Dr. Black was the most memorable professor I had in my doctoral work. She would deliver 60-minute monologues that you didn’t want to end. Her ability to talk for a long time was a magical combination of speaking skills and meaningful content. One of her gifts was the ability to describe perfectly how shared experiences made the audience feel; the opening quote is one of those examples. Teaching is giving a portion of your soul to students every day. If you do it five consecutive days, you feel exactly like Dr. Black described it.
Yet, regardless of our profession, we all feel like this at some point or another, and it should concern leaders. Life is hard. Leaders often encourage their teams not to take their work home but should be just as concerned when they bring home to work. Couple that with the relentlessness of deadlines, presentations, emails, meetings, and quotas, and it is easy to understand how employees get disillusioned with their roles. A practical way leaders can combat this is to remind their teams of their purpose. In his iconic ‘Man’s Search for Meaning,’ Victor Frankl said, ‘Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, only by lack of purpose.’ Jeff Henderson coined the motto ‘know what you’re for’ to keep teams focused on the purpose of their work. I often quip, ‘When you have a big purpose, the small work matters.’
While all of these quotes and insights make a leader feel determined to keep purpose in focus, how can you practically apply it? Tell good stories. Dr. Jordan Peterson in ‘Beyond Order’ advocates for stories to assist in developing a framework for navigating the chaotic moments of our lives. Stories are powerful because they help us synthesize the nuances of hard things. James K.A. Smith calls it renarration. 'Leaders need to cultivate time and space for colleagues to renarrate. Reminding each other of purpose is a huge part of sustaining the ethos of an institution.' Here are six ways you can use stories to bring the purpose of your group back to the forefront of their minds.
Testimonies: If you grew up attending church, you likely heard your share of testimonies. A church member would be invited to share a unique way they had seen God move in their lives. These personal stories oriented the congregation's mind to what God may be doing in their lives. Why not open a meeting with a testimony from a team member of where they have seen the good of your group play out in the lives of others?
Videos: Talk to any marketer, and they will tell you that short-form video is king. A leader could ‘market’ to their groups about the organization's purpose via a short video of why people love working there or how the community of colleagues rallied for a great cause.
The meeting agenda: This is a suggestion that you should implement immediately. Put your organization's mission statement at the top of every meeting agenda. Open most meetings with the following question: ‘Where have you seen the core values of our organization at work recently?’
Quotes that matter: Create group texts for your different teams and send them one quote per week that reminds them of the purpose of their work. If you read e-books, you could screenshot a page from a good book you are reading that will encourage them or send them an Instagram reel of a meaningful speech video that will resonate with them.
Living proof - Most organizations try to impact people for their own good. Find the people that are being impacted and ask them to share in written, video, or in-person ways how it happened and what it means to them.
Say thanks - One of my former student-athletes tagged me on Twitter for a video on the impact of a coach. It was his way of saying ‘thanks, coach’ for my impact on his life. Ironically, he impacted me in a big way that day. Leaders should always thank their people for their actions to add value and help the group pursue its purpose.
These six suggestions or ideas of your own will have one fatal flaw in inspiring the people about the group's purpose: inconsistency. I recommend you set up a ‘purpose’ calendar and consistently encourage your groups around purpose regularly. It will keep you focused on purpose, too!
Keep on, keepin’ on, friends!
Bite Down and Don’t Let Go is a collection of writings on relentlessly leading yourself and others well. Read about it more here. You can listen to the Bite Down and Don't Let Go podcast here!
Dr. Chris Hobbs is an educational leader with more than two decades of experience. He’s earned a few degrees and won some awards. He’s happily married to his high school sweetheart, and they have three children. Life is messy and complicated most of the time. You can follow him on Twitter for inspirational thoughts and good laughs.
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