business that better reflects where we are in the human journey, the state of our world today, and the innate potential of business to make a positive impact on the world.” McCobin understands that having that level of impact can’t be accomplished in five, or ten, or even thirty years. That kind of change takes generations. Having such a visionary higher purpose makes it even more inspiring for those who work there and the businesses and communities they touch in their work. A big higher purpose can engage and inspire everyone connected to the organization.
When an organization has an inspiring purpose, it’s important that all individuals within the organization know that purpose and how they personally connect to it. An organization’s primary lever for driving success can create an environment where people within it feel called to the work by understanding the role they play in achieving success. At NASA in the 1960s, for example, everyone understood their common purpose as an organization: to get an American on the moon. That was never clearer than when President Kennedy went on a tour of Cape Canaveral and asked to meet the people who were committed to helping get a man on the moon by the end of the decade. As the president asked different people “What do you do here?” they responded with “I’m putting a man on the moon.” Regardless of their role, their common response and responsibility demonstrated their commitment to their shared purpose.9
NASA was a leader in making sure all contributors understood the organization’s larger purpose and were inspired to make it their own personal mission, too. While NASA certainly isn’t the only organization that has successfully cascaded its larger purpose throughout all levels of the agency, inspiring individual employees and teams can be challenging. The key is making sure everyone understands the higher purpose and is aligned to it—because when inspiration is sparked within a company, it can quickly spread.
Individuals need to feel both their own sense of purpose and connected to the organization’s overarching values, whether it’s putting a man on the moon, providing unparalleled patient care, or selling healthy food. To accomplish this requires deliberate design from organizational leadership to fortify the meaning and connection between employees and the organization itself; shifting incentive schemes to inspiration themes. Employees at Organic Valley feel a connection to selling healthy food that feeds the world while caring for the earth and the animals who provide that food. Their higher purpose inspires their work and their relationships with other member farms in the co-op.
“We did an employee engagement survey here in 2011, that we do every other year, and one of the results that was glaring that came out was our employees did not understand how what they did on a daily basis impacted the success of the hospital. They couldn’t connect the dots. If you’re a patient care tech, walking patients, bathing patients, you couldn’t understand how that was helping the hospital succeed. That was a major disconnect. If you have the right worthwhile work, and you’ve picked the right goals, and the board is incenting me with the right goals, and a patient care tech doesn’t understand how their work impacts that, that’s a wipeout.”
—Bill Jennings, President and then CEO of Bridgeport Hospital, Bridgeport, Connecticut, now President and Chief Executive Officer, Reading Hospital
This purpose at Organic Valley rings especially true for some members. For example, the Tranel family switched to organic, chemical-free farming and joined the Organic Valley cooperative after their patriarch, Steve, was diagnosed with cancer related to exposure to chemical pesticides. The organization’s purpose attracted the Tranels to the cooperative through the strong alignment of their personal family purpose with what the organization stands for.10
SPARKING AND SUSTAINING INSPIRATION IN ORGANIZATIONS
If people are an organization’s greatest resource, inspired people are an organization’s greatest competitive advantage. An organization’s job is to create conditions that drive inspiration, tilling the ground for the individuals and teams within it to spark and respark their own inspiration. As we’ve cited previously,11 “inspired employees are three times more productive than dissatisfied employees, but they are rare. For most organizations, only one out of eight employees is inspired.”
Clearly, the “values and purpose” engine has an enormous impact at the organizational level by cascading inspiration throughout. But it’s not the only engine that can apply and reap major rewards in team and individual inspiration.
At Organic Valley, the organization was founded specifically to “overcome constraints” and “serve others,” two engines of inspiration. Smaller family farms were unable to be competitive on their own, so they banded together to market collaboratively. At the core, however, was a desire to serve others. Member farmers wanted to continue to grow using techniques that didn’t harm the earth or the food that was produced.
“I’m sure you’ve found yourself in multiple, dull corporate boardrooms. And every single time, I always look around, and I’m like, God, these people need inspiring. I think the Internet has done a lot of awesome things for the world, but one thing it has done, it has forced a behavior of information as opposed to a behavior of inspiration, particularly inside the corporate environment. I sit inside, people spend all day writing e-mails to each other, and those e-mails are usually transactional, informational, incredibly sort of, you know, the cc-loop of life.”
—Paul Bennett, Chief Creative Officer, IDEO
And Organic Valley isn’t alone in its reliance on multiple inspiration engines. KIND Healthy Snacks, the makers of KIND bars, also proclaims that “we’re a not just for profit company,” meaning the company’s purpose goes beyond financial rewards. KIND has grown by tapping into multiple inspiration engines.
Daniel Lubetzsky founded the company after he went looking for a snack bar filled with whole nuts, seeds, and fruits to help him prepare for the New York Marathon in 2002, and found none. He suspected there might be a market12 but had to overcome numerous constraints to develop, produce, and market a health bar no one had ever seen before and that cost more than other bars. The challenge of the process inspired him to keep learning and exploring how to make it work.
From the start, KIND was driven by Lubetzsky’s need to do good work in the world. From an early age, Lubetzsky’s father—a Holocaust survivor—taught him that the only way to combat darkness is with kindness; an astonishing lesson given his father’s experiences at Dachau. His father became his mentor and hero, shaping his outlook on the world. He also heightened his son’s awareness of the need for kindness to combat darkness. That perspective inspired the company and its employees.
The “serving others” engine fueled KIND thanks to Lubetsky’s father’s influence, which led KIND to reinvest some of the company’s profits in advertising campaigns around spreading kindness, the company’s core purpose.
The company’s environment inspires anyone who spends time at its headquarters, which contain pieces of Lubetzsky’s father’s furniture—a reminder of the positive impact he had on the world.
Bain & Company focuses its culture on achievement and success aligning toward a different engine, “progressing toward and achieving success.” The management consulting firm strives to attract achievement-focused employees. For people who are inspired by achievement, this can be a great match and lead to superior performance at an individual, team, and organizational level. According to William Bain, who cofounded the company in 1973, “A culture that inspires and spurs performance makes companies 3.7 times more likely to be top performers.”13
Known historically as an exclusive, private high-fashion brand, Chanel’s release of its very public Report to Society14 in June 2018 signaled a massive cultural shift. As a privately owned company, Chanel had never been required to reveal much about its internal workings to the public, so much so that secrecy had become a hallmark of the Chanel brand for 108 years. But its sudden release of a seventy-six-page document revealing Chanel’s financial health, operating principles, and company mission signaled a brand reset built on transparency. The information proved inspiring to outside observers impressed with the innovation and environmental responsibility the company demonstrated, but internally as well, as employees were no longer burdened by the responsibility of silence and secrecy. Transparency as an engine of inspiration meant freedom—freedom that could only result in more collaboration and better results.
As these stories illustrate, each of these organizations activates multiple engines but they prioritize different engines at different times, based on the environment or situation. In the same way that individual and team performance can be inspiring, organizations can also inspire by using the engines. Successful organizations breed a success mindset and achievement orientation that fuels continued success.
TRANSLATE INSPIRATION ACROSS FOUR CATEGORIES TO DRIVE SUCCESS
Just as with individuals and teams, for organizations to be most effective and sustain inspiration, they need to enact behaviors that reflect their values and operate across the four categories that lead to positive outcomes: driving to results, connection and trust, intentional alignment, and vision and innovation. The most effective companies focus on all four categories simultaneously; ignoring one or more, or placing too much emphasis on some, will lead to suboptimal results.
For example, you can imagine companies that lean too heavily on vision and innovation without paying attention to intentional alignment may generate big ideas but then struggle with implementation. On the flip side, companies that focus so much on driving to results that they forget to build trust and connection with their customers or employees, can engender burnout or disloyalty. Results in those instances are never ideal.
W. L. Gore, the makers of such disparate products as Gore-Tex15 waterproof outdoor gear, Elixir guitar strings, and Glide dental floss, demonstrates organizational agility across, and presence in, all four categories. Gore competes on its capacity for innovation. This is its strategic advantage in the market. The company’s structure and culture have been studied from those who’d like to have the same results. The absence of hierarchy and traditional titles in their structure (there are no titles or ranks—just associates) are hallmarks of their unique approach. Additional practices show how they span the four categories of behavior that drive positive outcomes:
• Vision and innovation. Associates at W. L. Gore are encouraged to bring together products and capabilities from disparate applications to create superior products. Elixir guitar strings, for example, are made of nickel-plated steel or copper with a special patented coating (Nanoweb, Polyweb, or Optiweb). W. L. Gore has built a competitive advantage around its ability to capitalize on opportunities by using existing ideas in new ways.16
• Driving to results. Not only is W. L. Gore innovative, but its inspired culture drives individuals to make commitments to the success of its projects. Associates are not assigned tasks or projects. Rather, the company acts like a marketplace for ideas. Associates make their own commitments to projects and drive them forward to ongoing high profits.
• Connection and trust. W. L. Gore employees value their work relationships, for example, consulting with one another before taking action that might be damaging. Because of the importance of these work relationships, as of 2017, W. L. Gore had been on the list of the Top 100 Best Companies to work for every year for the past twenty years.17
• Intentional alignment. Fairness is one of W. L. Gore’s guiding principles, with systems and processes consistent to this. The lack of hierarchy and emphasis on freedom of choice for associates is an example. They emphasize this guiding principle of fairness in their interactions with one another, suppliers, and customers. Individuals, teams, and the organization are in sync with the rest of their guiding principles in a similar way. People have clarity of values, clarity of roles, and clarity of goals.
Organizationally and through its strategy, W. L. Gore focuses on all four categories with agility across all of them, combining them as needed and emphasizing one or more as situations demand. For example, when a project fails at W. L. Gore, they reportedly celebrate the project conclusion with beer or champagne, the same way they would have if it had succeeded. At times like that, the company leans more on connection and trust or intentional alignment for inspiration than on driving to results. Such celebrations cultivate a growth mindset and learning from setbacks. But there is always an emphasis on successful innovation and growth. They hold these priorities simultaneously and consistently with their guiding principles.
SIMULTANEOUS FOCUS ON BOTH TODAY AND TOMORROW
An organization’s strategy is a directive for how it will achieve its vision. On what basis will the organization compete and thrive to realize success? Inspiring organizations have what is referred to as ambidexterity.18 To effectively implement the organization’s strategy, the leadership needs to simultaneously have one hand focused on efficiency today and the other on innovation tomorrow, pursuing both these potentially conflicting priorities.
Netflix provides a prime example of an ambidextrous organization. Over ten years, the company rolled out its DVD-by-mail service while simultaneously investing in streaming technology; it saw that streaming of movies on demand was the wave of the future. Then, as movies on demand became common and retail rentals of DVDs declined, Netflix started investing in TV and movie production.19 And it’s paying off, as Netflix now has the largest subscriber base as of 2018. Another sign of its success? The 112 Emmy nominations Netflix earned in 2018 topped HBO’s count, breaking its seventeen-year winning streak.20 As the company continues to thrive, it begs the question of what they are currently planning for the future.
PEOPLE FEEL CONNECTED, LIFT ONE ANOTHER
In inspiring organizations, people feel a sense of belonging to a tribe; they feel strong connections to other people and rely on other people to hold them accountable, to support them, and to cultivate their growth. For example, at Organic Valley, working as a cooperative with common values, the more than two thousand co-op farm members are bound by common goals and values.21 Through their common connection to these values, members of this organization enjoy built-in opportunities to provide social support. They believe in the same guiding values and can thus identify with one another and relate.
Building a supportive culture where people lift one another up to grow was certainly the goal at Next Jump, an e-commerce company, which, in 2008, fired 50 percent of its workforce, coming out of what it refers to as its era of “brilliant jerks.”22 During this time, they started over, intentionally creating a new culture from the ground up based on a growth mindset, integrating purpose, feedback, learning, and trust at all levels. To do that, leaders focused more on relationships and hired for different traits and skills. They have identified themselves as a Deliberately Developmental Organization.23
As a result, Next Jump now has a more supportive, collegial culture that encourages coaching and mentoring across all levels. These shifts in Next Jump’s innermost systems surely spark inspiration through engines like getting a lift, common values, shared experiences, achievement, and more. They have been so successful in this cultural turnaround that the company created a three-day immersive leadership academy where other leaders from other organizations come and learn from them.24
Part of the three-day academy includes a fitness component (managing energy), where identifying and fueling the physical, mental, and emotional needs of attendees is addressed. A condition for being inspired is a healthy mindset and energy level.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: LIFTING PHYSICAL, MINDSET, AND EMOTIONAL ENERGY
To be inspired, organizations need to attend to both the individual and the organizational levels, providing opportunities to boost energy and sustain inspiration. At the individual level, organizations can encourage employees to attend to their own energy. Many corporations now have in-house wellness initiatives and even design their spaces thoughtfully to promote mindfulness and balance of employees. Organizations can also offer opportunities for workers to reset their energy by stepping away from their workspace to attend conferences and courses that enhance their expertise and self-confidence, or to simply break up their day and infuse them with physical activity, such as taking a walk outside at lunch or signing up for yoga after work.
Organizations can create opportunities for energy refreshers through events, too. At InspireCorps, we schedule quarterly in-person meetings for all employees, who are geographically dispersed, so that they can come together. Not only does this provide a chance to reconnect and strengthen relationships, which foster inspiration, but we build in events and activities designed to lift everyone’s spirits—boosting us physically, emotionally, and cognitively and making us even more open to new inspiration.
Similarly, Next Jump holds an annual dance competition25 for its employees. Different locations compete with one another for the title, which provides opportunities for employees to forge relationships, work collaboratively toward a common goal, and have fun doing it. Win or lose, Next Jump teams come away feeling positive and uplifted about the experience.
THE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND TEAMS IN INSPIRING ORGANIZATIONS
Although an organization is a separate, distinct entity from the individual contributors within it, as the building blocks of a company, individuals and teams have an opportunity to attend to their own and the organization’s inspiration levels and influence them. You can ask, “How is my organization inspiring me and others?” and “Where are there cracks?” Once weak points are identified, you have the power and responsibility to influence and/or address those cracks.
At the same time, you are responsible for attending to your own levels of inspiration. You can use the workplace environment and activities to spark and respark your own engines of inspiration and institutionalize practices for sustaining inspiration. You can demand more of the organization, expecting it to be a source of inspiration and speaking up when it isn’t, offering ideas and solutions proactively. Some things to consider for sustaining inspiration in organization:
• Innovate. Full stop.
• Engage others around you in being inspiring, including those above you, peers at your level, and those who are more junior employees. Seek to understand the whole organizational system, from the CEO down to the ground-floor employee. It’s sometimes surprising where you find inspiration.
• Give your all. The pride you feel in yourself and from others when you fully commit to the organization’s success will spark inspiration and feed your own success and that of others.
• Use your voice when needed to offer praise and encouragement and foster inspiration internally, as well as to dissent when warranted, challenging the status quo when you have better ideas.
• Start an inspiration insurrection when you feel things are lagging at the highest leadership levels; inspiration can come from the bottom up just as well as from the top down. And research shows that division-designed culture change is more likely to work.26
• Know your team’s purpose, mission, and function and how it fits within the larger organization’s purpose and mission. Actively look for alignment and opportunities to realign.
Within your team, create a culture that is consistent with the organization’s overarching culture. Be a sounding board for individual employees in need of inspiration and a place where individuals can reset. Embed and spread inspiration practices from the bottom up.
WORK IT
Scaling Inspiration
Below is an abridged version of a larger inspiration index assessment we use to inventory inspiration at our clients. Rate your organization on a scale of 1–5 on these dimensions:
Organization has an inspiring higher purpose:
I am inspired by my organization’s higher purpose.
I know how my individual value and purpose align to it.
Sparking and resparking engines for all:
Systems and practices within my organization regularly spark my inspiration.
I have opportunity to spark my inspiration through my work environment and relationships.
Directing inspiration to performance:
We operate in all four categories of behavior in my organization.
I contribute to my organization’s success.
People feel connected and lift one another up:
I have found my tribe at my organization.
My colleagues support me and hold me accountable to be my best.
Managing energy (physical, emotional, and cognitive):
I am regularly energized by my work.
My organization supports and provides opportunities to boost energy and recharge.
For any that you observe are rated 3 or lower, design a plan to boost inspiration. Use the following questions to launch your thinking and creativity:
What inspires me about my organization?
What is my organization’s higher purpose? How does my personal purpose align to it?
Consider a system or process that I or my team could enact that would infuse inspiration into the organization.