Excellence University Journal

Making Your Business AND Your Life More Profitable: The Purposeful Doing Movement

by Dr. Brian Higley

November 17th, 2007

As a business leader, psychologist, and educator, I am often amazed by what seems to me to be an epidemic of anxiety, dissatisfaction, disengagement, and depression in this culture.  From the boardrooms to the classrooms to the therapist’s chair, people seem to be continuously reporting feeling more overwhelmed (“work never seems to end”), less energetic (“I can’t seem to get out of bed without my morning coffee – sometimes two cups!”), and not very hopeful about the future (“oh, well, I guess that’s life – you learn to accept it”).   From time to time, I have felt these feelings myself as I attempt to maintain a satisfying business and personal life – and I’m considered in some circles to be an “expert” on how to run a more efficient business and live a happier life!  What is going on here?  After countless conversations with my colleagues, clients, and other experts in the field, I believe we may have come to a very important answer; one that can positively impact your business and – most importantly, I think – your life in very meaningful ways.  I want to begin this article with a discussion about what I call “The Purposeful Doing Movement.”

What is the Purposeful Doing Movement? The Purposeful Doing Movement is a movement of people interested in helping individuals and teams to get what they want out of their work and lives while also helping them to feel very good while pursuing these desires.  I’ve found (and maybe you have, too) that there is a widely-held myth that success and consistent well-being (or overall life satisfaction) cannot coincide with each other – that we must pick one or the other (for example: “you cannot run an extremely profitable business and be a comfortable, happy person at the same time”).  Many people have expressed to me a strong belief that one either consistently gets what one wants out of work and life OR feels consistently and authentically happy – and that these two things are often negatively correlated (as one becomes more successful, one must give up more and more of what makes them authentically happy: time with loved ones, leisure activities, evenings at home, and so on).

This is a very powerful myth.  Indeed, I’ve met many people who agree publicly that success and life satisfaction can occur together (and even some who teach others that it is possible) who do not actually live according to this stated belief.  They will tell others this is combination is possible, but privately, their lives are out of whack as they struggle to keep a healthy work and home life going.   I believe that popular book titles such as Only the Paranoid Survive and A Shark Never Sleeps might help to perpetuate this myth.  I sometimes offer counter-slogans like “Only the Purposeful Thrive” and “A Shark Never Gets to See His Son’s Baseball Games” to try to get across the difference between simply surviving vs. actually thriving in life.

Who Thrives (as Opposed to Simply Surviving in a “Paranoid” Way)? Our team has found that those who are able to pull off both a successful and extremely satisfied life tend to be what we call “Purposeful Doers.”  A Purposeful Doer strives to perform only the most important things in life – and to consistently decrease time and energy spent in activities that are not extremely critical (which can include some “important, but not critical” activities).  This means that the often tough work of prioritization is constantly necessary in order to thrive in business and in life.  Dropping priorities from one’s business and life as new ones enter our lists can be quite challenging – especially priorities that are deemed to be important sometimes.  A Purposeful Doer revisits his or her (or her team’s) most important objectives on a regular basis to identify what can be done more – and what ought to be done less.   I believe that this is a critical aspect of thriving in life.

Like many Excellence University associates, John Spence works with quite a few Fortune 500 companies.  In one of these companies, employees are often told “everything is a priority” – and are thus consistently given new priorities without being given the opportunity to drop less critical ones.  “Everything is a priority,” is, of course, a new way to do a very old thing: fail to prioritize – and this failure makes Purposeful Doing impossible.  In organizations with this mentality, all things are thought about as equally valuable.  Once again, this can set up a culture of “nothing is valuable” – because value is by nature relative.  Something is valuable because it has more value that something else – diamonds are currently viewed as more valuable than gold, gold more valuable than silver, etc. Stating that all metals are equally valuable makes diamonds, gold, and silver immediately lose their value – and makes them less desirable to many people previously interested in owning them.  Stating that all objectives are of equal priority can make the most important objectives seem less so – and can also de-motivate individuals from going after them as vigorously as they might otherwise.

This “everything is a priority” approach is thus a precursor to what I call the “Frenzied Mindset” – a mindset which we will address later in this article.  Purposeful Doing (the antidote to the Frenzied approach), on both an individual and team/organizational level, demands constant attention to priorities, consistent execution of those priorities, and consistent dropping of activities not strongly associated with the most important things.   In other words, a team must know what is considered a diamond so they can pursue more diamonds and waste less time on tin.  This is certainly not easy – and it takes time and energy to identify diamonds, gold, silver, and tin.  However, the rewards of Purposeful Doing and Purposeful Leadership are immense – and the ramifications of not doing so are often disastrous.  We will get to the benefits of Purposeful Doing next – and will also cover the fallout from failing to live and lead this way later in this article. 

What is the impact of Purposeful Doing? Why be a part of the Purposeful Doing Movement (as either a leader, an individual, or both)?   The short answer is that we have seen this approach drastically and positively change people’s businesses and lives in tremendously positive ways (including our own).  It has been our experience that the few people who commit to Purposeful Doing not only achieve their objectives in more quality ways, they also report feeling better about their lives as a whole and to have more satisfied work forces.  Books by such authors as Stephen Covey, Jim Collins, and others who write about success and satisfaction seem to align with this view.  Purposeful Leaders have a large positive impact on the lives of people who follow them.  For those of you who are sports fans, Coach Tony Dungy and the Indianapolis Colts are a great example of this principle.

Last year, the Indianapolis Colts were having a typical regular season in  the National Football League – outstanding offense (led by All-NFL quarterback Peyton Manning) making up for a very poor defense (last in the league in some categories).  As many of you may remember, the defense suddenly became incredibly effective in the playoffs – often outperforming its offense and leading the team to its first championship in decades.  When Coach Dungy was asked by the press to explain this sudden change in defensive effectiveness, his answer was very meaningful, I think.  He said that he believed that the team was doing too many things on defense during the regular season and needed to stop doing so many things in order to focus on doing fewer things better in the playoffs.  This strategy struck me as the essence of Purposeful Leadership — and the results (a championship team that really seemed to enjoy each other and their jobs better) were indicative of a team that bought into this approach.

Another interesting effect of Purposeful Leadership that may be important to mention: Many people associated with these Purposeful Leaders — like Coach Dungy — tend to want stay with them for long periods of time, often even declining larger paychecks to continue to experience the culture that these leaders bring about (what I sometimes refer to as a “Culture of Sanity” in a world that can seem very frenzied).  Some might say that these employees profit less by giving up larger paychecks to stay with these Purposeful Leaders – but I beg to differ (strongly).  In order to explain this disagreement, it seems important to get back to the definition of words like “profit” and a word that seems strongly associated with profit: “wealth.”

How do you define “wealth” and “profit?” Although this may sound like a silly question at first, many might be surprised that wealth was originally defined as “the possession of well-being” (I know I was).  Many great individuals across the years, from Benjamin Franklin to such authors as Napoleon Hill (in his classic Think and Grow Rich), to many popular modern authors have spoken of multiple sources of wealth (including health, love, friendship, piece of mind, ability to do what one wants to do, etc.).  Of course, in our current culture, we often define wealth (and, thus how to profit) exclusively through a financial lens.   Indeed, it has gotten to the point where we often say someone is “doing well” if he or she is earning a large paycheck or that someone is “worth a lot” if they have a lot of money in the bank.  On the other hand, I think we all know people who sacrifice their “possession of well-being” for large paychecks or big bank accounts – and are really not doing very well at all.  Could this narrow view of profit and wealth be why we are the richest (financially) nation on earth and still experience the epidemics I mentioned above (anxiety, dissatisfaction, depression) – epidemics that are hurting our collective wealth?

When one considers the definition of wealth identified above (“the possession of well being”), the limitation of thinking about profit as simply financial profit becomes obvious.  To attempt to get this point across, I often ask people this question: “If you considered wealth and profit to be about enhanced well-being – that is, you profited most from enhancing your well-being and providing others with the opportunity to do the same –  how profitable were you (or was your business) this past month?”  More often than not, I get the answer: “Not as much as I would have liked” – even from those who experienced significant financial profit (“Yeah, I made a lot of money, but I didn’t see my kids and I can’t do this at this rate much longer – I need a long vacation!.” or “We did well, but I really don’t enjoy going to work everyday.”).

I think Purposeful Leaders often pay attention to profit as it relates to its original definition (well-being) more often than other leaders.  They seem to me to be concerned about the creation wealth and profit not only in the financial realm, but also in the other critical areas listed above (especially in relation to a Culture of Sanity).  In his classic book Good to Great, Jim Collins describes financial profit as similar to blood in the body.  Certainly blood is important to life – without it, we cannot live – but can you imagine being completely obsessed with your blood pressure while paying no attention to other aspects of your life?  That may be a good metaphor for those who are centrally focused on financial profit alone – often to the detriment of one’s (and one’s team’s) overall wealth.

I think all of the information above begs the question, “who in their right minds would not want to be a part of the Purposeful Doing Movement?”  We think no one – most leaders actually tell us that this way of leading and living is probably the best way to do things – but could it be that most of us are NOT in our right minds most of the time?  Is it possible that we are too obsessed with our team’s “blood pressure” (or financial profit) too frequently rather than creating robust profit and wealth (including finances, but not limited to that form of profit)?  Read on if you would like an answer to that important question.

If Purposeful Doing is so great, why is the “movement” so small right now? This is a great question – and one that is constantly on my mind as I interact with hundreds of people a week who are pursuing their individual and business goals.  I think the answer is similar to the answers that many people give for why they do not do a lot of the things that they “know” would be good for them (such as exercise, more rest, a better diet, more time with loved ones, etc.).  This question interested me so much that it was actually the topic of both my Masters Thesis and my Doctoral Dissertation while pursuing my Ph.D. at the University of Florida.  What our research team found was that the difference between those who did things that they knew were good for them and those who simply “wished” they did these things came down to the 5 critical factors listed below (accompanied by quotes to explain how I believe these items may work against a Purposeful Doing habit):

1. Perception of enough time to do the most valuable things in life (“I don’t have the time to be more purposeful – I’ve got a business to run!”)
2. Motivation to do these activities (“I don’t want to prioritize – I get paid to get things done, not think about what is most important.”)
3. Accessibility to the necessary materials and training (“I don’t know how to prioritize well – my life is very overwhelming and I do not know an effective way of dealing with this issue!”)
4. Enjoyment of the process of achievement (“I hate thinking about these kinds of priorities – I’d rather just start doing something!”)
5. Social support for consistently doing the most important things (“I’d love to do this, but my boss/friends/family think it’s a waste of time.  If I told them that I spent an afternoon each month thinking about my team’s priorities they’d laugh at – or kill – me.  Then, they’d ask me to get busy again.”)

What we’ve found is that, unfortunately, we all frequently have these factors working against us when it comes to making the commitment to a more Purposeful team, business, and/or life.  Unfortunately, these challenges set us all up to experience a condition that I call “Frenzy-holism.”  Read on for the symptoms associated with this all-too-common condition (and barrier to Purposeful Doing).

What are the symptoms of the “Frenzy-holic?” Before I go on it might be valuable to say that I am going to discuss this condition as someone who experiences it himself from time-to-time – which makes judgment of the condition impossible.  The Frenzy-holic struggles with Purposeful Doing (much like the alcoholic struggles with being sober) not because he does not agree with consistently doing the most important things (and consistently decreasing time spent in less important things), but because he is currently (and for a variety of reasons – 5 of which are mentioned above) addicted to the Frenzied lifestyle.  What are the major symptoms of Frenzyholic?  Here are some our team has observed over the years (in ourselves and others) – see what you think:

• He or she is preoccupied with constant activity and/or work (making reflection about what is most important very difficult – sometimes even painful).
• He or she feels compelled to spend longer and longer periods of time doing things (regardless of how important they are) in order to feel satisfied.
• He or she has made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop this constant activity level (and may have trouble “shutting off” his or her mind at the end of the day).
• He or she is restless, moody, depressed, fearful or irritable when not doing something (or when asked to take some significant time to reflect on what it most important).
• He or she repeatedly stays at work (or works at home) longer than he or she originally planned to.
• He or she consistently jeopardizes or risks the loss of personal happiness, health and/or significant relationships because of work or the inability to “slow down.”
• He or she has lied to family members and/or loved ones about work or about spending more time with them “when things slow down.”
• He or she uses constant activity or work as a way of escaping from problems, relieving an unpleasant mood (such as feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or depression), or getting out of reflecting on what is most important (and what is less important).

It’s been my experience that a huge challenge to Purposeful Doing is the fact that (like many alcoholics) many of us are proud of being Frenzied.  Like many alcoholics are proud of how much alcohol they can consume without passing out, many of us will respond to those who accuse us of being too busy by saying something like, “I know, I know, I’m just not happy if I’m not doing something all the time,” or “I should cut back – maybe next year” (I’ve certainly been guilty of this).  All the while, feeling as though our ability to “take” this sort of lifestyle makes us better leaders or people.  To combat this proud (but, perhaps, mistaken) response to Frenzy-holism, I think it could be important to make clear the “fallout” of Frenzied Leadership – if you are interested in knowing more about the often catastrophic effects of Frenzied leading and living, please read on.

What is the fallout from Frenzied Leadership? Very often, the Frenzied Leader leaves quite a bit of carnage in his or her wake – both professional and personal wreckage.  Those who are working with or for the Frenzied Doer often experience what scientists call the “stress contagion effect,” or feeling as though another person’s problems are their own problems.  Thus, the frenzied doer spreads the effects of this lifestyle to employees, co-workers, friends, and family members – creating great strain on their businesses, their co-workers, and their loved ones.

Another frequent effect of Frenzied Leadership (and living) that we’ve observed is what Dr. Martin Seligman refers to as “Learned Helplessness.”  Members of Frenzied Teams know that if they complete one task, five more will be assigned to them as soon as they are done.  Eventually, one learns that one is helpless in the face of this Frenzied Onslaught – and this learning often leads to anxiety, depression, and – eventually – giving up.  The Frenzied Leader may eventually experience the same feelings – because everything is a priority there is a never-ending pile of work on their desks and no “light at the end of the work tunnel.”  There is thus no way feel that one can win – and the only way out is to check out emotionally (stop caring) or to leave the job in search of a more sane culture.  Not great choices, but often the only ones that people feel they have under Frenzied Leadership.  Obviously, the costs of Frenzied Leadership are not something to take pride in – knowing how much pain this leadership (and life-) style causes is often motivation to begin a commitment to increased levels of Purposeful Doing.

How can you become part of the Purposeful Doing Movement? If becoming more Purposeful sounds like a good idea to you, here are what we have found to be the 6 steps toward increased Purposeful Doing levels in your business and your life.  It is probably important to note that, like almost all aspects of meaningful and long-lasting change, these steps can sound simple – but they are not easy to complete consistently over the “long haul.”  In fact, because most systems are set up to promote Frenzy-holism, we have found that if teams and individuals do not commit to a systematic approach to implementing these steps, they are already setting themselves up for failure.  Descriptions of each step toward Purposeful Doing are below, along with some pointers on how to implement them:

1. Consistently assess Purposeful Doing levels – in truly valid ways. To enhance team-wide Purposeful Doing, it is essential that leaders have some kind of mechanism of validly assessing how many components of Purposeful Doing their team has in their favor at this moment in time.  It should be noted that asking people face-to-face is often a very invalid way of assessing this (most employees are more motivated to say what they think the leader wants to hear rather than what they think – and many are suffering from Frenzy-holism anyway, so they are often poor judges!).  We’ve found that the best way to check this is by asking people what their top 1-5 priorities are – and seeing how well they match up others’ ideas of what the team’s top priorities are.  Due to team’s (ever present) perceived time constraints, we’ve found it is best to do this in an online fashion with various checks to help ensure higher levels of validity for our employees (and the clients that we serve).  For a sample of how we assess how well a team is structured for Purposeful Doing, feel free to click here.
2. Identify what it is you and your team would like to do in the next 3-12 months, how you would like to do it, when you would like it done, and who is in charge of what. Consistent clarification of your team’s most important initiatives (and thus its less important ones) is the first step to getting your entire team moving toward delivering them.  I think it may be helpful to note that, due to the inevitable changes that teams encounter throughout the year, this clarification must happen on a regular basis throughout the entire year (as opposed to simply 1-2 times).  It has been our experience that this process includes 4 major steps:
   • A) Identification of clear objectives that are the most urgent and/or important to your team (or, “Primary Objectives”), such as “Increase financial profits by 10% this quarter” or “Promote a culture of excellence and satisfaction throughout the team,” or “Recruit and train the best people.”  As indicated above, this process also automatically identified objectives that are less important than Primary Objectives.
   • B) Promotion of a consensus throughout the team about the order of priority of each of your team’s Primary Objectives.  Once again, we have found that online voting mechanisms are often effective here.
   • C) Creation and prioritization of the SMART Goals that you believe will help you fulfill (and track) each of your team’s Primary Objectives.  Similar to the process of prioritizing Primary Objectives, we have found that it is often helpful to prioritize these SMART Goals in order of their priority to their respective objective (most important/powerful SMART Goals first).  At the end of this step, not only will your team have a good idea about which team objectives are most important, they will also be clear about which SMART Goals are most valuable as well.  The team is now structured for Purposeful Doing – only one more step is needed in this process.
   • D) Distribution of these SMART Goals to the “right people” (those who are most likely to achieve them in quality ways and be excited about pursuing and achieving them).  The most high performance teams that we have encountered know the value of giving goals to people who are show passion and excellence for the goals that they are responsible for delivering on.
3. Monitor the barriers to SMART Goal progress- and consistently create solutions to overcome these barriers. After developing and distributing SMART Goals aligned with a team’s Primary Objectives, it is essential to monitor the progress or these goals regularly – which allows leaders to quickly identify any goal barriers that may arise and quickly begin strategizing to overcome these barriers (rather than waiting until the end of the quarter – or, even worse – the year to identify problems).  We’ve found that most leaders report feeling as though they do not have the time to consistently monitor all of their employees’ progress on a regular basis.  In order to overcome this barrier, we monitor our goal progress and major barriers to progress in an online fashion (usually takes our team between 10-15 minutes, two times per month to report).  Regardless of how a leader decides to do this, it is essential to consistently know the achievement status of your entire team’s Primary Objectives and each objective’s most critical SMART Goals via a mechanism that is easy to understand and convenient to use for all parties.  This allows a leader and team to address major barriers to accomplishing their Primary Objectives before they become major problems for the team.
4. Break silos by strengthening consensus. Primary Objective and SMART Goal development, prioritization, and tracking is a great way to encourage getting things done consistently.  However, “just doing it” often isn’t enough in today’s competitive marketplace – your team must work together (often with other teams or organizations) to execute at a level of quality that is satisfying to you, each other, and your clients.  We’ve found that two critical steps in this process are: (1) coming to an understanding with your team members on a common definition for quality execution and (2) increasing the probability that team members will work together in order to deliver that quality consistently.  It is very important to create and maintain a consensus about what it means to execute in ways that promote sustained organizational excellence and success – and how each team will benefit from other team’s success (one of the best ways to promote silos is to have teams believe that another teammate’s success is not in their best interests – and many systems are set up to promote this belief).  Our team uses a 10-item scorecard (based on the 10 characteristics that we believe are associated with “ideal teammates”, including ability to create effective SMART Goals and overcome barriers to their completion).  This scorecard allow us to get on the same page in about 15-30 minutes, once per month – which brings up another critical point: the need for consensus must be balanced with the need for an efficient way to bring this agreement about.  We have found (and this is probably not a revelation to any of you) that this consensus-building mechanism must be efficient or else it will not be used regularly enough to maintain its effects.  On the other hand, we’ve found that failing to have such a consensus-building mechanism regularly in play also makes Purposeful Doing on a team-wide basis nearly impossible.
5. Promote accountability and cooperation through effective, customized, consistent reward systems. After working hard to create objective, goal, and quality clarity, we have found that all of this time and effort can go to waste without an effective, consistent reward system.  Effectively rewarding both quality execution and cooperation is an absolute must in high performance teams (and lives) – both to encourage success and to retain your most talented and effective employees.  To do this well, I believe it is necessary to return to the original (and so often misinterpreted) definition of a “reward”: something that actually increases desired behaviors after it is given distributed.  In today’s business world, too many “reward” systems are not living up to that definition!  Identifying and implementing effective rewards that are customized to powerfully impact every individual’s behavior on a regular basis is a necessity for Purposeful Doing.  Effective, consistent reward systems help to increase and maintain quality levels of execution throughout the year – not just around “bonus time” or when being evaluated.  Once again, due to time constraints most of our rewarding (including the identification of meaningful rewards to our team members, the distribution of rewards to those who earned them, and tracking how effective those rewards truly are)is done in an online fashion.
6. Train team members to be personally effective and in charge of their own job (and life) satisfaction. If you are like most leaders we know, you probably have some people on your team (or in your life) who seem “lazy” or “unmotivated” – no matter what you try to do to motivate them.  Although it seems true that some people are simply not interested in excelling, we’ve found that this all-to-common problem can more often be explained by the fact that so many people have never been trained in the art of personal effectiveness and/or life satisfaction.  We’ve found that training focused on the following topics often helps teams stay Purposeful:
   • Self-Mastery: how to have an effective, satisfying relationship with oneself (including how to stay focused on what is most important, motivate oneself, and create the time needed to get things done well.
   • Interpersonal Expertise: how to create uplifting, energizing relations with others who can positively impact one’s work and personal life (including how to communicate effectively, negotiate in win-win ways, and resolve conflict quickly and effectively).
   • Mission Connection: how to identify one’s areas of passion and excellence – and use these areas to positively impact one’s team, family, and self.

Some closing thoughts about Purposeful Doing. This article began with some questions that I believe are very important (why do we see epidemics of anxiety, dissatisfaction, disengagement, and depression) – and ended with some answers that may be equally important.  We’ve found that most Purposeful Doers (whether leaders of companies, of families, or of themselves) tend to focus on 1-5 objectives until they get those objectives running smoothly.  Then – and only then – they identify 1-5 more objectives to begin doing well.  All the while, they seem to have the original definition of wealth in mind for themselves and their team members – the possession of well being.

We have observed some very stunning results associated with Purposeful Doing – from increased productivity to enhanced team morale to decreased anxiety to lower levels of disengagement.  Unfortunately, we believe that up to 99% of individuals and businesses are not currently a part of the Purposeful Doing Movement – and the ramifications of this, we believe run broad and deep in our businesses and in our lives.  I hope this article will encourage a few more leaders and individuals to consider Purposeful Doing as a strategy for business and personal success.  It seems appropriate to end with a quote passed along to me by a colleague of mine – a quote that I believe touched on what Jim Collins would come to call “The Hedgehog Principle” in his classic book Good to Great:  “If you want to live free, take your time, go slowly, do few things but do them well.”

Article Filed under: I. WATER (Team/Group Excellence)