Aligning Purposeful Work with Company Mission

Innovation for the sake of innovation is boring. True innovation when you can build products with purpose and impact. Building purposeful products that address the toughest social impact challenges in the world is hard but can be the most interesting to Product Managers who love solving tough problems. They also set themselves apart from the rest. 📣 How can PMs differentiate themselves as purposeful PMs? ➡️ Deeply engage with your customers to understand their needs, challenges, and aspirations. Understand the context they live in and the broader social impact needs of the community. ➡️ Ensure your product goals align with broader social impacts. Consider how your product can contribute to societal well-being. ➡️ Design for diversity by making sure your products are accessible and usable by people of all backgrounds and abilities. ➡️Go beyond traditional metrics and measure impact. Evaluate the social and environmental impact of your products alongside business performance. ➡️ Work closely with teams across the organization to integrate purpose into every aspect of the product lifecycle. ➡️ Continuously learn about new technologies and methodologies that can enhance your product's positive impact. ➡️ Champion ethical practices in product development, from data privacy to fair labor practices, ensuring integrity in your process. ➡️ Foster a culture of purpose across the team to embrace a purpose-driven mindset, making it a core part of your company culture and daily operations. ➡️ Build relationships with communities and stakeholders to understand their perspectives and incorporate their feedback into your product development. ➡️ Promote sustainable development by creating products that contribute to environmental sustainability, reducing waste, and promoting responsible use of resources. ➡️ Incorporate long-term thinking by assessing the long-term impact of your products, considering how they will evolve and continue to provide value over time for your customers, business, and the communities we operate in. #productmanagement #purposefulproductmanagement #socialinnovation #productleadership

OpenAI is an incredible case study for the importance of alignment. In just five days, OpenAI faced a whirlwind of events: the firing, replacement, and eventual rehiring of their CEO, Sam Altman. Board members influential in the CEO's ousting were also removed after a workforce petition threatened mass departure. Despite the spectacle, there's a valuable lesson for organizations – the risk of misalignment can cripple an organization. While your company might not experience OpenAI's extremes, misalignment's impact on business performance is real. Companies most often grapple with misalignment at lower levels, affecting focus and productivity. The risk of failing to implement strategic plans and achieve business goals looms large. To mitigate this risk, consider these practices: Bring Your 'North Star' to Life: While many companies have a Vision and Mission statement, these often remain confined to websites and lack daily relevance. Now more than ever, employees seek meaningful work aligned with their personal values. Having all leaders able to regularly and authentically articulate the company's purpose is crucial. This is one area of focus that separates great companies from all others. Create a Operating System that Enables Pace: Pace (achieving growth goals year over year) shouldn’t be set solely by executive ego. Pacing productivity challenges every organization. A clear methodology for setting measurable goals (both short and long term), eliminating distractions, and integrating total reward programs is vital. Goals should be achievable yet challenging and most important, employees need to believe the goals are possible to achieve. Emphasize Director Support: The Director level is pivotal for strong alignment in the organization. This level has the challenge of balancing strategic focus (company priorities from the top) and operational execution (daily challenges from the bottom). Properly supporting directors accelerates overall workforce performance and engagement. Manage Performance and Culture Together: Performance and culture are intricately linked. Recognize the value of human capital, as highlighted by Satya Nadella during the OpenAI crisis. Understanding and harnessing the power of alignment in your company will pave the way for sustainable success. OpenAI's tumultuous experience underscores the importance of alignment in achieving organizational goals. By bringing purpose to life, establishing a productive operating system, supporting key leaders, and recognizing the nexus between performance and culture, companies can navigate the challenges of misalignment and strive for lasting success.

Building a security program without being aligned with the business occurs when teams get disconnected and start operating outside the context of the business goals. It’s like a ship navigating without GPS - it might be moving, just not necessarily in the right direction. Understanding where to focus your efforts means understanding what will drive the outcomes that make the most meaningful impact to our business’s goals. 1️⃣ Learn how the business’s goals map to the work of other leaders across the company. Business-wide goals rarely map directly to security efforts. “Prevent hacking” isn’t likely to be a business goal anymore than “Ensure employees get paid” or “Make sure the logout button works”. As a leader, you’re expected to take company-wide goals, your knowledge of the security domain and the context of the business and operations to synthesize them into a strategic plan. 2️⃣ Educate others on the importance of resilience to business goals. A narrow view of “security” doesn’t cut it anymore. We need to ensure resilient systems, able to adapt to failures regardless of whether they’re from security incidents or something else. Kelly Shortridge has done tons of amazing writing on this topic. The shift involves adopting a holistic perspective that encompasses the interactions between the systems that make up the entire organization. 3️⃣ The bread and butter - Risk assessments and threat modeling. Based on what you learn about how the goals relate to the various systems, processes and work, you have a higher fidelity feed for whatever framework you use to assess the risks to those goals, how they might happen and how you can reduce their impact. 4️⃣ Mapping to projects and efforts - You’ve learned the goals, how they map to work and priorities, and you’ve thought through how they could break or fail. Now’s the time to translate it into your strategy and plans. Look for ways to address upstream root causes and don’t fall into the trap of attending to symptoms. What are the leading indicators of success and how will you move them? 🔁 Repeat! Incentivize ongoing communication and circular, free flowing feedback between the security team and other parts of the business as a top priority. Alignment is a continuous process, not an endpoint. Teams need to always be considering what they’re building, how they build it and why in the context of the business at large. An aligned security program is not just a set of generic best practices but a tailored strategy that best supports key business goals. ❓ How do you keep your teams aligned with business goals?

Last week, my team here at Google came together in NYC to plan for FY 2024. We had a productive end of year offsite and a topic surfaced that has been top-of-mind for me recently — purpose before action. 💭 Previously, I wrote about embracing progress over perfection, so it’s important to note that there is a difference between paralysis by perfectionism and intentional, often strategic, pauses to develop a purpose-driven approach. We operate in a world that often glorifies busyness and quick wins, so it’s easy to get caught up in hustling without a clear sense of direction. Intention makes all the difference, so start by assessing your current state of business and then focus on where you want to go. In my team’s offsite, we set clear business targets and priorities. Then moved to the how and who — execution and resources required. 📍Where We Are - Current State of Business Understanding our current position is the first step towards meaningful action. Embracing where we are and acknowledging our strengths, challenges & gaps sets the foundation for purposeful decision-making. This introspective step also aligns with our commitment to the new business targets and priorities — it’s about plotting our current state and moving forward from there. 🗺️ Where We Are Going - Business Targets & Priorities Purpose requires a destination. What are our long-term business goals, and how do they align with our mission and business objectives. Again, setting a clear vision isn’t about perfection — it’s about progress. Like the iterative mindset we championed at our offsite, finding purpose is an ongoing journey, not a fixed endpoint. 🎒What We Need - How & Who Identifying what the business & organization needs is a dynamic process, echoing the sentiment that “good enough” isn’t about settling — it means being realistic. Just as we emphasized at the offsite, perfection is often an obstacle to action. By understanding our needs, we empower ourselves to make impactful decisions while staying rooted in reality. By taking a moment to assess where we are, where we're going, and what we need, we pave the way for purposeful & progressive business actions. In a world that requires speed & adaptability, let’s move and be agile with intention. 🚀 #PurposeDriven #ProgressOverPerfection #Strategy #TeamOffsite #WomenInTech #WomenLeadership #DiverseLeadership #Leadership

🌟 Blog Alert: Discovering and Living by Your Company's Purpose - A Guide for Businesses 🌟 Understanding your company's purpose is not just a strategic advantage; it's the cornerstone of meaningful business operations in today’s world. In one of my latest #TheBlissBusinessPodcast by Zero Company Performance Marketing blogs, I offer a detailed guide for businesses on identifying and embodying their true purpose. But let's start with some actionable insights right here: 🌟 Identify What Drives You: Beyond profit, what impact do you want your business to have in the world? Start with your passions and values, and think about how they align with the needs of your customers and community. 🌟 Engage Your Team: A purpose-driven company thrives when its team is aligned. Share your vision and purpose with your employees, and invite them to contribute their thoughts. This collaboration can lead to a deeper, shared purpose that drives everyone forward. 🌟 Be Authentic: Your company’s purpose should be genuine and consistently reflected in your actions, decisions, and how you communicate. Authenticity attracts loyalty from both customers and employees. Why is this approach important? Companies rooted in a genuine purpose are more likely to attract top talent, engage customers on a deeper level, and achieve long-term success. For more insights and strategies on integrating your company’s purpose into your business model, explore my full blog here: https://lnkd.in/gNHPik7k I'd love to hear your thoughts or how you've implemented your company's purpose in your strategy. Let’s discuss below or feel free to share this post with others who might find it valuable. Together, let’s make business not just about profit, but about purpose. 🚀 #Purpose #Strategy #Leadership #Entrepreneurship #Growth

7 huge mistakes I see businesses make around their Mission, Vision, and Purpose. Unlocking brand trust and loyalty is a journey woven with the threads of your Mission, Vision, and Purpose. Think of it as an ethos compass guiding your brand's story—a tale that goes beyond mere business and inspires connection. Most companies understand the value, but they make these 7 common mistakes: 1. Clarity: Issue: Unclear or inconsistent purpose, mission, and vision leads to internal and external confusion. Solution: Clearly explain why the company exists, what it does, and its desired future. Use simple language and real examples. 2. Alignment with Values: Issue: If statements don't match the lived experience, it leads to inconsistencies that erode trust. Solution: Identify and express core values. Create authentic alignment and check in regularly with the team around them. 3. Stakeholder Involvement: Issue: Developing these statements in isolation without considering input from employees, customers, and other stakeholders can result in a lack of buy-in. Solution: Include employees and customers in the process. Use workshops and interviews for diverse perspectives. 4. Balancing Profit and Purpose: Issue: Only focusing primarily on profit without considering broader social or environmental impacts may lead to a perception of a lack of authenticity. Solution: Integrate social responsibility. Set goals for both profit and social/environmental impact. 5. Dynamic Statements: Issue: Static statements hinder adaptability; these need to be dynamic and shift when needed. Solution: Regularly update statements. Connect them to ongoing planning. Encourage adaptability in the organization. 6. Effective Communication: Issue: lack of consistent and clear communication around the purpose, mission, and vision to internal and external audiences can result in a lack of engagement. Solution: Plan how to communicate internally and externally. Use various channels. Encourage two-way communication for feedback. 7. Authenticity: Issue: If statements don't match actions, trust erodes. Solution: Align practices with values. Be transparent about challenges. Seek feedback for authenticity validation. Transforming your brand into a movement that can change the world begins with navigating the intricacies of Mission, Vision, and Purpose. It's not just about crafting a story; it's about igniting a spark that resonates, setting the stage for a brand that's not merely engaging but revolutionary. #sustainability #purposedriven #strategy #mission #vision #purpose #branding

When is leading an organization similar to being an artist? Despite all its challenges, leadership can also involve having some fun. After all, a leader's time is valuable, with many commitments vying for their attention. Finding our expression in how we lead should always be a priority. A 2016 interview/survey with 75 CEOs worldwide conducted by The River Group discovered that what these executives liked most about their jobs was the ability to be creative. Like artists, their creative expression was an important aspect of their work. The group was asked, “How do you leverage your role and the power of creative expression to align the leaders you need to help realize your vision and deliver results for your company?” From their responses and decades of combined research and experience, The River Group formed the following Five Guiding Principles for leaders: 1. Develop one strategic story that stirs emotion with your executive team   Leaders excel when they find a common vision or purpose with their people. Get them involved in the strategy-making process and allow them to augment and support your efforts. Find one story that everyone can get behind and promote.   2. Establish personal and team accountability and align incentives Align your leaders and their teams with the organization's mission, vision, values, and strategic initiatives. Let them define the goals for their team and how they will contribute to organizational success. This makes any strategic direction real and meaningful. 3. Design your organization for collaboration where it matters   The real business work is done horizontally across business functions in matrix-based organizations. This cross-functional collaboration is critical to executing strategy.   4. Remove leaders who are not the right fit; the sooner the better Nothing derails a vision, mission, or team alignment faster than people who don’t believe in it. Historically, leaders wait too long to make these hard calls. The fitness of every leadership team should be weighed annually to avoid carrying individuals unwilling to meet their commitments. 5. Manage politics and leverage the informal organization constructively Politics at work are inevitable; you can’t stop them. But, you can minimize them by identifying key influencers on the team and leveraging their informal networks. Work hard to understand the political dynamics and how they can be leveraged to support greater organizational alignment. Leadership will always be hard. We all know and expect this. It doesn’t mean you can’t find new and creative ways of dealing with longstanding issues. Find your artistic expression in what you do. If you’re given a blank canvas to work with, chances are good there are others looking to paint or draw along with you on it. #ceos #leadership #alignment #execution Get alignment with your leadership expression, check out my weekly tips at https://lnkd.in/gXpc_pyu  

CISOs spend a lot of time thinking about security. But great leaders think about this: 👇 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 The best leaders I have ever worked for focus their energy on building great teams. Then, they lead through their leaders. → Do you have the right leaders on your team? → Are they all on the same page about the mission, the values, goals, and expectations? → Do they lead their teams effectively? 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 Business leaders avoid operating in a silo. They form an awareness of what is going on across the company. They become in tune with the business. → What is your strategy to build cross-functional relationships? → How often do you speak? What do you talk about? → Would they support you with the board? → Would they give you candid push back? 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁/𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘀 Great leaders understand that incentives drive behavior. And if you want to accomplish important things, you have to align people's behavior to a clear set of goals. Short and long term. → How much should you pay your people? → What criteria should their bonuses be based? → Do the incentives encourage the right behavior? Or are their unintended consequences? → What if you want to make changes to the company approved plan? 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 Great leaders give their team something to get behind. They give them the "why" behind the what, they establish acceptable rules of behavior, and hold everyone accountable. → Do you have clear values? → Are they baked into processes like hiring, decision making, and performance reviews? → Does your whole team understand and buy in to those values? 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗳𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻/𝗚𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀 Great leaders harness the energy of a team to harness a worthy mission. The team becomes clear and focused. Their goals, align to the department goals, that align to the business goals. Teams that do this are nearly unstoppable. → Do you have clear goals? → Do individual goals support department goals? → Do department goals support the business's goals? → Does everyone know the goals? Could they pitch them to your boss? → Is everyone held accountable to the goals? #cybersecurity #busienss #leadership

You have a Management Operating System – do you know what it is? Is it effective? In today’s fast-paced business environment, an effective Management Operating System (#MOS) is no longer a luxury - it’s a necessity. As a leader aligning strategy with execution, ensuring enterprise-wide collaboration, and driving continual improvement are integral to success and can all be achieved through and effective MOS. To drive success, a leadership team needs to have the right conversations, at the right time, at the right level, to facilitate decisions based on the right information. So how do you put a system in place to achieve that? Here are the steps: 1)      Start with your purpose: As Simon Sinek states, you have to #startwithwhy. You can’t solve for what is important until you know where your organization is trying to achieve. 2)      Define what success looks like: use measurable objectives and key results (#OKRs). Define what success looks like for your organization in the current period. 3)      Identify your external requirements: every team has a set of external requirements that you don’t control.  Board meetings, your boss’s meetings, reporting to the street. What are the deliverables required to meet those deadlines? 4)      Identify your internal requirements: your team has its own requirements. A business has to focus on daily operations, contracts, employee engagement, 1 on 1 meetings, etc. 5)      Schedule your routine: build a meeting cadence to get alignment on your external and internal deliverables ahead of their due dates. Build reviews of your OKRs into those routine meetings to drive execution. 6)      Adjust the routine: your plan, do, check, act review of the routine will drive adjustment as you better understand and flush out additional deliverables. 7)      Tighten up your meeting hygiene to elevate performance: pre-meeting agendas with pre-reads, and post-meeting summaries with defined actions / decisions will drive efficiency among the team. 8)      Increase Accountability: have an action list that is tracked with due dates assigned that gets reviewed regularly with the team. #Leadership #ChiefOfStaff #Management #BusinessStrategy #ContinuousImprovement #OperationalExcellence #EmployeeEngagement #BusinessGrowth