Ep. 221: The Right Way To Align Your Team With Your Purpose

Sean: We're at a scale-up stage. We're not a startup. We're 10 years old, but we're trying to scale up to the enterprise level. We don't have VCs, we don't have investors. So the CEO and founder, but how do I share with the rest of my team that, "Hey, you know what if we don't have, and we don't uphold this purpose within us within all of us, this is what's gonna happen”? Minter: It's abstract until I actually have your purpose in my hands. But the general principle for anybody listening as an entrepreneur is to consider what is the purpose. And I prescribe the inside out model. And what is the inside out model? It means that the purpose that you have has to be personal and professional. So it's inside of you as the founder, the CEO, the entrepreneur, and it also then has to be inside your team, your core team. Your core team have to be your number one fan. So I want to get back to that in a moment, and then you need to make sure that that purpose is beneficial to them. It's not that cause being just the service mentality and making your customers happy is not enough. This is for me, the fault of Amazon. Amazon's mission or purpose is to be the Earth's most customer centric organization. And I think that's a fantastically ambitious idea. What's wrong with its making? Why could no one say it's wrong? It's making customers happy. And as a customer of Amazon, I'm generally very impressed by their service and the website and everything - fine. But as an employee of Amazon, what's it doing? Being the most customer centric company on this earth. Oh, that might be beneficial. When on a Saturday morning, I'm at home and I put in an, an, an order on Amazon and then it comes to me and it gives me great service and I'm happy. But what about the other five days when I'm at work? How has it made my life a better place? How's it making me a better person? So the inside out model has to resonate inside out and to go back to the point that I did, I just skipped over. I have a thing called a brand tattoo test. And the brand tattoo test is to what extent you and your inner team are prepared to have on their body, regardless of whether they actually liked tattoos. A tattoo, a piece of your skin that would have forever imprinted on it, a representation of your brand.  If you think through that, the reason why you would do it sort of obvious as an entrepreneur, why would somebody else want to do that? And the only way that happens is that what you are doing resonates inside because, you know, you might put the swish of Nike, you might put the think different of Apple. And you, I think different that I'll put some, an Apple on my body because I think different, I don't work for them, but I love that think different attitude. That is a value that's core to me, it makes me feel real and meaningful. And so it's a long-term idea because by the way, Sean got news for you, your employees will not work for you forever. Actually, you won't either. So this notion of permanence has to go beyond the end of your company or the end of their contract with you, because then it's a part of you. And so having that element that really has that permanence feeling, that's a great way to start thinking about why your company is important. And then obviously, you know, you, this is a, let's say somewhat abstract. I don't have a tattoo myself, but philosophically speaking. This is what you need to be thinking about. As you consider driving down your purpose and your values into your company. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack