CHAPTER 7
Why Specificity Is Sexy
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I see I should have been more specific.
—Lily Tomlin, comedian and actress
Have you ever been in a meeting where people are arguing over a word choice? Whether it's website copy, a marketing message, or a company e‐mail, people have different opinions about which words work best. What often winds up happening is that the team includes all the words to keep everyone happy. Or they compromise, telling each other, “It's just semantics.”
In the case of your NSP, the semantics matter. A lot.
The meaning attached to your NSP can make the difference between owning your market or getting left behind. A few words can make or cost you millions. Just ask the team at Mars Petcare, a company with 41 brands, some of which earn over $1 billion a year. They're outpacing longtime rival Purina. A close look at the two firms' purpose statements reveals how Mars' strategic choice of a preposition propelled a strategy that generated millions in revenue and enabled them to beat Purina in multiple markets.
The two statements are:
- Purina: Better with pets
- Mars: A better world for pets
What do you notice? At first look, they appear the same. But look closer: One is a call to action, while the other is more of a slogan. Can you tell the difference? Purina is telling you what they believe; Mars is telling you about the impact they intend to have. On the Mars website, Veterinary Genetics Research Manager Dr. Angela Hughes describes the company's commitment: “I would like to see humanity rise to the occasion to love our pets and ourselves the way that our pets love us.”
The Harvard Business Review piece, “Put Purpose at the Core of Your Strategy,” describes how Mars had the foresight to go into the lucrative pet health market, while rival Purina stuck with battling it out in the lower‐margin, price‐sensitive pet food market.
If you look at the two purpose statements, you can see why. Purina's Better with pets is a slogan—a mantra. It's nice, but it does not inspire action. It just tells people “We like pets.” Meanwhile, when Mars tells you they are committed to “A better world for pets,” it galvanizes action and drives strategy. This is a seemingly nuanced but quite crucial difference.
To illustrate the dramatic differences in the way these two statements cascade to drive strategy and behavior, let's substitute children in place of pets. Imagine one organization proclaims their purpose is “better with children.”
That's nice; we're all in the club. We believe the world is better with children. Or, perhaps we believe we're the company who is better with children compared to our competition. We can rally around it and feel good about ourselves. This no‐action statement is certainly better than no shared belief. But if I work here, what am I supposed to do as a result of this statement? Put it on the website and have T‐shirts made?
Now imagine another company who says our purpose is “A better world for children.” Whoa, this is some serious stuff. This is big. We have to do something. Where do we start? We should probably identify all the things making the world bad for children. We can look at places where children are thriving for models we could scale. We're going to have to make choices: Where do we focus? How do we measure our impact? Which markets should we pursue? Which ones should we avoid?
In short, we're going to have to create a strategy to impact children.
Therein lies the difference. The semantics are everything. Pursuing those five words—A better world for pets—drove Mars into new products and markets. The HBR piece reports that Mars “was able to pull off a transformation because it ensured that every move it made was aligned with the same core purpose.” Mars Petcare became Mars Inc.'s largest and fastest‐growing division.
The difference is specificity and impact. While Purina's statement tells their team and the world what they believe, the Mars statement is a true NSP. It describes the impact they want to have. It's galvanizing. You don't even have to particularly like pets, but if you work for Mars, you know what you're supposed to do for them.
Remember in Chapter 4 when you read about why purpose drives better results than passion? Mars illustrates why. While Mars has a clear and specific purpose, Purina's statement merely describes their passion.
It's not without coincidence that in 2018, Mars Petcare President Poul Weihrauch significantly altered the composition and focus of the leadership team. The HBR piece describes how Weihrauch declared that Mars' new collective agenda “would go beyond the performance of individual businesses; it would include generating a ‘multiplier effect’ among the business (such as between pet food and pet health) and increasing their contribution to create a better world for pets.” When you're serious about your purpose, you align your organization to achieve it.
Imagine you're a sales exec, and Mars and Purina have both offered you a job to run their sales team. Which team would you be more excited to take over? The team whose mantra is Better with pets? Or the team who is challenging themselves to create a better world for pets?
The right purpose engages even the cynics among us. When you're specific about the impact you want to have on the world, it creates energy. You become personally invested in the outcome.
When we work with organizations on their NSP and strategy, we tell leaders up front: your purpose drives every aspect of your business, from big strategic decisions to daily behavior. Every word counts. As the Mars vs. Purina competition reveals, it's not just semantics.
Choose a Big Enough Lane
Many organizations say they want to improve their customers' lives. The challenge is to be specific. “We make a difference” is certainly the sentiment you want to communicate to your team. But it's less than clear.
Your NSP must communicate what you intend to do and where you intend to do it. A good NSP is both aspirational and specific. Said another way,
For example, one of our clients is a mid‐size regional bank. Their NSP is We improve our customer's financial future. Their lane is the client's financial future. Their aim—their aspiration—is to improve it. It's not complex.
As you look at this simple NSP, you might say that it could apply to any financial institution. You're right; it could. It could also apply to a fintech firm or a financial education center. Your NSP does not describe your product offering. The NSP in and of itself does not create the innovation or differentiation. It's the decisions you make as a result of your NSP and the way you execute that drives innovation, engagement, and differentiation. Your NSP points the way.
When Mars put a stake in the ground, deciding that their purpose was to create a better world for pets, they may not have envisioned going into pet healthcare. But it's not surprising that they expanded into that market. It's a logical strategic choice for a team who wants to create a better world for pets.
It's important to note that having a NSP does not mean you give away your services for free. Mars' choices illustrate the interplay between profit and purpose. Their NSP pointed them toward customer impact. Once you're looking in the right direction, the team can determine whether your options are financially viable or not.
Similarly, our bank client may choose to expand their portfolio. When they're making decisions about what to pursue and what not to pursue, their NSP provides a focused lens for decision making. The team can evaluate: Will this help us improve our customer's financial future? Is this the most powerful way to proceed? Is it the most efficient way? Is it the most profitable way? Improving the customer's financial future is the North Star. The other questions determine the route to get there.
The most important thing is that your NSP drives strategy and behavior.
How to Avoid the Bookcase Problem
As you begin to introduce your purpose, you may find that people want to add to it. Do not give in to this impulse. Shorter is always better. The reason people want to add to your NSP is not because they don't like it. It's because they do like it.
I call this the bookcase problem. It's when people take something excellent and then pile mediocre stuff on top of it and ruin it.
I dubbed it the bookcase problem after an experience with my father. Several years ago, after my mother died, my dad decided to clean out the house and do a bit of updating. He was entering a new phase of his life. It was a phase he hadn't expected or wanted. But he determined to make the best of things, and a freshened‐up home was a good place to start. You can imagine that after 25 years and four kids, there was more than a bit of “clutter” to dispose of. Carloads of stuff went to Goodwill. We said goodbye to the old bunk beds, shag carpet, and worn‐out furniture. Once we cleared out the clutter, a bit of remodeling ensued.
Six months later, the result was a beautiful, clean, uncluttered space. Part of the project included installing two crisp white bookcases, right near the entry. They were visible from almost every room of the house.
I came in to help my dad arrange furniture, and one of our tasks was to decide what to put in the bookcases. My dad had boxes upon boxes of boating books, nautical decor, and Navy memorabilia. He also had photographs of the family scuba diving trips. It took lots of editing, but I was able to convince my dad to let go of some items and store others.
By the end, we had two beautiful bookcases showcasing his love for boating, reading, and his pride in the Navy and his family. One look at those bookcases, and you knew exactly who my dad was and what he stood for.
There was plenty of “white space” around the important pieces to draw attention to them. My father loved it. The next week, he had friends over, they loved it too. Everyone said, “Jay, those bookcases are so you.” It was the same stuff he'd always had, but instead of it being cluttered in with a million other things, it was edited to showcase what mattered most.
When I returned the following month, my dad said, “I'm really excited for you to see the house. I loved what you did so much, I did even more!” As you might imagine, my control‐freak antennae went up.
I arrived to find the beautifully edited bookcases now had at least 50% more stuff in them. Because he loved the theme so much, he'd gone out and bought more of it. Now instead of a single antique anchor, we had three. The stunning pair of large underwater photos with white space on either side of them had now been joined by seven or eight smaller photos. Everything was consistent with the original theme; only now, you didn't see any of it. More of a good thing didn't make it better: it made it less distinct and lessened the impact.
The same thing happens in organizations. You create a crisp positioning statement. Then everyone adds their favorite adjectives and adverbs, and before long, what was once clear and concise is cluttered.
It's why marketing messaging that starts out crisp gets clunky. It's why once‐elegant products end up with extra drop‐downs, clunky buttons, and ugly stickers all over the packaging. No one wants to edit; everyone wants to add.
In writing, there's a popular mantra: “Sometimes you have to kill your darlings.” Editing is essential. The problem is not that people don't like the crisp version. On the contrary, they often love it. They love it so much that they want to be part of it. That's why they want to add their take.
There's a better way to invite people to be part of your NSP. You can help your team take ownership of the crisp version by intentionally creating space for them to connect with the content.
When I asked my dad to tell me the story of each original object, he became animated and engaged. Each piece in the bookcase became even more meaningful as he rekindled his connection with it. The new things he bought didn't have that same meaning. They were like the unnecessary adverbs and adjectives people jam into a purpose statement. They're added as an enthusiastic response to the original content. But they have a chilling effect on the message.
Giving my dad an opportunity to tell the stories about why these items mattered gave him the space to own the story. He didn't need to add items to make the bookshelf his own. It was already his own; he simply needed to deepen his connection with the bookshelf.
It works the same way with teams. If you ask for feedback on your purpose statement, well‐intended people will usually wind up adding words that weaken it. If you want to keep things compelling and clear, once you settle on your NSP, instead of inviting people to give you feedback, ask them to give you proof of its resonance.
Ask them to describe times when they have observed your organization doing this. Instead of eroding elegant messaging, you want to find the stories to help your team own it.
Here are some questions you can use to activate buy‐in:
- Where are we doing this already?
- What stories can we use to illustrate that?
- What would happen if we did this in a bigger, bolder way?
- How would our customers respond if we did this consistently?
- How does your role contribute to this?
- What would it mean to you personally if you could do this on a regular basis?
The same purpose can mean different things to different people. For example, you might buy into Mars' A better world for pets because of your personal experience with stray cats. You might identify with it because of your passion for animals. Someone else might remember how the love of their childhood dog helped them through a rough time.
You want to get to a place where everyone on your sales team has clarity in three areas:
- Organization: Why does our NSP matter to customers?
- Job: How does my job contribute to our NSP?
- Personal: Why does our NSP matter to me?
Asking people to think very specifically about how their role drives your purpose and what it might mean for them personally engages their frontal lobes. It makes them active participants. It helps you avoid the bookcase problem. Instead of trying to add words to your purpose, you inspire action.
Jeff Stier, who leads EY's Purpose Realized Performance Practice, says, “When you live each day committed to your personal purpose, you have greater conviction, confidence, and courage. You become the driver of your destiny.” Helping your team personally connect to your purpose addresses a fundamental human longing. Stier explains, “Purpose is infused in human DNA. Ever since humans first became aware of the world around them, we've wrestled with two fundamental questions: Where are we going? and How will we get there?”
When people are clear about where you're going as an organization, how their job impacts customers, and why your NSP matters to them personally, they come fully alive. This clarity creates a rare breed of sellers, people who show up with their heart and soul and put every ounce of their effort into driving results for customers.
Being specific about your aspirations and your impact provides the specific direction and inspiration to take your team to the next level. In a world where so many people are disengaged from their jobs, this kind of specificity is sexy as hell.