In today’s business landscape, more and more organisations are defining success beyond profit. Government departments, not-for-profits and crucially, businesses are being led by a purpose, a clear...
How purpose-led organisations make an impact
4x the purchase intent
Customers are four times3 more likely to purchase from a purpose-driven company, and 4.1 times more likely to trust that company.
3x value for shareholders
Over a twenty-year period, purpose-driven companies provided 13.6% CAGR4 return on average, that’s 5 times the return for their shareholders than the S&P 500.
Outperform competitors
Purpose-led companies outperform their closest competitors by up to 14%5.
£149bn GDP boost
If all businesses were purpose-led, they would boost the UK economy by an estimated £149bn6, including up to a seven-fold increase in R&D expenditure.
How we can help
Aligning your organisational culture and purpose
A purpose-driven culture is one where employees feel a genuine connection to the company's mission and see how their work contributes to it. Without this cultural alignment, a purpose statement remains just words on a wall, failing to inspire or motivate. Our collaborative approach focuses on:
- Fostering shared belief: Working with your teams to translate the high-level purpose into a shared story and a set of behaviours that resonate with everyone.
This ensures the mission is understood and embraced from the ground up, not just dictated from the top down. - Rewarding new ways of working: We help you design governance frameworks, roles, and incentives that enable purpose-led decision making and collaboration.
Designing recognition programmes and communication strategies that reinforce what "good" looks like and encourages others to follow suit.
The outcome is an environment of high engagement and shared ownership, where people are motivated by a collective mission, leading to better collaboration and employee retention.
Transforming your organisation for impact
Your organisational structure can either enable or block your purpose. Rigid hierarchies, unclear roles, or cumbersome governance can create friction that prevents even the most motivated teams from making progress.
The operating model and organisation must be designed to support purpose-led action in order to create a resilient and adaptable organisational model where teams are empowered to make faster, better decisions that are always aligned with the overarching purpose.
Our collaborative approach focuses on:
- Designing for agility: Assessing your current organisational design to identify and remove bottlenecks.
This involves clarifying decision-making authority and shaping team structures that empower people to act with autonomy. - Defining purpose-led roles: Ensuring that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined in the context of the company's mission. This helps individuals understand their specific contribution and provides a clear line of sight from their tasks to the organisation's strategic goals.
This ensures that your teams are not only motivated by the mission but are also structurally enabled to deliver on it, creating a resilient and adaptable organisation capable of thriving in a changing environment.
Turning purpose into action
If your daily routines and operational frameworks don't reflect your purpose, it will never become a reality. Purpose must be embedded into the core processes that run the business, making it a practical guide for every action.
- Operationalise your mission: Integrate purpose-aligned criteria into your key business processes, from strategic planning and budgeting to product development and performance management.
For example, by ensuring project funding decisions are weighed against their contribution to the mission. - Equipping you for success: Develop practical tools, frameworks, and training that help employees apply a "purpose lens" to their everyday work and decision making.
- Measuring your impact: Create and implement systems for data collection and analysis, allowing you to demonstrate the tangible return on your purpose investments.
This commitment to measurement provides credibility, builds trust with stakeholders, and enables continuous improvement. - Embedding new ways of working: Establish the agile processes and governance that allow teams to experiment, learn, and scale new ideas quickly. This includes creating practical frameworks for evaluating opportunities based on their potential for mutual value.
Turn your purpose into a practical driver that guides choices at every level, transforming your mission from a statement into measurable, impactful results.
A purpose-driven culture is one where employees feel a genuine connection to the company's mission and see how their work contributes to it. Without this cultural alignment, a purpose statement remains just words on a wall, failing to inspire or motivate. Our collaborative approach focuses on:
- Fostering shared belief: Working with your teams to translate the high-level purpose into a shared story and a set of behaviours that resonate with everyone.
This ensures the mission is understood and embraced from the ground up, not just dictated from the top down. - Rewarding new ways of working: We help you design governance frameworks, roles, and incentives that enable purpose-led decision making and collaboration.
Designing recognition programmes and communication strategies that reinforce what "good" looks like and encourages others to follow suit.
The outcome is an environment of high engagement and shared ownership, where people are motivated by a collective mission, leading to better collaboration and employee retention.
Your organisational structure can either enable or block your purpose. Rigid hierarchies, unclear roles, or cumbersome governance can create friction that prevents even the most motivated teams from making progress.
The operating model and organisation must be designed to support purpose-led action in order to create a resilient and adaptable organisational model where teams are empowered to make faster, better decisions that are always aligned with the overarching purpose.
Our collaborative approach focuses on:
- Designing for agility: Assessing your current organisational design to identify and remove bottlenecks.
This involves clarifying decision-making authority and shaping team structures that empower people to act with autonomy. - Defining purpose-led roles: Ensuring that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined in the context of the company's mission. This helps individuals understand their specific contribution and provides a clear line of sight from their tasks to the organisation's strategic goals.
This ensures that your teams are not only motivated by the mission but are also structurally enabled to deliver on it, creating a resilient and adaptable organisation capable of thriving in a changing environment.
If your daily routines and operational frameworks don't reflect your purpose, it will never become a reality. Purpose must be embedded into the core processes that run the business, making it a practical guide for every action.
- Operationalise your mission: Integrate purpose-aligned criteria into your key business processes, from strategic planning and budgeting to product development and performance management.
For example, by ensuring project funding decisions are weighed against their contribution to the mission. - Equipping you for success: Develop practical tools, frameworks, and training that help employees apply a "purpose lens" to their everyday work and decision making.
- Measuring your impact: Create and implement systems for data collection and analysis, allowing you to demonstrate the tangible return on your purpose investments.
This commitment to measurement provides credibility, builds trust with stakeholders, and enables continuous improvement. - Embedding new ways of working: Establish the agile processes and governance that allow teams to experiment, learn, and scale new ideas quickly. This includes creating practical frameworks for evaluating opportunities based on their potential for mutual value.
Turn your purpose into a practical driver that guides choices at every level, transforming your mission from a statement into measurable, impactful results.
What our clients say
Discover how Clarasys co‑created a Theory of Change and measures for our client, aligning strategy to purpose and embedding impact into BAU.
Learn how Clarasys worked to unite leaders behind a five‑year vision, setting design principles and a high‑level Target Operating Model for Children’s Services.
Discover how employee and customer experience research led this global coffeehouse chain closer to achieving their sustainability goals on carbon, waste and water.
This guide explores what it means to become a truly purpose-led organisation and how to achieve it. We have developed a "purpose-led capability scorecard" diagnostic tool to assess your...
In a fast-moving and unpredictable economy, business leaders often face a stark choice. When sales dip or a sudden downturn hits, the traditional response is swift and singular: protect the bottom...
Meet the experts
Sam Maguire
Sam is a principal consultant who specialises in sustainability strategy and operating model design across multiple industries. He has particular expertise in sustainable business models and designing organisations to be more circular. Having previously worked for Clarasys for four years he rejoined in May 2021 to lead the development of our internal sustainability strategy and roadmap and the formation of our sustainability proposition. Outside of work Sam enjoys playing sport, cooking and being out on his bike.
