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Forum 2019: Bringing Purpose to Life The highlights
12 NOVEMBER 2019
CONTENTS
1. Introduction to the Forum
2. Inspiration from purpose-led leaders
3. Debate: “Purpose is all talk and no action”
4. Bringing purpose to life in leadership and leadership development
5. Bringing purpose to life through citizenship and social impact
6. Bringing purpose to life through products and services
7. Three Hands and contacts
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE FORUM
At Three Hands, we are inspired by the idea that companies have a purpose beyond profit and have spent
the last 15 years helping them to create business value and social value hand in hand.
Today, everyone is talking about purpose, but has it led to the changes in businesses that society needs?
For our Forum on 12th November 2019, we invited a fantastic group of speakers to historic Toynbee Hall in
East London to share different experiences of bringing purpose to life in their organisations.
This short report is not an attempt to record everything that was discussed but rather to capture the
highlights and the essence of the conversations. It aims to offer inspiration and challenge to those working
to bring purpose to life in their own businesses.
The comments are not attributed to individuals, with the exception of some of the personal and
organisational examples shared by the speakers.
2. INSPIRATION FROM PURPOSE-LED LEADERS
You need to be crystal clear on the impact that you and your
organisation are trying to have in the world. For Denise and her
organisation First Love Foundation, it is helping people to live
sustainable lives – a purpose formed by the realisation that “food
poverty cannot be solved by food banks”. The result is that the Tower
Hamlets Food Bank accounts for just 10% of her charity’s work; the
rest is about supporting people more holistically.
Make sure even small decisions are in line with the purpose of the
organisation. For example, at Three Shepherd, local purchasing is
critical to their mission to stimulate enterprise in deprived areas –
spending a little more, even when budgets are tight, to procure from
a local supplier is a case of staying true to purpose.
“But what if I am one of thousands of people in a big corporate
organisation?” Do not underestimate the power of one – individuals
(or “intrapreneurs”) can bring about huge changes. It doesn’t have to
be glamorous; sometimes simply challenging a company policy can
unlock whole areas of social / environmental impact.
Charities and social enterprises are the original purpose-led organisations. To open the Forum, Colin Crooks MBE, CEO of Tree Shepherd, and
Denise Bentley, CEO of First Love Foundation, shared their advice on what it takes to be purpose-led leaders.
Speaking for the motion: Michael Hilton, Three Hands and Scotty Johnson, Explore What Matters and Three Hands Associate
3. DEBATE: “PURPOSE IS ALL TALK AND NO ACTION”
“When it starts and ends with the brand, marketing or comms team then purpose becomes a way to sell more stuff – where we had
green wash, we now have purpose wash.”
“Senior business leaders are being down right mischievous – what
they are saying about purpose is not the reality experienced by
those working for them.”
“There is a purpose – action
gap.”
“Words are easy; substance is hard.”
“We are not suggesting businesses become charities, we want them to
be responsible businesses.”
“The purpose statement has
become an end in itself.”
3. DEBATE: “PURPOSE IS ALL TALK AND NO ACTION”
“Talk about purpose can
enable action – it’s about creating a
movement for change.”
“Change is slow because it is hard and not because we don’t want to do it. A number of big companies
are on the journey.”
“Purpose is powerful not just for an
organisation but for its people – it’s about creating a healthy human system.”
“New businesses are challenging the idea of what a corporation is.
There are already 80,000 mission-driven businesses
and 3,000 B Corps.”
“The skills needed to
become a CEO are not the same as those needed to make social
change.”
Speaking against the motion: Charles Wookey, A Blueprint for Better Business and Kate Sutton, Nesta
4. LEADERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
“Leadership
development should
not be about putting
clean fish back into a
dirty pond.”
A few years ago, William Hill’s licence to operate from society was under threat.
Through their Rising Stars programme, they give their leaders a chance to
understand the reality of gambling addiction and what a good outcome for
customers would look like – “asking for a cultural shift in your customer base
has to start with a cultural shift in your employee base”.
At M&G, for Sharon “nothing shifted the dial quite like having leaders come
together to tackle strategic issues at a charity”. The emotional connection with
the cause gave leaders the space to reflect on the skills development process –
“in financial services we don’t really talk about feelings but this is powerful
and embeds learning.”
Purpose-led leadership development involves connecting with charities whose
work aligns with that of the business but the synergies don’t stop there: the
charities invariably faced the same types of people and process challenges as
the business. This makes the charity project a fertile ground for applying
business acumen and critical skills, and embedding and developing those skills
at the same time.
4. LEADERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Lyndsay Wright, Director of Sustainability at William Hill and Sharon Clews, Leadership Development Consultant and previously at M&G, shared
their experiences of bringing purpose to life through leadership and leadership development – and the power of immersing leaders at all levels in
societal issues that matter to the business.
5. CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL IMPACT
The view from businesses…
Nadia spoke of her three-year journey as she has shifted to focus on
responsible business rather than community and the new skills, mindset,
stakeholder relationships and language she has needed to do this
successfully.
The community programme is just one element of the social impact
agenda. It is important that it is tightly aligned and challenges the
established structures for volunteering – for example, we need to think
beyond 2-day allowances and approach social impact like we think about
other priorities – i.e. continuous and business as usual.
The purpose statement and any marketing can come after the substance is
established. If you find yourself spending lots of time finessing the language
then shift the focus to what action you can take and come back to the
statement later.
Nadia Al Yafai, Group Head of Social Impact & Responsibility, Royal London and Colin Crooks MBE, CEO of Tree Shepherd (a social enterprise), led
a discussion on how businesses can align their social impact work to their purpose and what makes for great community partnerships.
The view from community partners…
Community engagement driven by a true purpose involves building
sustainable relationships, not running one-off volunteering projects.
It’s about putting the time in to find alignment between the purpose
of the business and the goals of the charity and then working
together to bring about the change both want to make in society.
There can be a big disconnect between the expectations of
volunteers and the realities of life for the people they are aiming to
support – e.g. it could be almost impossible for a carer to commit to
meeting at the same time each week. Empathy is crucial to bridging
this gap and building meaningful personal relationships.
Charities and social enterprises need ongoing, skilled support – “give
me 2 hours a month over a year, that is useful”. Colin explained how
three separate business had provided brilliant pro bono advice on
what to do with his website but what he needed was support to
actually do it.
5. CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL IMPACT
6. PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
“People with lived
experience are vital for
designing products and
services, their knowledge
is powerful and has a
genuine value in making
these products work.”
Purpose can come from a trail-blazing CEO (as in the case of Interface) but usually
it does not. Whatever the origins, it is important to “democratise sustainability”,
changing the mindset in the company from just something that sits on the side to
something that informs everyone's thinking.
A sustainability person should never become a designer. It is about bringing the
issues to life for the product development, design, innovation and customer
experience teams. Learning from experts in charities – as Santander do with
Alzheimer's UK in order to better serve the needs of customers with dementia –
can be a powerful way to achieve this.
A product or service that is genuinely useful for one type of “vulnerable
customer” often works for many others. For example, solutions for those with
dementia may well make life easier for many other customers.
No matter how purposeful / sustainable a product or service is, if the product/
service itself is not good enough, then those efforts are in vain. However, if you
get it right there are benefits to be gained from satisfying customers’ demands
and preferences for socially and environmentally sound products and services.
6. PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Jon Khoo, Regional Sustainability Manager, Interface and Fermin Martinez de Hurtado Yela, Sustainability Manager, Santander, explored how to
bring purpose and sustainability to life through products and services – which are, arguably, the ultimate manifestation of a company’s existence.
7. SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Accessibility
Ageing
Built environments
Circular economy
Climate change
Debt
Digital exclusion
Economic abuse
Education
In all three strands of our work, we immerse people from business in social and environmental issues.
Here are some of the areas that we have worked on in 2018-19:
We are launching a brand new monthly “Spotlight on Social Issues” email, to share some of what we have learned about the issues
above and many more. If you would like to receive this, please contact [email protected].
Empowering girls
Financial inclusion
Financial literacy
Gambling
Health
Homelessness
In work poverty
Mental health
Social mobility
We exist to create business value and social value, hand in hand.
LEADERSHIP & TALENT
Experiential learning in communities to develop
leaders for the 21st Century
CITIZENSHIP
Strategic social impact projects & programmes that align with business
purpose
INSIGHT & INNOVATION
Learning from charities and their beneficiaries to do a better job for customers
We do so by making meaningful, immersive connections between business and society, helping people in business become better leaders , corporate citizens and innovators .
7. CONTACT
We hope that this short report has both inspired and challenged you to do more to bring purpose to life in your own
organisation. If you’d like to continue the conversation, please contact us on the details below.
Jan Levy
020 3397 8840
Michael Hilton
020 3397 8843
www.threehands.co.uk
www.threehandsinsight.co.uk
www.threehands.co.uk / www.threehandsinsight.co.uk T: +44 (0)20 3397 8840 E: [email protected]
We believe in creating business value and social value hand in hand. We do so by creating tailored projects and programmes that take activities rooted in "giving" and making them strategically
relevant to the business - from leadership and talent development to community investment and innovation.
