In this episode of our ‘Game Changers' podcast, host Alex Willford is joined by Sarah Gillard, CEO of A Blueprint for Better Business, to explore the transformative power of purpose in business. Together, they dive into the key role that purpose plays in shaping not just brands, but entire organisations, and how it can unlock innovation, cultural strength, and new strategic opportunities.
Sarah shares her experience working on the purpose re-articulation at John Lewis Partnership and reflects on the importance of authenticity in purpose-led branding. They also discuss how businesses can shift from profit-driven models to ones that prioritise people and the planet, without sacrificing commercial success.
Listen here or read on for an edited transcript.
Alex Willford: Welcome to another episode of Nevermind the Pain Points. This is part of our Game Changers series. Today, we're going to be talking about purpose-led business. So what is it? Why is it a thing? Why should or shouldn't you be thinking about it as an organization?
My name is Alex Willford. I'm a Managing Consultant here at Clarasys, and I lead some of our client work in the purpose and impact space. And I'm joined today by the wonderful Sarah Gillard, who's CEO of a Blueprint for Better Business. We've had the pleasure of working quite closely with Sarah and Blueprint across some of our clients and also internally with how we look at our purpose at Clarasys.
Welcome. Would you mind just giving us a sense of yourself and Blueprint and the work that you do?
Sarah Gillard: Yeah, sure. And uh, thanks for inviting me onto this, Alex. It's a delight to be here. So I'll start with me. That's probably easiest. I spent a long time, 25 years in the retail industry. kind of by accident, I started as a temp and then I didn't leave, which wasn't necessarily a particularly strategic decision, but there it is.
And in that industry, which over the last 25 years has had a lot of disruption, you know, the internet and disintermediation and all sorts of interesting challenges as an industry, I worked for a number of different big businesses and to, go back a longer way, my degree was in politics, philosophy, and economics, but mostly philosophy.
So I was a philosophy graduate and I didn't really understand what the world of business was. So as I was wandering around these different businesses, I was kind of curious around what makes them tick. And I had the advantage, I guess, of working for two extremes of different ways of thinking about business.
So I began my career at the Arcadia Group, which owned brands like Dorothy Perkins and Topshop and Topman decades ago, just before Philip Green bought it. Then Philip Green bought it, and he is a famous infamous, famous businessman who bought the Arcadia Empire, because it was a huge organization at the time, with a very clear purpose in mind, which was basically to make as much money for himself and his family as he could. And that was very clear in how he ran the organization and I was 23, didn't know what I was looking at, but I was observing the differences that were happening inside the business in terms of investment, in terms of culture, in terms of people, how they felt, how they made decisions, what they did. I saw the difference that it made to what the company did, its relationship with suppliers, its brands. And I was thinking, God, this doesn't feel like a long term good way to run a business. I could see short term that it makes a load of money and it clarifies the decision making and a whole lot of other stuff. But it does seem to be damaging people and damaging trust and damaging the long term value of the business. Can this be the only way?
So I wandered around various different other businesses and eventually found myself with the John Lewis Partnership, which as I guess many of your listeners will know is the UK's largest employee owned business. And I saw a very different way of thinking about business. I saw it think about its role differently. I saw it think about success differently. And I saw how that impacted on people inside and outside the business on its resilience as an organization, its ability to adapt to changing conditions and its long term kind of outcomes, financial and others. And so I, I guess I got curious about why that was true. So I delved into strategy. I delved into culture and leadership and governance and operating models. And eventually I found my way to purpose as a concept. And I thought, ah, ha, ha, this is it. The purpose of the organization actually shapes the culture, you know, defines the strategy, helps the business move forward in a very rapidly changing world.
So that's actually not that short introduction to me. Sorry, I'll try and make the answers more concise. Anyway, having had that epiphany that purpose shapes business and can really have a massive impact on not only business success, but on people and on society at large, I looked around to see where I could help further that insight and help others see what I had seen and came across this brilliant charity called Blueprint for Better Business. It's a charity that evolved as a result of conversations during a financial crash that was looking at, you know, what ought the relationship between business and society be? How have we got here? You know, the massive breakdown of trust that's occurred and how have we got to a place where generally, people in business were coming into work feeling like they had to leave who they really were at home and then operating in a very different way at work. And that sort of sense of disconnection, both individually and sort of, you know, inside people, but also the disconnection between business and society resulted in a number of people, CEOs and investors and academics and others coming together to talk about the role of business and society. And then the charity was born. And we've spent the last 10 or 15 years pondering this question and facilitating conversations and working with business leaders in large businesses to help them explore the role of business in society and also how to think about people. And it's been a fascinating journey and we continue it and I think as the world has evolved, that question has become ever more important, accelerated by things like the pandemic and Black Lives Matter and the increasing evidence of the climate crisis and the role that business plays is now a matter of public debate, which is great.
Alex Willford: It really is. That was such a fascinating introduction to yourself and kind of your career and the journey towards purpose and to Blueprint as well.
I want to crack on with the episode content, but I want to ask you, what's the relationship there between like personal purpose and organizational purpose? Because I feel like you kind of touched on your personal purpose a little bit, or kind of your journey towards it versus an organization's one. Is there a relationship between those two things, or are they two completely separate things?
Sarah Gillard: No, I think they are separate, but they are related. And I think attempts to kind of make them one of the same thing begin to veer into weird cult type behavior. So, you know, individuals have purposes. Every human hopefully has a sense of what makes life meaningful for them. And in an ideal scenario, people find opportunities to develop that sense of meaning in the work that they do. So they're using their skills and expertise and all of the human capabilities to find meaning in the work that they do. And in an ideal world, the organization that they work for has a sense of what it's trying to do in the world that has some overlap and alignment with the sense of what the person feels is important. And if that's true, then, and the organization creates the environment for people to explore that within the realms that the organization occupies. So, so when it thinks about how it shows up in the world, its impact on people on planet, on what it's trying to further, what it wants to offer to the world, if it creates an environment where people can contribute to that in a way that really allows them to flourish, then you have this kind of magic alchemy between people's intrinsic motivation and the organization's core purpose. And that's what really creates innovation and creativity and collaboration and joy and fulfillment and all of those great things, which increasingly are going to be very important, always have been, but for organizations to be able to adapt at the speed they need to, then they need to create the environment where the people are motivated to want the organization to survive. And the best chance of doing that is if the people inside the business genuinely feel it is contributing in positive ways to a world that they believe is better.
Alex Willford: I guess that's almost the organizational purpose leading the personal purpose and maybe the flip side is actually you might end up with every employee with a slightly different version of what the purpose can and should be and kind of just pulling in a thousand different directions.
Sarah Gillard: Yeah, and that's where, I mean, there are many, many ways in which purpose can go wrong. And let's, you know, we've seen a lot of them. So, you know, really happy to explore those, but if there isn't enough clarity about how this organization with its assets and resources and the way that it has an impact on the world is trying to create a better world and it isn't specific about that and it hasn't really thought that through but it's got some kind of bland generic magic seven words statement about you know everything's going to be awesome. What happens is people go oh great now I can use this as a platform to really go after the thing that I care about and then you get this kind of purpose proliferation where you try and be all things to all people and it loses all connection to the core business it becomes a pet project stick, creates a huge amount of distraction and then there's massive kind of pushback and eventually a sort of sense of disenchantment and inauthenticity as people go, well, I thought we were purpose led and therefore you should be supporting my particular pet cause and you're not and therefore the whole thing is rubbish and cynical. Which is a real shame. So I think, you know, that there are dangers in defining an organization's purpose so broadly and loosely with nothing underneath it to support it, that you're right, the individual's purpose becomes the kind of only thing that people are judging whether to do something or not. And that creates kind of chaos, maybe short term fun, but leading to long term chaos, and it doesn't result in business success. And for us, you know, we're a blueprint for a better business. We fundamentally believe that purpose drives better outcomes for people or business and for society. There is not a kind of implicit trade off or an inherent trade off. We believe that there is a positive relationship, can be a positive relationship between those three things.
Alex Willford: Absolutely. We've started throwing around some terms like purpose and purpose led. I wonder if it's worth us just quickly defining what, what we mean, I guess, if we can. Is there a global accepted definition of what being purpose-led means?
Sarah Gillard: Well, not yet Alex, but it's coming. So if you're looking for sort of official reference book type definition, what exists in the UK already is called PAS808, PAS 8 0 8, and it's issued for free by the British Standards Institute. So if you Google it, you can find it and it's a very well thought through, I would say that because we helped , we helped write it, but it was a collective effort from a number of different people who've been thinking about this for decades. A very well articulated expression of an organization that is purpose-driven and what they believe and, and how they show up in the world. So that exists but there are many good articulations of what a purpose driven organization is that isn't just our purpose is to make as much money as possible for our shareholders. That is a purpose, but it's not what we generally mean when we say a purpose driven organization as this kind of sector evolves. So for Blueprint, you know, we have a point of view and our, and our, point of view is sort of encapsulated in two ideas, which neither of them sound radical when you say them out loud, but they are certainly not the norm in the current paradigm. So the first idea is that business is in fact a sort of social organization, a series of relationships whose purpose is to create value for the common good. So serve society. And if you do that well, profit is an outcome and a condition of doing that well. So it flips the means and ends if you like. In the traditional paradigm or paradigm one, as I tend to call it, business is a machine designed to optimize financial goals and, you know, look after human and environmental interests insofar as they do that.
What we're talking about in paradigm two or purpose driven organizations is a business to seen as a social organization where people have come together to create value for society. And profit is an outcome and a condition for them doing that. So profit is the means to drive the ends and the ends is something positive in society.
But critically in Blueprint is a second part of our foundational thinking, which is, and again, not that radical when you say it out loud, but that people are in fact, human beings with inherent dignity and value and the quality of the relationships that the business creates with all of the humans on which it has an impact, including future generations is a critical part of what it means to be a successful business. So again, if I compare that to paradigm one thinking, where perhaps this isn't expressed so overtly, but generally people can be seen by that kind of machine analogy as assets or resources or in worst cases, liabilities that can be kind of moved around, instrumentalized in service of delivering financial goals. And in Paradigm 2, or sort of, you know, purpose driven business, blueprints thinking, people are seen as human beings and their dignity is respected. And so whether you're an employee or a customer or a supplier or a community member or a citizen or a member of a future generation, the dignity of your humanity is respected. And that creates a very different basis, those two kind of foundational ideas create a very different basis for imagining, 'okay. So, so what's the potential or business in that world'? You know, 'what does that encourage'? What becomes possible with that framing rather than a much more kind of mechanistic financially driven or purely financially driven.
Alex Willford: I always love the flipping of the narrative from paradigm one to paradigm two, and that kind of profit versus sustainability, I know that you and others have explained it like profit is like what breathing is, you know, it's, it's necessary for you to live, but it's not why you get up in the morning. And I just think that's a perfect encapsulation of what purpose led business is.
Sarah Gillard: Yeah. We're not trying to downplay profit. It's really important as breathing is to a human, but it really isn't. Well, it's not why I get up in the morning. And so for us, this implied trade off between profit and purpose just completely misunderstands what we're talking about.
You know, profit to a commercial business is critical. But if it's the reason that exists, it's too narrow an articulation and it will shut down potential and possibilities and intrinsic motivation. And in a very rapidly changing world that will put your business not only at a distinct disadvantage but is likely to make it entirely irrelevant in a very different future.
Alex Willford: Before we move on, I just wanted to make one more distinction, which is that between purpose-led and kind of having a brand purpose. I think we see a lot of brands out there who kind of say our purpose is to deliver some positive social change in this sphere, and they do a lot of great work in that area often, and they do that through kind of CSR or volunteering or other mechanisms, which is fantastic. But being purpose led means that it's central to your business model creation, your business model as a whole. It's not kind of something that sits on the side. It is who you are, it is what you do, and it is how you do it. And that is a fundamental shift from kind of, let's deliver some workshops in this area or let's go and help some farmers with sowing some seeds or whatever it might be. We believe that by doing this thing we will create value for the world and at the same time profit from it. And it's that.
Sarah Gillard: Exactly. And I think what we are seeing now is those organizations who are still in paradigm one and are trying to maintain relevance, but are doing so through, as you say, kind of side projects. Initiative overwhelm is becoming very common. So if they're in a mindset of, we're just here to maximize money within the law, and now we have to do a bit of CSR in order to keep our reputation good, and we've got to do some ESG stuff because of regulation requirements and probably we have to have a net zero strategy otherwise we're going to get, you know, lack of investment and we'll be on the wrong side of regulation and actually now we also have to do some DE& I stuff because of societal demands. These things just pile up and up and up and up. And they create a lack of coherence inside the organization. They create conflict, tension, paralysis, because you're fundamentally asking something that is designed as a machine to maximize a goal, to then have all of these other things bolted on and it creates problems. Whereas what we're talking about is an organization of humans who are, as you say, really clear on why they have come together and how they are going to sustain the organization, where the concepts like, how do we make sure that everyone feels included? How do we make sure that we really understand the impacts that we had on people and planet and are working to make sure that they are positive? And not just net positive, we're actively reducing the negative impacts that we have. How do we make sure that we're thinking about the long term impacts on everything we do? These things are not about initiative overwhelm. This is about strengthening the core business model. And so again, it flips it from this kind of burdensome thing that organizations are having to think about to absolutely the core of how they're going to adapt and thrive in today's world, let alone tomorrow's world.
Alex Willford: I think overwhelm is definitely the way to describe it. If I was a CEO of a big corporation right now, I think I would find it really difficult juggling all of those things. When you're working with CEOs, is that kind of what's front of their mind when they're talking to you about purpose or why are they talking to you about purpose?
Sarah Gillard: I think it's a good question. So yeah, sometimes it's come from a sense that the organisation is under extreme strain from expectations, investor, regulatory, employee, customer, client, you know, and that looking at these things in piecemeal form is not going to produce a good outcome. So they're interested in, okay, what's the fundamental rethink? What's the reframe that needs to occur here? Because this can't continue like this. And they're looking ahead and thinking, well, it's not going to get any better, right? Climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality, the challenges that these initiatives are trying to address when you look ahead are only going to get more challenging and the awareness of them is only going to get greater. So this is not a temporary blip. This is something that businesses are going to have to engage with. And so some are coming at it from a, I'm going to have to, because otherwise we're going to go under, or, you know, in some way become just obsolete and irrelevant. Others are looking at it from a much more positive 'The world is changing'. What's worked for us brilliantly and undeniably brilliantly over the past many decades is unlikely to continue to work for us in a very rapidly changing world, particularly when you throw in things like AI and the impact that that's going to have on everything. So what is going to guide us as we evolve and adapt our organization? What's going to guide us? And if it isn't just a financial business case, because that doesn't feel sufficient to all of the complexity that is now visible. And it isn't just my own as CEO's moral judgment of what is right, because that doesn't feel legitimate. It doesn't feel transparent. It doesn't feel accountable. It doesn't feel scrutinizable and it's insufficient to help create advocacy and buy in from all the different stakeholders that we need. What else is there? And they're coming to purpose, not as a kind of marketing slogan, but as a fundamental question about what is guiding our organization as it transforms itself into one that is going to be able to thrive in a world that looks fundamentally different to the one that it perhaps grew up in. And I think this is why it's such an interesting time. And I think that the kind of Paradigm One, Paradigm Two thing is so useful because we're in this liminal period. You know, it's evident that what worked in Paradigm One, and it worked brilliantly and it produced amazing growth and prosperity and innovation and extraordinary things, it's also creating social and environmental externalities that are becoming existentially threatening. And therefore, assuming that we find a way through and Paradigm Two emerges, there will be a transition period and how long that transition period is and how quickly we're able to adapt is going to be fascinating, but that's why we're in this sort of weird liminal space where what worked in the past isn't any longer going to work. But what's going to work in the future is not yet totally clear with a huge amount of business case studies and pathways to get there. And here are the 10 steps to transform your organization. It doesn't look like that yet. And so these leaders in organizations right now are trying to work out what are the things that we can learn from others? How do we begin to learn ourselves about how we adapt, given that there's no obvious roadmap?
Alex Willford: As a consultant working in this space, the fact that the answers aren't defined yet is in some ways really exciting and freeing. And it means we have to kind of work it out for ourselves. But as a leader, I would be feeling quite nervous about that. So I guess, why would organizations be wanting to make that leap before the answers are defined? What's in it for them?
Sarah Gillard: I mean, it's a great question and I guess it comes down to your definition of leadership because it will absolutely be a courageous act. And that's what leadership is, right? If you're just simply doing what appears obvious or what has been done before, you know, it's something but it's not leadership. And I think there are moments in time where real leadership is about trying to understand from many, many perspectives, what's going on, welcoming in that complexity and engaging with it and still acting. And I think we're in one of those moments now, the complexity and the amount of demands on an organization are increasing and you've perhaps got three choices. The first is to try and ignore it and just stick to your knitting and look at the numbers and hope for the best. And my proposal is that that will not work for much longer. When you think about investment talent, customers, regulation, you know, that kind of, we're ignoring any kind of impact that we have, positive or negative. We're just being unintentional about it and just looking at the numbers. That's not going to last for very long as a viable strategy. A second option is that you invite it all in and become so overwhelmed by all of the complexity that you become paralyzed. That doesn't sound like leadership either. So the third option, the only one, really, is that you engage with the world as it is and the world that's emerging, recognize the role that you have in shaping that world, for better or worse, and intentionally lead your organization, legitimately, collectively, in accountable ways, to actively creating a future that's better than it would have been otherwise. And for me, that's what leadership right now needs to be. And it's scary because it's not obvious. You haven't necessarily got a huge amount of role models that you weren't necessarily taught this at business school. And, you know, there aren't yet guidebooks of how to do it. And I don't think there will be, I think this, this change is happening so quickly that if you're not grappling with it now, even if there are no guidebooks on how to do it, you're probably going to be irrelevant. So for me, yes, it's a courageous choice, but if you really want to be a leader of any kind of description in this, in this world right now, whatever kind of organization you're leading, commercial, not for profit, governmental, third sector, massive, small, whatever, engaging with the kind of impact that you have on people and planet and actively working to make sure it's positive and not just your version of positive, but positive that is being shaped by those who are going to be affected by it. We're at a crossroads at the moment and the future for generations, I think, will be shaped by this generation of leaders. And that's a massive responsibility, but it's also a massive opportunity. And, I guess, yeah, we'll, see how it pans out. Ask me in 50 years, Alex.
Alex Willford: It really does feel like a liminal space or inflection point.
Are there any leaders or organizations that you think have kind of taken this on in a particularly impressive way?
Sarah Gillard: So I think there are loads. I mean certainly any business now that's starting is typically created by somebody who can see that there is a problem that they think they can solve profitably and they're going to try and do that. And so, the challenges that we are facing are clear. And, whether it's, I don't know, clean energy or healthcare or, you know, so the problems are many and often businesses starting now are specifically designed to address those. I think the organizations that we tend to work with are big organizations who have succeeded for decades in a very different world where organizing for efficiency was the route to success. And that worked really well for a long time. And then over the past 10 years, I think what we've seen is organizations trying to optimize for resilience because they could see crises, you know, coming at them, whatever it was. And so resilience was a big buzzword, but resilience sort of implies that you can just like knuckle down and get through. And I think the recognition that's happening now is that the world is changing very quickly and will continue to change it faster and faster and faster. And resilience is not enough. You have to organize for adaptability and trust. And if you're organizing for adaptability and trust, it's because you're genuinely engaging with your stakeholders in a different way. You're thinking about what success looks like in a different way. And you're thinking about how to create the conditions for your people in a very different way. And so. We see lots of organizations who are beginning to go on that journey and they'll come at it from different ways. They might come at it starting to look at their investors and saying, well, how do we make sure that we've got an investor base that sees what we see and is going to go with us on this transformational journey? They might start with their culture and their leadership and, and think, well, you know, that our people, are the thing that's going to change this organization because that's what it's made up of, so let's start there. Or, depending on the organization, it might start with its strategy or the products that it creates and start looking at that and thinking we're going to have to adapt that pretty quickly in order to go on this journey.
So let's begin there and innovate there and then the rest of it can unfold. So when they start with, you know, strategy, culture, defining purpose, there's loads of ways to start. They'll have to go through all of those steps eventually. Because it is a deeply transformative exercise, but where you start depends on what kind of organization you're in.
Alex Willford: Absolutely. I think you've kind of touched a bit on the, on the, the stick of why take a purpose led approach. So the remaining relevant kind of, you won't survive if you don't do this, I'd like to offer up a bit more of the carrot. So what's in it for us as an organization? I know that, you know, we want to get out of the business case paradigm and away from we need to do this to maximize shareholder value. But if you do the purpose led approach right, there have been multiple studies that have shown that actually in the long run, you are generating a better return for shareholders. You are retaining your people better. You are doing transformation better and organizations now are going to be permanently in transformation. There's not going to be a kind of you do transformation and then you're in kind of static state for a few years and then you do transformation again, it's just going to be constant and people find change really difficult and change isn't going away, it's only going to get more. So purpose is really a lens through which you can interpret all of that transformation, the world around you, and it also gives you permission to not do things as well, to stop. To stop having conversations that you don't need to have or you're not best placed to have, to stop doing those kind of distracting CSR value ads to make your investors feel better that aren't directly relevant to your purpose. And it's that permission to focus, which I think will greatly improve the efficacy of businesses.
Sarah Gillard: Totally. I think you're absolutely right. Permission to focus and also permission to dream, because if you can imagine a better world, is because at some point we'll have worked out how to use our best invention for achieving progress, which is business. You know, it's the best way that we found yet of harnessing the energy and creativity of humans, directing them at a common goal and creating extraordinary transformational results. It's because we'll have worked out how to use this in service of the long term well being of all people and planet with financial results as a way of continuing to allow them to exist. So if you can imagine. that world and, and, you know, whether you hope to live in it or you hope that many descendants um, will live in it, you know, however long it's going to take to get there, that's exciting. If you can imagine a world where every human is living a life of dignity with their fundamental needs met and the planet is flourishing and business is in service of achieving those things. And it's an exciting place to work and you can use all your skills and creativity. Well, why wouldn't you want that? Now, a lot of people say, well, that's just naive, you know, money makes the world work and people only work for financial incentives. And if we didn't pay them a big bonus, they wouldn't do their job. Well, that might all be true in Paradigm One, but it's because business was focused on something that didn't fundamentally excite humans. And it was based on a very narrow definition of humans that worked for economic theory modeling, which is, you know, we are rational, economic, utility maximizers who will seek to maximise money, status and power. Which is partly true of human nature, but every study of human nature beyond economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, behavioural science, neuroscience, whatever, recognises that humans are also motivated by a deep desire to be connected to each other, you know, we are social beings. We like to feel like we belong and that we're connected to each other. We're relational. We like to feel that we are doing something positive. We want to feel like we've got a bigger purpose that we're, working towards, and we want to learn and grow. We seek autonomy. We want to feel like we're developing. And organizations who are able to create that environment, as well as, of course, rewarding people fairly for what they do, well that, I mean that, that sounds like human flourishing to me. And it certainly is a very different world from one where you kind of clock in on a nine to five, do the hours, and are desperate for the weekend. And if we're in this generally improving state for humanity, if you take the long view, then a world where work is actually fulfilling and enjoyable for everybody is one worth striving for, but it's not going to happen organically. It's going to require intentional effort, so I'm delighted that organizations like Clarasys exist. Thanks!
Alex Willford: I mean, you guys have been at the forefront of this for such a long time. I imagine, I'm saying this hopefully, that you have seen significant shifts already and kind of significant progress being made. I mean, otherwise I can imagine it might be very hard to kind of keep yourselves motivated. I can imagine just this dream of this utopian reality and not moving towards it. But I mean, it sounds like there has been significant progress.
Sarah Gillard: Oh, for sure. I mean, even sort of 12 years ago, 14 years ago, when this organisation started, the word purpose was just not that often used in business. And if it was, it was in a very kind of here to maximize shareholder value within the bounds of the law. So I think that the conversation has moved on a lot, driven by lots of things, not least generational shifts. So I think by next year, 75 percent of the workforce will be millennials and generation Z. And of course, all humans want to feel like they're making a positive difference in the world, but it's, it's particularly true of the younger generations that they do not tolerate a big gap between their own sense of what a positive impact would be, and then the organizations that they're working for. So this is no longer a niche issue for workforce. 75 percent is a fairly big chunk. And if you want to attract and retain that talent, you're going to have to not just have a snazzy slogan, but it has to be true because, you know, your employees will see in a nanosecond if what you say is your purpose and then what you do is different and they'll call you out on it. They'll call you out publicly on it. Your clients and customers will be good to call you out on it and a whole lot of activist groups will call you out on it. So, it's no longer the case that organizations can manage their, message. It hasn't been for ages, but if they're trying to say, well, here's our purpose and here's what we're about and then that's not followed through in everything they do and how they do it, that's not a situation that will last for very long. So it's a really live topic. And of course there's a massive backlash, right? Let's not forget about that. There's a massive politicization and polarization of this debate in a way that's really unhelpful because I think the things that we've been talking about today are not political, they're common sense. Who doesn't want a world that is better for people and planets? It's a difficult one to argue against and it would be quite useful if business was able to do that in a way that was profitable. That just seems, you know, ideas Alex are kind of, first of all, ignored and then ridiculed and then accepted as common sense. I'm hoping we're at the end of the ridicule phase. There's still a fair bit of it around, but I'm hoping we're about to move into the, well, this is just common sense phase, and then we can all commit to working out how to actually make it true. So yeah, the context has shifted quite a lot, but I think it's now pretty clear that it's moving in this direction. The frameworks and the measurement and the metrics and the reporting is still in a relatively immature phase and that's painful, but it's evolving quite quickly. Investors are beginning or not just beginning actively looking at purpose and its impacts as a way of assessing investability. Employees are looking for it, customers and clients are looking for it. So yeah, it's evolved a lot in 10 years. And if I think about the next five years, I think it will evolve even more rapidly. I think the awareness of environmental and social challenges and the role of business in addressing some of them because no, you know, government can't do it alone, business can't do it alone, civil society can't do it alone. It can only get better if there is a sense of collaboration and collective endeavour to solve some of these challenges and business have a massive role to play.
Alex Willford: Looking ahead to the next five years, I guess we've had the pioneers, tackling some of the unknown questions. We're maybe moving into the early majority, early adopters. There's still a huge section of organizations who say purpose is great, but it's just, it's not going to work for us because X, Y, Z, we're different. Oh, that's not how we do things. What do you say to those organizations? Is that a valid argument? Is purpose only for a certain type of organization?
Sarah Gillard: Well, I mean, I would definitely say that purpose is for every typeof organization, but not every type of organization has the impact or ability to solve massive world challenges. So you have to scale how you talk about purpose to the organization that you're in. And when we think about it, we, we think it has to be inspiring. So it has to actually touch something inside people that makes them want to, to get involved. It has to be authentic. So it has to actually be related to what you do and it has to be practical. So it has to help people make decisions, make trade offs and make decisions. And we think that that's possible for every single organization, but setting a massively lofty goal, if you're a tiny organization that, makes a widget, there needs to be a connection between your business and what you say you're about.
Alex Willford: I mean, we found this ourselves as, you know, a 200 person consultancy we're all incredibly ambitious people trying to set a very lofty purpose statement and then realizing actually maybe we don't have the resources to deliver on that purpose statement. What's something that's a bit more realistic or something that we can actually turn the dial on.
Sarah Gillard: Yeah. Well, a huge amount of time and energy is spent on the words and they are important, but they're also not really important. What's important is the conversation that's happening inside the business that says, what are we really about? What do we care about? How do we want to show up?
How will we make decisions? What will guide us? What are we trying to achieve? How will we know that we're achieving it? That's really where the value is. And so, you know, the magic seven word sentence, important but not really important. What really is important is what's underneath it, and a common understanding of who are we and what we're trying to do.
Alex Willford: And that's where the real change lies. Because anyone can change the words that are up on the wall, but it's actually the nuts and bolts of the organization around that purpose statement that is where all of the complexity lies and I think is really what's driving some of that resistance from organizations when they're saying purpose isn't really for us. What they mean is, oh my god, that would mean we'd have to completely redefine our business model or redefine how we treat people or think about the systems within which we operate in a completely different way and that's really scary or that's just sounds really expensive. I don't know which one it is, but
Sarah Gillard: Well, it's both.
And honestly, and I say this totally aware that I'm talking to a consultant, it's why we're a charity. Because we can be super honest about that. And we are, you know, this is a multi year transformational journey that will require you to look at every single aspect of your organization. I think one of the challenges and, you know, is speaking to consultants who, who see that as well. One of the challenges that consultants have is it sounds like you're just pitching for a multi year gig. So I can understand there's a resistance to it because, you know, it's massive and it sounds expensive and it's both of those things, or it can be both of those things. And it's also true. So. I think there is something to listen to in the cynic that says that's not for us, we don't need to do that because businesses have to operate in the market in which they're in. And if you're two steps ahead of the market because you've seen this new paradigm and you're trying to rush to get there and you get there really fast and you've outpaced the market, you may not survive. And we've seen examples of organizations or leaders who've maybe gone too fast or too far and they haven't taken their stakeholders with them and they haven't really thought about how, given that we are currently in paradigm one and, and the financial markets and the rest of it work in this paradigm, how do we make sure that we're able to survive and transform? So my perhaps unhelpful advice is to be one and a half steps ahead of the market. So two steps is too far. One, I'd say is not far enough because this change is happening quick. So if you're not uncomfortable, if you're not moving uncomfortably fast, one and a half steps ahead of where the market is, you're probably going too slow, but that requires judgment.
But you know, that's the joy of business, right? That it's always about judgment.
Alex Willford: It's a real challenge that it's moving quick, but the process of doing it yourself is slow. So there's that precision factor of , it's almost like surfing, you know, trying to catch the wave at the perfect point. If you go too soon, you're just going to stop. If you go too late, you end up underwater.
Sarah Gillard: Exactly. And I think this is different to a normal kind of change program that businesses run that has got milestones and deadlines and deliverables. Because to do this properly, really every single person in your organization is going to need the time and space to think about it, and to talk about it, and work out what it means for them, and to challenge it, and to kick it around. And you can't shortcut that, or if you do, you end up just splatting posters everywhere with, here is our purpose, and here are our values, and here's the way that we've changed the bonus, so that, you know, which feels a bit, you know, formative and tends to breed cynicism. So if this isn't done in a way that creates true dialogue inside the organization and allows people to figure stuff out themselves and work out what it means to them, it's unlikely to have that transformative impact that we've been talking about that's needed. And it will be, it will be basically sticking a new slogan onto something that was designed for Paradigm One.
Alex Willford: I think that's touching on a really important point, which is kind of the role of brand in the purpose transformation. So is it a purpose led brand or is it a brand led purpose? And is it shouting louder, doing less, or is it doing more and kind of having that coherent story to tell?
Sarah Gillard: Well, 25 years in retail, Alex, I'm happy to talk about brand. So, I mean, obviously brand specifically for consumer facing organizations is hugely important, but I think what's becoming more and more evident is that brands survive or not based on their level of authenticity. And you can't manufacture authenticity. That's kind of the point of it. You know, it either is authentic or it isn't, and you can't disguise that. And if you want authenticity, then you really, really have to work out why you're here. Why is this brand here? Here, why does it have something that you think is important to say to the world? What is it rooted in? What's the origin story? And so, particularly for brands, you can't manufacture a purpose. You have to rediscover it. re articulate it, reframe it for a modern context. But you can't kind of think, well, what's hot right now? Great. Let's slap that purpose on our, on our brand and hope for the best in authenticity. You know, we're humans, right? You can smell it. It's an instinctive thing. And it's so, yeah, I think, again, I think that's why there's such a lot of interest around this because it's a really powerful ingredient that you can't manufacture.
Alex Willford: It's generally people's instinct to start there, to start with the story and the brand and the external positioning and internal positioning to a degree.
Is that a good place to start or is it better to start to look elsewhere first?
Sarah Gillard: So I can talk about my lived experience. So I worked at the John Lewis Partnership and led the work to rediscover or re articulate its purpose so that it was relevant for the 21st century. And I began by looking at the founder's intent, basically. So, I mean, you know, I can, it's a whole other podcast talking about the John Lewis partnership and its story. But, you know, I went right back to the origins of, well, why was this organization started? What was the founder seeing and what was he trying to achieve? And then how has it evolved from, from there? And what we discovered, this is just from me, it was a whole massive kind of collective 18, 000 partners exploring this together. What we looked at was a man who was looking around early 20th century Britain, seeing massive inequality that was driven by a sort of unfettered capitalist drive and the pushback, which was the rise of communism. And so he saw this kind of social inequality driving political extremism and massive instability and saw business as a potential tool that could create better outcomes for all of those stakeholders so that it would harness the kind of innovation and energy of entrepreneurship and, and wealth generation. And it would ensure that the benefits of that wealth generation were spread across all of the stakeholders on whom the business relied. So that it was a kind of an organization focused on the society in which it was embedded. And that understanding and then how that evolved to create retail brands and blah, blah, blah, really helped shape the re articulation of what the John Lewis partnership was about. And then how that was manifesting in the brands and any future brands, including the bill to rent and financial services and a whole lot of other things. And so what I really saw was how that exploration uncovered new strategic possibilities that had been invisible before. It created a sense of cultural strength that had become a bit diluted. It had created a way of thinking about what success looked like, how to make decisions that had become very convoluted and confused. So it really created clarity and coherence. And then the brands take that and run with it. So, you know, it was definitely a understand your purpose first, and then the brands take that and create new things as a result. And then as a result, hopefully profit is an outcome. But it, it comes from a place of, well, this is going to sound, it comes from a place of love and inspiration, not a place of rational financial calculations. And as any good brand person knows, that's how you make brands, right?
Alex Willford: Yeah. Hopefully not through cynicism.
Sarah Gillard: No. Well, it might work for a bit.
Alex Willford: But I think that story articulates, I think, really neatly what some of the power of purpose is, is that you can look at the same component parts, the same world outside your organization through a slightly different lens, because you're now, instead of a, how do I profit the most from these component parts and the world outside us? It's, okay, let's look at it through the lens of a challenge or making the world a better place. And you're seeing suddenly, maybe different stakeholders, different customer groups, different product opportunities, different ways to create value and different needs that have not been met properly. And it's just, it is just an innovation machine.
Sarah Gillard: And it's why it's so exciting. I think when people first hear about purpose often, they kind of go, oh God, what does it mean that we need to stop doing? And it becomes a kind of filter or a restriction. And actually what we see is the opposite. During this exploration, the question is what becomes possible? And like you say, the level of innovation and energy and what is unlocked that was invisible before, let alone accessible, just this kind of huge surge of possibilities come into view that weren't there before. And again, when you're thinking about what drives business and what drives people inside business, it tends to be opportunity and what's next rather than what's the minimum we need to do or what's the restriction that we have to abide by or what does this mean that we could stop doing that. That creates a flaw which might be useful to avoid free riding but it doesn't create the energy and the innovation that actually powers business and that's why I think that purpose has got so much to offer. Not just society and not just individuals, but business itself. It is a driver, not a filter.
Alex Willford: One of my favorite moments from the last few months of work has been running a workshop on purpose with a client and seeing one of their directors put his hand on his head and just go, Oh my God, we've been thinking about this all wrong. This is the way, like this just makes complete sense. And just seeing someone's have a brainwave because he's spotted an idea or a potential or some new way that they can engage people in a different way to before, it just, it's was incredibly powerful.
Sarah Gillard: Yeah. It's joyful, isn't it?
Alex Willford: It is joyful. Yeah. It's just, it's energy. You really feel the energy of people suddenly seeing a world of possibility.
Sarah Gillard: Yeah. And I think, I mean, I'm going to put words in your mouth now, but one of the explorations that we as a charity have been doing is what's the role of consultancy in this liminal space, in this transitional space? And consultants attract brilliant people with extraordinary brains and skills and expertise. And the opportunity to use that brilliance in service of unlocking for their clients and the customers in service of a better world. I mean, you know, you sounded pretty excited being at that meeting, Alex. So I imagine that was a fulfilling experience.
Alex Willford: It certainly was. Yeah. It's incredibly exciting. I think it's always a challenge being a consultancy because there's an expectation that we are trying to ourselves profit, maximize from any given interaction with a client. And it's a difficult, there's a tension in being or trying to become a purpose led consultancy, but it's one that we're, we're trying to navigate at the moment.
Sarah Gillard: And I would say it's entirely possible, right? That's our whole thesis is if your core purpose is about creating better outcomes for people and planet, and you're respecting human dignity, and you're a commercial enterprise, you should be able to make, good returns as a result, because you're doing something that's genuinely useful to your stakeholders and fulfilling to your employees. So, yeah, I'm excited that that's a question that you're engaging with. And I think many, many professional services organizations are engaging with the same question. What role do we have in not just fulfilling our clients demands, but actively shaping a better world, partnering with our clients to do so?
Alex Willford: It's almost like you've taken our purpose statement.
Sarah Gillard: Oh! There you go!
Alex Willford: On that note, I think we're approaching the end of our podcast. Wanted to cover some key takeaways before we do finish. So, some practical things that anyone can either think about or go and do or read to understand more, get involved. So, what advice would you give to are going to give a few different like personas and characters. But for example, someone who's desperate to progress this within their organization, they are really energized by it, but they just don't feel like they have any power to make any change. What would your advice be to someone like that?
Sarah Gillard: Well, I guess the first thing is find your allies. We speak to a lot of people who are trying to do this work inside the organisation and they feel really lonely because they are trying to create change and they don't know who else believes in this sort of change and they might have come from a particular function and they feel, well, goodness, I'm talking about full scale transformation and I only know strategy or HR or finance or brand or comms or whatever, or sustainability. How do I begin to grapple with this? So, um, I think the first thing to do is, is find allies inside and outside the organization. And there are loads of people. Most humans care about this stuff. So giving people an opportunity to begin to talk about this reveals. All of the potential allies that are out there that can begin to build the conversation inside your business about, you know, what do you collectively see? And actually that building energy means that you don't need positional power because those in positions of power will notice that something is building here and become intrigued about it. So I think definitely find your allies.
I think a lot of people, like I said, feel a lack of, I don't know if credibility is the right word, but they're like, this is so big, where the hell do I start? And I don't know. So, I mean, I would say this, wouldn't I? Blueprint for Better Business has a website, blueprintforbusiness.org, that has a sort of encapsulation of everything we've learned about this in the past 10 to 15 years. It's called the Knowledge Base. It's free to access. You just go on. It's sort of written like a book, so it takes you know, a while to go through it, but it's just a huge amount of resources. And when I first discovered it, I was like, well, God, this would have saved me like six years of books and TED talks and articles and conferences and trying to figure it out myself. This would just, this would have been a quicker way to get there. So if you're looking for a place to start, then that's a great resource. And there are lots of communities out there. We run a community practice. There are loads out there. So look on LinkedIn, just of people inside businesses who are trying to begin this shift. And it's a growing movement. So you're not alone. Everybody feels lacking initially in confidence and capability and connections, but there are thousands of people out there. Find your people.
Alex Willford: And that's the purpose and practice community that you mentioned, isn't it?
Sarah Gillard: Yeah, that's right. So it's a community of practitioners. So people inside typically big businesses who are trying to change their organization to become purpose led. Either they've got an official mandate to do so, it's in their job title, or they've been, you know, given a project, or they can see the opportunity and are in a position to do something about it. So yeah, it's a purpose and practice community and get in touch if you're interested.
Alex Willford: On the flip side, what would you say to someone who's, who's deeply skeptical, who is firmly in paradigm one, firmly in the kind of shareholder value model, who doesn't think this is the future?
Sarah Gillard: Well, you know, I, I don't wanna demonize those people. I think, I think the need to keep the lights on is a really important one, and we should recognize that there's a really valid that's a really valid response as we actually do need to just focus on profit, and our shareholders.
I'd probably invite them to explore the views inside the organization. Often there are people inside the business who are seeing something different, and I think trying to create a safe space where they can just listen to others views and ask some open questions to explore alternative points of view and potentially maybe some of what their clients think. And to engage with some people outside the business, even within the same sector, to see if they're seeing the same thing.
And also to think about the context in which business is operating in. I mean, this is a massive generalization, but broadly in Western economies, it's been relatively stable socially, environmentally, politically, and economically. . I mean, the blip's, relatively stable. If you look ahead and, you look at the environmental crisis and what that's going to do to raw materials, to natural resources, to populations, to migration, to politics, to economies, to supply chains, there is a huge amount of disruption coming. And it's unlikely that what has got you here is gonna get you survive what's coming next. So even if you don't feel able to lead the change, be curious about what's happening and maybe your legacy might be to create the environment where others are able to lead that change. That is a massive shift. If you went to business school 30 years ago and you spent 30 years in a business environment that's really just celebrated the kind of financially driven view of the world, it's a massive shift to begin to engage in something else. But recognizing that something else might be coming and allowing it to emerge, I think is also a really valid response.
Alex Willford: 100%, and finally, I think we've touched on this a couple of times. It feels enormous. It is a big change. Where do you start? What's the first step?
Small changes, big impact: Start where you are
Sarah Gillard: Well, I'm going to use my favorite quote from Arthur Ashe.
Alex Willford: I was hoping you might. Your catchphrase.
Sarah Gillard: Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. Arthur Ashe was the original person who said that and I just love it because it really grounds it in reality. So this is huge and it can feel overwhelming and it does feel nerve wracking and courageous and all the things that we've talked about. And there are things that you can do today so you can begin looking at the business that you're in today and the clients that you have today and the people that you interact with today and thinking well, if I just take those two ideas I talked about at the beginning, the common good and the dignity of people. How are we thinking about those two things inside this business? And what are the changes that I can begin to make individually that begin to bring awareness to those two things? You know, even if it's just beginning to talk about, the impacts that we have on people, how it is that we can create the conditions for people to flourish, how is it that we really are serving societal needs? Can we do more of that? There don't need to be huge changes to begin with, but just bringing awareness and conversations to it means that you're lighting a bit of a beacon that others will see and then they'll begin to gather and movements begin.
Another quote for you here again, Margaret Mead. She said, never underestimate the power of a few people to change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has. So. No one has no power.
Alex Willford: Powerful stuff to end on. That is all we've got time for today. Thank you for an incredibly insightful conversation. I feel like we could have spoken about this all day, so it's good that we've been limited to an hour. I'm sure we will be releasing more on the topic of purpose. If you do want to get in touch with us in the meantime, you can find both of us on LinkedIn or clarasys at clarasys.com and Blueprint at, is it blueprintforbusiness.org?
Sarah Gillard: That's right. Yeah.
Alex Willford: Perfect. All right. Thank you very much, Sarah.
Sarah Gillard: Thank you for the invite.
READ: What is PAS 808 and why does it matter?
READ: Purpose-led strategy: What is it, and how do you deliver on it?
LISTEN: How to create a purpose-led strategy - PODCAST