{"id":93066,"date":"2023-02-27T14:05:49","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T18:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=93066"},"modified":"2023-02-27T14:09:09","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T18:09:09","slug":"purpose-driven-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/purpose-driven-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Purpose-Driven Employees: How to Motivate With Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you have purpose-driven employees? How do you share company goals with employees?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the best ways to engage your employees is to create a purpose for your company and share it with employees. In The Great Game of Business<\/em>, Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham explain how to enforce your company’s purpose<\/a> so your employees are inspired by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading to learn how to encourage purpose-driven employees that are on board with the company’s goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Explain Your Company Purpose<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To create an accessible company, you need to have purpose-driven employees. These are employees that understand what the company does (the specific products or services it offers), your company goals, and your company purpose<\/a>.<\/strong> This may seem like information employees would already have, but Stack and Burlingham say many employees only really understand the part of the company they\u2019re directly involved in. They may not understand the company\u2019s purpose\u2014its reason for existing beyond making money\u2014or what its goals are. This narrow view can stop employees from taking ownership or supporting the company\u2019s larger goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, Stack and Burlingham imply that purpose-driven employees are more likely to take ownership and work hard to support the company\u2019s goals. <\/strong>When employees understand the company\u2019s operations, goals, and purpose, they can better understand how their actions are significant to its success or failure. This encourages them to feel proud of their contributions and work hard to affect the company in a positive way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, let\u2019s say Shelly is a car saleswoman. When her company increases accessibility, she learns that its purpose is to decrease crashes and protect its customers. Shelly realizes that she\u2019s contributing to this purpose by selling features that are designed to protect customers\u2014for example, upgraded mirrors or airbags. This inspires her to be more passionate when selling upgraded cars to customers, since she now knows the features exist to help and protect people, rather than just existing to make the company more money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stack and Burlingham argue that directly stating the company\u2019s purpose, goals, and operations is the most effective method of education.<\/strong> Tell employees what the company as a whole cares about and how it’s supporting those things. The onboarding process and meetings with established employees are good opportunities for sharing this information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Psychology of Memory in Business<\/strong>

Stack and Burlingham explain that many employees only understand the parts of their company they\u2019re directly involved in, and this narrow view can discourage ownership. But why do employees lack this broader understanding? It might have to do with how memory works: Humans have a limited amount of memory<\/a>, so the brain has to prioritize remembering relevant information while forgetting irrelevant information.

Unfortunately for companies, what the brain deems relevant depends on the individual and may not include the larger operations of a company. In the employees\u2019 minds, remembering the details of their personal tasks is most important, since those are the memories that can directly affect them\u2014if they forget how to complete their tasks properly, they can lose their jobs. In comparison, the company\u2019s overall goals and operations are less immediately important and so are forgotten.

Discussing the company’s organization, goals, and purpose in the onboarding process and meetings, as Stack and Burlingham suggest, is a great way to counter this memory loss. Stressing these larger concepts\u2019 importance and relevance to a job\u2019s day-to-day activities encourages employees to form connections between these concepts and their tasks. These connections make the company’s organization, goals, and purpose feel more relevant and thus make them more easily remembered. In turn, this encourages employees to work harder to fulfill them.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you have purpose-driven employees? How do you share company goals with employees? One of the best ways to engage your employees is to create a purpose for your company and share it with employees. In The Great Game of Business, Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham explain how to enforce your company’s purpose so your employees are inspired by it. Continue reading to learn how to encourage purpose-driven employees that are on board with the company’s goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":72940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,14,30],"tags":[914],"class_list":["post-93066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-management","category-work","tag-the-great-game-of-business","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nPurpose-Driven Employees: How to Motivate With Knowledge - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Your company has goals and a mission. Do your employees know what they are? 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