Does the purpose serve to attract talent? Is it important that the purpose of the company is aligned with that of the person? And vice versa? Are there inappropriate or directly repellent purposes? Can the purpose be measured? What role does the heart play in all this?
These are some of the questions raised by the professor and consultant Charles King in his presentation during the Leaders with Purpose Forumorganized by Vocento last October in Madrid, and which he also spoke about with reason.Why during the course of the day. Apart from the professional activities mentioned, Rey is Founder and Director of the DPMC Foundation dedicated, as can be read on its website, to the transformation of the business world through purpose.
“The talent of the future is talent with purpose. It’s a market question. Companies with a purpose sell twice as much”
His presentation at the Forum was titled “Attract the talent of the future” and Rey began by saying that this is equivalent to attracting talent with purpose. “The talent of the future is talent with purpose. It’s a market question. There is a lot of research on this. Companies with a purpose sell twice as much and the purpose can generate identification on the part of employees and they, in turn, become promoters of the company.” And employees inspired by purpose are also, according to the results of a study by Bain that the speaker showed, more productive than the satisfied and committed ones.
According to Carlos Rey, the traditional arguments to attract talent –money, development plan, brand…– are still valid, but there is something more. “When we talk about attracting talent, we have to talk about the connection that occurs between the purpose of the company and the purpose of the person. It is the company that must approach that personal purpose and manage to connect the motives of both. This generates a business purpose that is built from the purposes of the people who form it.”
three languages
Achieving this requires, according to Rey, “touch people’s souls to attract them”, a delicate and difficult process that must be done based on communication and speaking three languages:
- The one from knowledge: “People have to know the purpose of the company, just as it has to know personal purposes.”
- The one of the hands, “which is the language of action, of what is done”
- The one from heart, “that gives meaning to everything.”
The speaker stressed that the three must operate in harmony, that there must be coherence between what is thought and what is said, what is done and what is felt. “And that’s where imperfection comes in too. But the heart is what differentiates a purpose that really reaches people. The purpose does not have to be repeated, it is remembered.”
Regarding the characteristics of the talent of the future, Carlos Rey pointed out that, on the one hand, there are the usual ingredients: self-knowledge, skills, results orientation… to which are now added different ones such as self-awareness, emotion management or goal orientation. the contribution. “The first ones refer to what I want to achieve,” said, “and the others, what I want to contribute to, and this is fundamental for purpose-driven organizations.”
Self-awareness, emotion management and contribution orientation are among the attributes of the new talent
Carlos Rey added that, according to what he learned in his years of research on purpose in the corporate sphere, the The possibility that a company will be able to articulate its purpose and attract talent is less than 30%. To try to increase that percentage, he then spoke about purposes that repel and purposes that attract.
Among the first are those characterized by sentimentalism, rationalism or activism. They are those “where the heart is disconnected from the head and hands, it is simply something that feels good. But the purpose is not Mr. Wonderful phrases.” Rationalism means that an apparent does not allow what is felt to emerge, while Activism, in the sense of subordinating values to the effectiveness of action, can generate an illusion that makes us lose perspective.
The purposes that attract are those endowed with authenticity, that is, in which there is a connection between what is thought and what is felt, coherence between what is thought and what is done and integration into the day-to-day life of the company. . To get an idea of whether a company’s purpose repels or brings, Carlos Rey recommends asking the following questions: Is the company’s purpose aligned with my personal values? Is the behavior of managers consistent with the purpose? Is my colleagues’ behavior consistent with the purpose?
Finally, the speaker spoke of how to live a purpose fully, and he made a recommendation that is surely as appropriate, or more, for life than for the company: know what you want to achieve and what you want to contribute and, in any case, and in accordance with advice that he personally gave him at the time Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “put love in everything you do.”
Talking about the presentation
The importance of the purpose of a company when entering or not to work in it, the way to combine personal purpose with the corporate purpose and the impossibility of perfection are some of the issues that Carlos Rey addressed in the conversation that, the topic of his presentation, he maintained with reason.Why.
RW. What do we do to attract talent that has not yet found its purpose, that is not known enough for that? Is it possible to help people find their purpose within a company?
It is possible, but it must be done well, let’s say delicately, because the vital purpose of a person is not usually the purpose of a company. We practice a lot with companies in this regard. You can help the employee, but you have to be aware that the company’s purpose will occupy a small part of the vital purpose. There are other entities, such as family, society, religion, associations… that give a great sense of purpose. Companies must understand the purpose from that plural perspective and, above all, taking into account that the person must always be at the center. Be very careful with inviting someone to define their personal and vital purpose within a company, and that what you are really looking for is to be more productive. That would be defining the purpose as you would a machine. And that’s not it. On the other hand, what happens if in this process the person finds their purpose and it is not that of the company? Well fantastic. What if he then leaves the company? Marvelous. If you don’t understand this, you haven’t understood what the person’s purpose is about.
Carlos Rey expanded a little more on the type of conversation What is required to talk about purpose:
“There is an overexposure and contamination of the concepts of purpose and values. Many companies talk too much about this”
RW. What do we tell people to choose the company? Wouldn’t it make sense for the candidate to also interview the company, and not just the company to interview the candidate?
Indeed. I give my students a methodology to analyze a company’s values, compare them with their own, and see how they fit. But sometimes making this comparison is not easy because there is an overexposure and contamination of the concepts of purpose and values, and many companies talk too much about this. At the same time, there are companies that really have a purpose and do not realize it as much, since they have it completely integrated into the culture; In that case, it takes a little longer to perceive it. The methodology that I propose helps, but you have to understand that not everything is black or white, that there are grays, and that perfection does not exist.
Nonexistence of the perfect
“Forums like this are important, but we have to avoid the risk of believing that those of us who are in them are the good ones of the purpose,” says Carlos Rey in line with his statement about the non-existence of the perfect in this field. “I always say in these types of areas that we are apprentices. We must recognize imperfection. It is a question of harmony between what you think, what you feel and what you do. Using these three coordinates you can see what an organization is. I tell young people to look for authentic, coherent and upright companies, but not perfect ones, because those do not exist. And if there are, they will be boring. Be careful with wanting to give an image of perfection when we work on these issues.”
Throughout the conversation, Rey also referred to to the problem that some companies have in cultivating a purpose and, at the same time, achieving growth:
RW. You’ve talked about differences between satisfied, engaged, and purpose-inspired employees. Are the latter the most valuable?
No. Everyone is valuable, even the angry ones. A person is not worth what he produces. The inspired are the most productive, but because they produce more, they are not worth more. It is a question of human dignity, and that is the view that must be taken. We were talking before about people who have no purpose, but I don’t see people without a purpose, but rather people who don’t know it yet. When you know it you notice it, it is there, within them, and you have to discover it. And when it is discovered it is not the end of the film, but the beginning.
“I don’t see people without purpose, but people who don’t know it yet”
RW. The purpose can be a source of attracting talent for a company but, since it exposes it a lot, it can also generate rejection.
I spoke in the presentation about the purposes that repel and among the factors that influence in that sense is activism, which is horrible and is happening today in many aspects: fill in, tick, get ratios… The indicator becomes what is important. Do, do, do… what’s the point of this? And with the topic of purpose the question is even more pertinent. You come to a company for its purpose and then you find that it follows all the trends consecutively and everyone has to jump through hoops. Sentimentality and rationalism are easy to identify, but that does not happen with activism. Is activism good? In this sense that I am referring to, that of putting actions before values, no. The risk of moving from good activism to this is very high.
