The Purposeful Strategist

A meaningful purpose will guide the behaviour of everybody in your business. First Mile, a UK-based B-Corporation, defines its purpose as “to revolutionise business sustainability, starting with waste and recycling.” CEO Bruce Bratley uses three core values to help everyone in the business embody that purpose. Listen to how he does it on the latest episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

No single doctor attends all your medical appointments. But you do. That makes you, the patient, the de facto integrator of the healthcare system. That insight led Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli to found Patients Know Best (PKB), Europe’s largest Personal Health Record and patient engagement platform. PKB’s purpose is to give every person the ability to access their personal health record, control who can see it and use this information to manage their health and care. Listen to how he does it on the latest episode of The Purposeful Strategist

What happens when a business achieves its original purpose? Where does it go from there? Find out how Nej Gakenyi, CEO and founder of GRM Digital, faced that unusual challenge in the latest episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

When a business connects its purpose and values to the way it wants its people to behave, the resulting clarity and focus helps drive growth and success. But how do you achieve that? David Liddle, CEO of The TCM Group, did it by engaging his organisation in an inclusive process to develop a values and behaviours framework. Learn how on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Words matter when you talk about purpose. Doubly so when you lead an organisation focused on language and communication. But what if that organisation is not comfortable discussing purpose and strategy? That was the dilemma facing Sara Crofts when she became CEO of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), the UK professional body for translators and interpreters. Learn how she solved it in this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Loss of momentum can be fatal to any organisational change project. But committed leadership can keep the cause alive. Three years into an ongoing initiative to bring Matrix’s purpose to life, CEO Mark Inskip and his team doubled the company’s size by acquiring another business. Despite this welcome complication, the purpose is taking root inside the organisation, employee engagement is high, and the leadership team have embarked on an inclusive initiative to develop a set of values that support the purpose. Learn how Mark and team managed through the distractions, on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

The founders of Office Space In Town (OSIT) set out to build a company that “reflects who we are as people and the ethics and morals that we live by.” Their goal was to be a provider of boutique, design-led workspaces where businesses thrive and people are inspired, focused and happy. Co-Founder and CEO Niki Fuchs and Georgia Sandom, Director of Operations and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) explain how the company’s purpose has helped the business grow in a tough marketplace. Listen to their story on the latest episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

In its quest to become the most trusted personalised service business in the world, the global concierge company Ten Lifestyle Group has kept its purpose and its revenue streams closely aligned. The result is a remarkably resilient organisation, that has survived some very testing times to deliver long-term success. Alex Cheatle, co-founder and CEO of Ten, reveals how sticking to the purpose, and consulting with an invisible customer, keeps the business growing. Learn more on the latest episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Sometimes commercial success can cause an organisation’s original purpose to dim over time. . That was the challenge facing Mike Astell, CEO of FCDO Services, an executive agency and trading fund owned by Britain’s Foreign Office, with customers in both the public and private sectors around the world. Re-grounding the organisation in its original purpose unlocked a surprising amount of enthusiasm and revealed unexpected potential. The initiative also led to a new business strategy and a more effective way of communicating with the executive and the board. Listen to Mike Astell tell Belden Menkus how he and his team did it. https://www.fcdoservices.gov.uk/about/

Purpose is presenting business leaders with the biggest opportunity in the past 200 years, according to Sarah Gillard, CEO of A Blueprint for Better Business. And it’s going to happen fast. But how do you change business to serve society better, while still acknowledging the need to make money? That’s the question that Sarah is helping the senior leaders of large businesses to answer. Learn how she has evolved her own organisation’s purpose and used it to help her leadership team co-create a new adaptive strategy, designed to focus the organisation’s resources and cope with the chaos and uncertainty of today’s business environment. All in the latest episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

A purpose that serves an organisation well for over 260 years deserves respect. But can you stay true to it while developing a business strategy that tackles today’s reality? And can you keep that plan so short and clear that almost 90 per cent of the organisation’s people say they understand the strategy and where they fit in it? That is what Tom Willis, CEO of the UK’s bustling Shoreham Port, has done. Learn how in this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Sarah McMath, CEO of MOSL, used purpose as a tool to transform her organisation’s performance. Learn how her inclusive approach to developing a shared organisational purpose helped the UK’s retail water market operator for business customers shape a new strategy, grow the organisation’s capabilities, craft practical operating principles, and turn around employee engagement.

Ben Quinn had a different view of what a restaurant could be, how it could work, and the impact it could have on a community and the lives of their guests. Hear how he built a business based on positive memories for guests, while addressing the toxic culture that exists in the industry and creating a safer and more equal environment for women – and men. And, do check out the amazing photos on their website of outdoor events they have catered: really long tables in beautiful locations. Links www.canteencornwall.com

In this episode, I’m very pleased to welcome Sophie Carr, the founder and Director of Bays Consulting. She shares with us how she grew her firm by tapping into and developing a hidden workforce that is able to use maths to solve tough problems and then make the maths explainable. Join me for a fun and informative discussion about maths, crowds, predictions, and the school gate. https://baysconsulting.co.uk/

In this episode, I’m very pleased to welcome Melissa Quinn, General Manager of Slingshot UK / Seradata. Melissa wants to make sure space is an asset we can continue to use, even as it becomes more crowded. Join me for an education in the business of space, strategy development in a high-tech global startup, and the components of resilient leadership.

In this episode, I’m very pleased to welcome Elizabeth Muller, CEO of Deep Isolation. Liz wants to unlock the potential of nuclear power to address global warming. Join me for an informative and inspiring discussion about what it takes to bring a breakthrough idea into the world.

How do you stand out as a service provider and a place to work? Jo Farmer and Rich Miskella, Joint Managing Partners of law firm Lewis Silkin, share their views on how they do that. #lewissilkin

Sara Bailey shares her path to find the real reason Trowers & Hamlins needed to grow. It wasn’t just for the money…

Does doing the right thing environmentally have to be a tradeoff or can it create financially sustainable investments? Andrew Wordsworth thinks it can. He’s the Managing Partner of Sustainable Ventures, a business that’s based on this idea. Hear how they navigate the issues of purpose and strategy, while developing sustainability clusters across the UK.

Claire Clarke, Managing Director of law firm Mills & Reeve, for 20 years one of the UK’s best companies to work for, shares how they moved beyond focusing on what they do to get at the why – and the new challenges that brings. #AchieveMore.Together #Purpose #LegalServices Twitter: @MillsandReeve