Culture that drives purposeful growth: A post-pandemic blueprint
Progressive leaders aren’t just reimagining the post-pandemic workplace, they’re reimagining what business success looks like in 2021 and beyond.
Every business starts with a dream. Yet so often that dream gives way to someone else’s idea of business success. After the year that’s been, and the post-pandemic workplace we’re now entering, it’s never felt more important to reimagine what success and growth mean — for ourselves as leaders, for the societies we serve, and for the companies we build. At Within we’ve created a blueprint to help all leaders dream and grow the purposeful, equitable and resilient companies our post-pandemic world needs more than ever.
Looking out into a world of change
Jeff and I sat on the rooftop of a hotel in Barcelona. A muddle of pastel roofs stretched away to the sea, glowing in the dusk light. It was February 2014, and we were there for a reason: to vision the company we wanted to start. Why there? Because it’s beautiful, and getting out from under London’s grey ceiling filled us with a sense of freedom and possibility. Why then? Because we’d come to the decision that the world we saw ahead of us needed something different from business. And, frankly, business needed something different from consultants.
Seven years on, I’m sitting in Vancouver and the pastel rooftops have morphed into a mountainside of cedars and firs, glistening a thousand greens after the rain. But on the back of a year haunted by a global pandemic, the trauma of social injustice, mass climate protests, and transformative questions about the future of work, I’m feeling those same feelings again. And I’m clearly not alone — my partners, my clients, our peers, and most leaders are feeling it too.
Seven years ago, I was starting from scratch. Today, we have a blueprint to build on. A way to use culture as the driver of purposeful growth, to create a company that is two things:
Meaningful and equitable — a place where people love who they are and what they do
Resilient and useful in a world where major change is both fast and necessary.
We have used this blueprint to build Within People. And we’ve used it to help leaders and their teams in companies of every shape and size, on every continent, to redefine what growth means, and make it happen.
The year we’ve just had has made it more resonant than ever.
You define what growth and business success mean to you
The first question we ask every leader we meet is what does growth mean for you? It gives us a way to understand what people value and what the business means in their life. Their answers typically range from wanting to "win" in their sector, to wanting to create disruptive change. What a leader values most shapes the growth of the business. And so the answer is always interesting.
Think about that question for yourself now. What does growth mean for you?
Is the first thing that comes to mind a goal of some sort — revenue, users or geographies? Or is it about an impact you want to make? Many companies err one way or the other — aiming to increase their own value and dominate a market, or to make a specific change in the world.
Now ask - are you answering for you and what you most want to see — or is your answer what you think others expect you to say? To help with that one, consider what that growth gives you, and why it really matters.
And finally, ask how you want growth and business success to feel. Is it a frantic 10x sprint to exit, or more of a meandering exploration?
I asked these questions to the founder of one of our UK clients who was scaling a successful staffing agency. He talked about revenue targets and 5-year exit plans. Why? So he could sell up and afford the time and space to spend more time with his family and train to become a coach. As he spoke, he realized that what he valued was control over his time and meaningful work. Suddenly he had a choice: keep sweating it out to just exit, or take a step back, reimagine how he leads now, and start getting more of what he really valued. (Incidentally, he has now merged his business and started his coaching training too).
He’s one of the more thoughtful leaders I’ve had the pleasure of working with, yet even for him, growth in his business had become a mercenary idea of accumulation — with success waiting at the end of the grind. It’s a term Robert Holden, Professor of Happiness (yep, really), calls ‘destination addiction’. Believing that happiness lies ‘at the end of the rainbow’ can leave us ‘psychologically absent’ from the present. And that’s really problematic. We’re all constantly striving and never arriving, losing track of what is most meaningful, and paying less attention to the impact of our choices on the world around us.
Holden’s fix is simple: stop chasing success, and instead, follow your joy. Know what you want, and start drawing that intention into how you work today. That joy will be the beating heart of a more connected, inclusive and creative culture. It will be the critical difference between you riding a driverless vehicle of accumulation, or piloting your way toward purposeful growth.
On that Barcelona rooftop we challenged ourselves to really reflect on what we wanted out of growing Within. It sparked a vision that included the beauty of the world around us, connection to our people (and the space to make the most of both), alongside financial stability, mastery of our art and the energy of being on an adventure. It was a vision anchored by the idea of freedom. That growing our company would create greater freedom for us, for those that worked with us, and for our clients. And it still anchors all the decisions we make about how we grow, structure and operate Within People today.
Knowing what growth and business success mean has never been more critical — and reimagining what growth looks like is now the role of every business leader.
Now is the time to reimagine growth in a post-pandemic workplace
We've seen a revolution coming, and now our clients and the leaders we meet are asking questions about how the future of work is changing. Questions about cultures that underpin more devolved, more human ways of working. Questions about the nature of growth that serves rather than exploits society, addresses rather than perpetuates systems of injustice, and restores rather than breaks our connection with our environment.
What’s so special about now? Well the year that’s gone brought the business world to a standstill, and simultaneously accelerated it into the 21st century. The inertia that kept leaders resisting the transition to more purposeful, human ways of doing business was violently shaken — and a lot of it shattered.
It’s a year that has floodlit human (dis)connection and social (in)justice. It has asked new questions about the relationship between business and nature, capitalism, democracy. It has tested the humanity of leadership, and left the workforce languishing in a relentless white noise of grief, change, isolation and, well, Zoom.
Leaders with their eyes open aren’t just asking about WFH. They’re asking WTF from here.
It’s clear that we need systemic change to a more equitable society. Reimagining success - for ourselves as leaders and for our businesses is a meaningful place to start. As Jeff wrote recently, “businesses are systems, so changing how they work for everyone can be a major systemic change.”
What gives me optimism — and the drive to bust out of my own languishing — is that none of the underlying challenges here are new. But the sense of urgency and appetite for change certainly is. 74% of employees expect their employer to be more actively engaged in today’s cultural debates. The Government of Spain is about to implement the world’s first national pilot of a 4 day work week. We’re being encouraged to rethink how we think, and consider the infinite potential of people and ideas in a finite world.
And with that comes the opportunity to reimagine more than how we ‘go back to work’ — now’s the time to reimagine what growth and success look like from here on.
And here’s where I think you should start.
A blueprint for culture that drives purposeful growth and business success in 2021
The Within Way® blueprint is designed to offer leaders a map to growing the company they love. Our job is to help them find the clarity, belief and confidence they need at each step to make that growth happen.
The blueprint is based on three principles that sit at the heart of our philosophy for the future of work:
Business performance through human potential: people are most creative when they have the freedom to love who they are and what they do.
Culture as the main driver of growth: the key to success is how people work together.
Shared opportunity to lead: equitable structures enable anyone to be a leader and everyone to step into their power.
What growth means: Setting a context for growth
Get clear on what growth means to you by creating a rich picture of the world you want to see, and your place in it. Understand where you are going and your intention for setting out on your journey for growth as you imagine the future and the value of your business to the world.
A vision and context for growth provides inspiration and energy to take people with you. What context for growth do you need to set as you emerge from the pandemic?
What you stand for: Clarity on your purpose, values and offer
Find purpose with a North Star to guide and fuel your journey based on the enduring role you play in creating a meaningful impact in the world. Develop actionable behaviours into a set of values that drive collaboration. And define the value you create through your products and services.
The Purpose Framework brings alignment, direction and meaning to your company. How are you connecting back to your cultural DNA to bring direction or consistency in turbulent times?
How you measure success: A strategy of profit, impact and joy
Look at growth through three lenses to create a holistic and interconnected set of drivers. Profit looks at how you’re set up to be profitable. Impact looks at the difference you are making for the people you serve. Joy looks at your people’s well-being, learning and growth. Measure inputs instead of outcomes to enable each individual team member to see how they create value every day.
Integrating measurement helps to keep you on track through uncertainty. How are you balancing these lenses now as you plot the way forward for an exhausted team?
How your people experience work: Designing an equitable employee experience
Understand how your business operates as a system to be inclusive of the needs of each employee. Ask yourself, how do you promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in your workplace? Look at the experience of your culture through flexibility, connection, reward and growth, a trend in employee engagement, to show how all your people are valued — from their first day with you to the day they move on to their next career.
An employee experience that works for everyone in your culture sets each individual up for success. How are you embedding inclusivity and equity into how your business and culture operate?
How you lead: Stepping into the qualities of human-centered leadership
Unlearn 20th century leadership “styles” to tap into a toolkit of skills and qualities that unleash potential for the 21st century. Develop self awareness and do the work to make a leadership shift across the business.
Humanizing leadership brings people together and creates the conditions for inclusive, connected and creative cultures. How are you stepping into empathy, vulnerability, love — and helping your leaders do the same?
The Blueprint is intended to work as a map for growth. Looking at your own business you’ll probably find that some parts are further developed than others. As you read through the questions above, consider which ones resonate with what you’re feeling and needing most in your business right now, and start there. (If you want some help with that - let us know.)
The way ahead for business success in 2021
Much like building a house, the blueprint is only the starting point. We’ve been ‘under construction’ at Within People since we started, and we’re not there yet! I’m so proud of the progress we’ve made toward that initial rooftop dream, and yet as new challenges arrive, we need to design new ways around and through them.
While I’m excited about the opportunity that exists for companies to use this moment to transform — I also find the prospect of it overwhelming. Not just for our clients, but for my own business. I’ve stared at those trees out my window plenty of times, as if some sense of order would materialize from their branches. Having a map to turn back to helps. Sadly it doesn’t have the answers written on it (!) but it’s helping me — and us — ask better questions and focus what energy we have in useful places.
We recently created a vision for the next phase of Within’s growth:
We are reimagining success in 21st Century organisations, illuminating the path to connected, inclusive and creative cultures.
That’s what we’ll be working on with our clients and for ourselves. And I’d love to hear how our Blueprint might illuminate a pathway forward for your business too.