A2. What turns purpose into purpose-washing?
When a company/brand is cynically using the ‘clothing’ of social consciousness to sell more stuff.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we’d have to admit that (currently) a majority of companies engaging in purpose are ‘washing’ to some degree… because their primary goal - in reality - remains the satisfaction of investors. Their social impact work might be well thought through but it’s in service of an unreformed business model. This is partly the fault of our system that rewards short term profit maximisation.
We need more hero examples of companies like Interface that are truly bold in changing their core model and value chain in pursuit of their Mission.
A2: As a marketer who for a long time praises purposeful brands, I am at once heartened and frightened by the pervasive use of the word in marketing today. And that is because purpose is becoming a laughing stock, seen simply as more meaningless, marketing jargon.
I would add that many boards are under resourced and lack education in global trends & technology and the implications of exponential change for the business. With the average age of board members in their 60s, these issues weren’t covered when they were at university. Or we have so much more evidence now. Then there are the implications for strategy, management and disclosure.
A2: That’s fine when you’ve got a Paul Polman or the like at the top - but a CEO talking about purpose without “getting it” would be like me giving a talk to 20 somethings on my passion for skateboarding. It’s inauthentic.
I mean, it’s easy to make bold statements during 5 days at Davos, but without a much deeper re-alignment of processes, culture, management etc, a company will soon be accused of purpose washing.
When there is no evidence that the way the organisation is operating, and crucially the decisions the business is making, are being shaped by its purpose. When there is a clear disconnect between its words and its actions.
Ideally there would be clear objectives, targets and kpi’s, in a purpose framework, so a business could measure progress, adjust and innovate
Intent to do good and/or no harm is not an incentive. The current mash-up of SDG, SCR and other initiatives are start but might just create more errosion of trust. The fundamental change is in the corporate instructions and ownership rights even accounting and measurements (KPIs). We need to move from inventivizing growth that is equal to financial growth to move to human wellbeing. The crazy thing is that all of the needed elements are in place for this incentives for human wellbeing evolution to occur. The problem is the current system incentives are so ingrained and the mental models are persistent…
When working with clients that approach me with not necessarily the right intention (i.e. wanting a purpose in order to increase brand relevance), I see my role as educating them not only on what is purpose but also why by doing it well, you are future proofing your business.
Such an important point @Benkellard - today’s leadership are hopelessly ill-equipped to drive this change. When they did their MBAs in the 80s/90s, Greed was still Good and Prof Michael Porter hadn’t yet had his epiphany for Shared Value and was instead indoctrinating them with Shareholder Value. It’s hard to unlearn that stuff, especially if it got you to the top!
Totally agree with you both. It’s an active role also of creative agencies following the big brands. Alan Jope recently talked about woke-washing at Cannes and the Important they also have on refusing briefs that ask for campaigns which are then not backed up.
A3: hummm, common industry measurements?
I think also brands/companies that purpose-wash are in taking a too big risk, that could damage the trust they’ve built historically with consumers for ever… Some of the most recent cases are Starbucks which purpose is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit one cup and neighbourhood at a time” and its inability to align tax responsibilities.
Mike Barry from M&S shared this great build on the sustainable purpose we put out:
‘1.Purpose has to be felt through the products and services that a business sells (Tesla Car, Impossible Burger etc) not through a 100 page SDG Report. It needs to be emotional and exciting not factual and dry
2.Purpose cannot be delivered alone. To be a purposeful business in a wider economy and society that’s a wasteland is to fail! Business needs to be so much better at working in partnership with others to change the system to deliver collective purpose.
3.Purpose cannot be cherry picked! You can be famous for a few things done well but you cannot then neglect other issues. You either do purpose all-in, or you don’t at all.
4.Being a responsible business is very different from being a purposeful business. The former is functional, policy, KPI and reporting led. The latter is visceral personal ownership of doing your day job in the right way. Not leaving it the ‘machine’ to do but invested in and committed to yourself in all that you do.’
“You manage what you measure,” from a meaningful statement of productive focus into a cynical comment on how mere numbers can be distractionsfrom what is important. Those who focus too much on “bean counting” may wind up with excellent looking numbers while not actually accomplishing anything related to their mission. Alternatively, those who ignore the numbers to focus on the mission will look bad on paper; though they may be accomplishing great things, they struggle to tell their story to funders, investors, clients, and stakeholders.
For instance. The vast majority of SDG indicators are proportions and counts. Units of volume, mass, energy, flow, etc. are interpreted as units of sustainable. development.Counts are misconceved as measures. Scores are recognized as not comparable but are reported and compared anyway.
But sustainable development has not been modeled, observed, scaled, or calibrated to a standard (as human wellbeing).
Instead of interpreting multiple indicators in terms of a sustainability construct organized at a higher order complexity, that construct needs itself to be mapped, modeled, and measured.
So, now SDGs are a wicked feedback loop where only address the symptoms on a abstract level and not the underlying economic incentives.
This leads us to all to being accomplises of “washing” whether we want to or not. We just do not know what we mean or how to measure the delta - the change.
By gradually integrating purpose led goals into the narrative, then reporting on the performance of those non financial goals on an annual basis and reflecting on how they serve the business and its stakeholders. Another way for businesses to do this, a much deeper way in fact, but this will take a while to happen, is to really understand how purpose impacts your specific company’s financial performance (perhaps through materiality assessments or by linking sustainability goals such as the UN SDGs) through scenario analysis and stress testing and then report on it to your public shareholders as you do traditional financial statements at present.
