How to find and use core purpose in your business

Executive overview

Most founders don't realise purpose can transform their company — or that there's a clear method to surface it. Purpose is the "why" behind your work: the difference you're making in the world. It engages people beyond profit, inspires change, and sustains effort through obstacles.

Purpose isn't discovered externally — it's created from within the work you already do.

The only test for whether you've got purpose right: does it inspire and excite you?

What purpose looks like in practice

• Starbucks: a "third place" — escape from home and work
• Disney: creating happiness
• Medtronic: restoring people with long-term conditions to a natural way of living
• Waste Management: reframed as an environmental solutions company — unlocked composting, recycling, energy production, and deeper employee engagement

The four categories of purpose

• Good — service to others (e.g. Container Store)
• True — creating knowledge and access (e.g. Google)
• Beautiful — refinement of experience (e.g. Apple)
• Heroic — changing the world (e.g. Grameen Bank: empowering people out of poverty)

Why founders struggle to find purpose

• They assume it must be discovered externally, not created
• They fear getting it wrong because it feels too big
• Fear of commitment stops them communicating it

How to surface your purpose

• Ask: why did you start this business — or why did you stay?
• Ask: what parts of the work give you passion or fulfilment?
• For the company: keep asking "why does that matter?" until the answer is self-evident
• Work in pairs — the quality of listening shapes the quality of the answer
• One step back from "it just matters / it makes the world better" is usually your purpose

Committing to purpose

• Purpose is made up, not uncovered — so it can be revised if it stops working
• Commit and communicate it; changing it later is fine
• Tighten it into something clear and succinct enough to say out loud
• Look for the version that carries some emotion — excitement, slight vulnerability, or both