On the Purpose of Purpose.
It all revolves around trust.
By Ilsmarie Presilia — August 13th, 2021
Listen to the audio version here.
Hi there, The Ponder Lab here, with the mission to help you understand how people behave and react to brands and design. Today’s topic covers the importance of brands being purpose-oriented, allowing them to cultivate trust.
“How do you explain purpose to business owners that aren’t purpose-oriented and that don’t see its value?”
This has been a question I have been asking myself for some time now, and the first thing that comes to mind is something I learned — of all places — in one of my Law lectures at University. When discussing the separation of powers, also known as Trias Politica, a common concern is that of accountability when it comes to leaders and those in positions of power. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” or literally translated “Who will guard the guards themselves?” are the embodiment of this notion.
While these phrases concern accountability and initially seem like they have absolutely nothing to do with purpose, in a greater depth they do. As mentioned briefly in a previous article, a shift is happening. We’re rapidly moving away from the traditional transaction where customers exchange money for a company’s solution (product or service), which in turn is supposed to make them happy. People want more meaning in everything they do; in interactions, purchases and even their work. In other words, the concept of “I become happy as a result of the experience your solution brings” is changing into “I become happy as a result of your solution being wholesome and meaningful”. Meaning is not something people take lightly and requires a lot of trust. Therefore, a valid question to ask is “What leads the leaders and why?”.
Sorry, leaders, you aren’t always right, but neither are we, the designers.
Being primarily a Digital Product designer, I know that designers all over the world — regardless of their area of expertise — have encountered at least someone that has urged them to design something without delving deeper. That’s the main reason why we’re approached anyway; to carry out orders in exchange for payment. There’s this misconception that design isn’t a real job and that all designers do is perform magic and embellish existing ideas.
Rarely do designers get the chance to sit at the decision-making table and discuss the elusive purpose that we require to even start our work. At least, that’s the way it should be, but more often than not, even if we’re not included in the decision-making process, we still find ourselves approached to work on projects that the client has not attached a proper purpose to. In cases like these, everybody loses because tensions rise, and eventually, the project ends up on the back burner, or worse, it sees the light of day only to crash and burn publicly.
Really, as designers, our job is less about executing orders and making things pretty, and more about intent and designing solutions to the client’s problem(s), which in turn build value for their customers. Therefore, we must educate them and not only ask questions but ask them the right ones.
Despite being made aware of this, some business leaders don’t respond well to questions. There’s something about being asked questions that annoys humans. Who is asking a question, when or how they’re asking it, also plays a role. The thing about question-asking is that they can come across as offensive;
Client: “I’d like you to design [deliverable] for me.”Designer: “Alright, can I ask you why you want a [deliverable] designed?”Client: “Why are you asking me why? Shouldn’t you be asking me by when it should be done?”Designer: “Well, it’s just that the brief you’ve sent over doesn’t contain the purpose of the project. You know, to know what problem we’re solving, what direction we’re headed in.”Client: “I sent you a brief, isn’t that enough? It has the background of our company, the objective, look, it is to create awareness among men ages 35 to 50, we need it in [deliverable] form.”Designer: “Yes, but how do you know that [deliverable] form is the best thing for that target audience? Where and when would they encounter it? What will it say, and in what tone? And again, most importantly, my question is why.”Client: “Okay, I’m done being interrogated by you. I’ll take my work to a real designer that actually gets down to the design work.”
See, questions can come across as condescending, especially when the questioned is not expecting someone with a specific role to be asking questions or when they are dead-set on a solution. I’ve personally dealt with this after founding my consultancy studio and changing my approach to projects. A friend that I had been working with for some time did not appreciate this change and was furious. Long story short, I thanked her for everything, and we never spoke again after that.
I can go on and on about how to better deal with this from a designer’s perspective, but that’s not my goal here. What I wanted to highlight is the following; things are changing — if you, a leader, don’t have the patience to deal with the intent and purpose of everything related to your business and what it offers, why should your customers care?
What leads leaders?
What should lead anybody in the business of being of service to others is trust, as more than money, it can be seen as the currency through which social interactions (between businesses, stakeholders, customers and employees) occur and can continue doing so. In Edelman’s own words, “Trust defines an organisation’s license to operate, lead and succeed. Trust is the foundation that allows an organisation to take responsible risk, and, if it makes mistakes, to rebound from them. For a business, especially, lasting trust is the strongest insurance against competitive disruption, the antidote to consumer indifference, and the best path to continued growth. Without trust, credibility is lost and reputation can be threatened”.
In the previous article covering brands, I mentioned that a brand, although intangible, is a company’s most valuable yet “unowned” asset. It’s “unowned” because it’s a perception that exists in the people’s minds; they own it, and it’s what they say it is, not what a company says they are. In that same article, I also touched on a common concern; that of humans being so opinionated that they can perceive brands for something even if wasn’t intentional.
Trust and perception are important factors people consider when assessing something. A company cannot directly control either, but it can manage meaning and intent to the right people in order to build trust among them. This act is known as branding, and to do it properly we must consider one’s genuine purpose (a purpose beyond commercial benefit, that is).
A lot of business owners fail to realise the magnitude of this purpose-oriented shift and consequently don’t consider trust as something that they should work on either. Rarely do they take the time to ask themselves, “why do we exist, what is motivating us to do this for our clients, and why should they care?”. Some of the more transactional ones might even answer with “Why not?”. And while it sounds clever or motivational, what it really sounds like — apart from them standing in the way of their own company’s success — is arrogance. Which isn’t remotely close in correlation with trust. “Why not” is not a valid answer, as it does not do proper justice to the question, which is used in a way to extract information that can connect leaders, their desires for their company, their purpose and their audience together.
Consider this for a moment; your purpose is as clear as day to you internally, but like with the designer example, the goal is to articulate it in a way that others can understand too. It’s good to be keen about what you bring to the table, but that alone is not enough to convince your audience and gain their trust. Have you ever heard the saying, “if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”? It’s debatable who said this or when, but it’s the meaning that I’m after. If you can’t articulate to your audience why you do what you do, how can you convince them that your business is not only viable but that your solutions are worth trusting and investing in? Again, you, your stakeholders, team and employees are not your customers. Customers want to trust a brand, trust what it offers and what it stands for. In other words, if your team is excited by an idea, make sure that it’s challenged until everyone is certain that it solves the customers’ problems.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with ideas, but they should come from sitting with problems long enough, not skipping them altogether. A common theme that ensues is many setting expectations that they usually end up crushing (and not in a good way). The problem with this is that if unchallenged, anything can pass as an idea, and if the actual problem you need to solve has not been identified, you’ll be kicking and punching in the dark.
Problems are crucial for purpose that much is clear. But did you know that trust has been put so much to the test that an appreciable amount of the population expects businesses to solve problems instead of governments?
According to the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer, 86% of those interviewed expect CEO’s to speak up and lead when it comes to societal issues, and 68% believe that CEO’s should step in when governments don’t attempt fixing those problems. The thing is that even when you’ve identified a problem, the work isn’t over. In fact, now is when it starts — now you need to actually deliver.
Take a recent case, for instance — what happened with CD Projekt RED and their latest release at the time of writing, Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt RED is a Poland-based video game development studio, and their game, Cyberpunk 2077, was highly anticipated because not only has the studio identified a lot of the pain points gamers have (had over the years) and criticised some of the giants in the gaming industry, but they have also made a few promises, one of their biggest one being “Coming when it’s ready”. When the game launched, however, it was disastrous. Plagued with bugs, technical and performance issues, it was anything but ready.
What led the leaders, later on, we learned, was money. Forgetting their own motto, ignoring what developers working on the game were saying and were capable of, they wanted to release the game after countless delays and cash in for the holidays.
If an authentic purpose was set in place — not just written somewhere on their website but implemented into the company’s culture — expensive mistakes like these could have been prevented. The team would’ve been aligned on a direction and have a framework through which they could make decisions. Rather than overpromising, underdelivering, and being surprised why people no longer trusted them, they could have — in their own words — released the game “when it was ready”, pulling people in, and growing with concrete ideas.
Wrapping Up
A shift is happening. Especially — but not exclusively — under the younger generations that have growing buying power. People want more — more substance, meaning, accountability and trust. I’m not talking about being “woke”. Some argue that being “woke” makes you go broke — but selling ideas, features, or even experiences no longer cut it.
With a large part of society turning to businesses for hope in this steady decline of trust, having an authentic purpose driven by a problem is the way to go. Being purpose-oriented is just working in a different direction; instead of working toward a purpose — which generally feels like an endless search for something elusive — we start working from it. This, in turn, connects and allows others to believe in and care about why you do something.
If your purpose is to add value by solving a problem (which it should be), you’ll end up building a tribe of people that believe in solving the same problem(s) and cultivating a sense of trust, ensuring success.
I’ll leave you to ponder with these words of Friedrich Nietzsche;
“He who has a Why can endure any How.”
Thanks for reading. Hopefully, this prompts you to take your brand (more) seriously. 🤔
Read something here that sparked an interest? Consider following or subscribing below for more posts like this.
About Ilsmarie Presilia & The Ponder Lab
The Ponder Lab is a Netherlands based Brand Consultancy Studio that specialises in closing the gaps between businesses and their clients. It does so by offering services such as Strategy, Design & Development to elevate brands in an era where strong identities matter the most. The Ponder Lab was founded when Ilsmarie noticed a disconnect between customers and the solutions companies at which she was working were providing. She concluded that while the ideas were great, that their execution was poor, lacking depth and purpose. Now, she aims to ponder with her clients and familiarise them with how humans think and behave, and how to communicate their vision properly. Let’s Ponder!
