Purpose Is As Purpose Does

Tell the truth on purpose: a case study from the global meat industry

The word “purpose” defined in a Google search (edited in PowerPoint by me).

(This post is also available in podcast format, here.)

Many businesses claim to be purpose-led. They proudly state their purpose in order to attract and motivate talent, or to gain other intangible benefits that come from a rosy reputation.

Yet all too often this purpose does not reflect how they make money, it’s not their actual purpose. It’s nice-sounding words that obscure reality.

And obscuring reality is harmful to you and me and the biological web of life that supports us. I’ll pile on and add that I don’t buy the idea that purpose is “aspirational.” Corporations’ actual purposes are not accidents. They are the result of carefully crafted strategies. Companies are doing exactly what they are designed to do. If anyone has any doubt, they need only compare a company’s stated purpose to what its executives tell investors. It’s not a secret these are different things.

In this piece, I’ll share a glaring example of what this difference looks like. There are almost as many examples as there are large publicly traded companies. I picked a doozy so you can’t unsee the point.

Before we get into the example, I’ll illustrate what needs to change.

Heads up: it’s big! But we’ve done way bigger things before. As I mentioned in my opening post it’s not only fun here in the Matereal World. I also left breadcrumbs to figure out what is each of ours to do.

There is a path. We need to choose it.