5 steps to becoming a Social Purpose business

Social purpose businesses have an authentic purpose that is integrated into everything they do. These businesses focus on the impact that they can create. They lead the way in achieving that purpose and they bring people on the journey with them. They don't have a problem attracting customers, employees or investors. Through their social purpose they achieve more impact, higher engagement and faster growth.

I've worked with social purpose businesses across sectors as diverse as pharmaceuticals, construction, technology finance and media. I've also analysed 100s of social purpose businesses as far back as the 1980s. I am convinced that any business can become a social-purpose business. To do so, you need to be willing to identify an authentic purpose and transform the business around it. Doing this leads to significant impact and financial success. Not doing so continues a business struggle that will ultimately fail.

The 5 steps of the DREAM business method show you how.

Define your social purpose

Reshape you processes

Excite your people

Align stakeholders

Measure impact

(1) Define your purpose - Every business has a purpose., otherwise, it wouldn't exist. The original purpose can be hidden, underdeveloped or not well understood.

To define the purpose, review the business history. Explore the reasons it was started. Understand what the founders' original passions were. Hearing personal stories of the impact the business has had on its people gives an additional lens. Looking at the external impacts on customers, suppliers and society also helps. Both positive and negative experiences are important.

Once this information has been surfaced, you'll be able to identify themes. These themes tell you what's important to the business and its people. Finally, it's a matter of distilling down themes into the most important thing to the business. That's the social purpose.

You can do all of this yourself with the existing leadership team. Getting help at this stage can be useful. Someone with experience of social purpose will know where to probe and how to get the best out of the team. It's also more likely to get to the true social purpose.  That will drive your business forward most effectively.

After the Define stage, the remaining stages show you how to Integrate your Social Purpose into everything you do. This is what creates impact, engagement and growth. It also demonstrates the authenticity of the social purpose. You can work through each stage in the order that works best for your business priorities.

(2) Reshape your processes is about reviewing what you do and how you do it. It includes everything from strategic decision-making to product development, customer service, operations, people practices and financial planning. When you do this through the lens of your social purpose, you will identify opportunities that have previously been hiding. They include new product and market opportunities, as well as better ways to recruit and recognise the team, plus better service to customers.

You can prioritise your approach based on business priorities to maximum impact and financial value.

(3) Excite your people Why do people get out of bed in the morning to work with you or buy from you? If they're motivated by your social purpose, you'll see more enthusiasm, engagement and innovation from your people. You'll also see greater loyalty, repeat business and referrals from your customers.

Work closely with your leadership team to integrate your purpose into leadership activities. communications and storytelling. Work out how you can engage both clients and teams in purposeful business activities, special interests and community projects that demonstrate purpose and excite people.

When you (4) Align your stakeholders to your social purpose, working in partnership becomes more efficient, more collaborative and more productive. It's also much easier to get stuff done. Review your purpose with your stakeholders. Do this with everyone from owners, to partners and suppliers. Are they aligned with your way of thinking? Is there an overlap or disconnect? Where there's complete alignment you've already hit the sweet spot. With some overlap, you should discuss whether there's enough and how to make the relationship work. Where there's a disconnect, you'll both be better with different stakeholders going forward.

You get what you measure! That's why we usually recommend starting to (5) Measure the Impact as soon as you can. If you only measure financial results you can end up with a short-term financials-only focussed company. To improve in this area, add impact and behaviour measures, plus anecdotal stories to your measurement framework. To create impact measures, think from a people perspective. How many people do you help? Have you improved any lives or made lives better? How can you collect, store and use this information? From a behaviour perspective, recognise, reward and create awards for purposeful behaviour. This recognises behaviour, gathers data and supports a culture based on your purpose and values.

You can work through all of these stages on your own or with help.  Either way, it's important to have a plan of when and how you'll address each. As a business, you should own the plan, and not have external consultants do that for you. Having someone external to hold you to account to deliver the plan does help.

Most businesses we've worked with get an immediate motivational boost from Defining their social purpose, which usually takes less than a month. It's not sufficient to define your social purpose and stick it on the wall. It quickly goes stale and starts to feel like empty words. The magic is how you make the social purpose come alive in your business. Use the motivation boost to create an 'Integrated your social purpose' with your team. This requires effort to do so every week until it becomes a natural perpetual cycle, which it will. Managed well, the more you integrate the more impact, engagement and growth you'll see.

You can start on this journey today, by assessing where you are. Do you have a crystal clear social purpose? Is it well integrated into your business? And is it creating the impact, engagement and growth that you're expecting? Use the Integrated Social Purpose assessment to help you understand where you are and get some improvement tips. 

Integrating your social purpose gives people what they want from your business. An authentic purpose-led  organisation that delivers impact and financial reward for everyone involved.