Integrate These “3A’s” for Your Brand to Live with Purpose and Drive Sustainable Growth
To illustrate how purpose drives performance, PurposeFused has developed a ‘3As model’ that details why organizations need to ensure that their brand purpose is: 1. Authentic, 2. Aligned and 3. Advancing.
These critical factors enable a brand to fully engage its people to realize their potential, ensure that they collectively drive and attain peak performance and deliver meaningful social impact.
Without meeting all of the 3As, a brand purpose will not be as effective in optimizing performance, however, with all three working in harmony, purpose will be a key driver in achieving performance goals.
3As Purpose-Performance Model. PurposeFused 2020
So what do we mean by a purpose that is Authentic, Aligned and Advancing?
1. An Authentic brand purpose is one that:
Is designed, discovered or defined from inside out
Embodies the underlying philosophy of the organization
Furthers the beliefs upon which the whole organization was founded or currently stands by
2. An Aligned brand purpose is one that:
Compliments, enriches the mission statement of the organization
Is the glue between organizational vision and values and the promise of the brand
Resonates with stakeholders (including leaders and employees) because it encourages contribution in furtherance of their own purpose in conjunction with that of the brand
3. An Advancing brand purpose is one that moves things forward by:
It is important to fully explore these features of the 3As when discovering, refining and articulating brand purpose (see more on purpose discovery in our previous article). If each of these criteria are met, it is more likely that the purpose roadmap for the brand will be meaningful, genuine and underpin the future achievement of performance, business, and impact goals.
Below are some questions that leaders might use when assessing their proposed purpose against each of the 3As to determine how aligned their resulting purpose will be against the overarching goals of their organization:
Authenticity questions:
What positive impact can we leave on the world
How can we articulate and build awareness and engagement around our purpose (internally and externally)?
What metrics can we create to evaluate our performance, in relation to our purpose?
Alignment questions:
How can we (re)-design our processes, products, practices & positioning to deliver our desired impact?
How do our customers want us to deliver and demonstrate our purpose?
To what extent do our values and principles embody our purpose and bring it to life?
Advancement questions:
How can we most effectively recognize and use our stakeholders’ feedback and inputs to furthering our purpose?
What practices can we establish or refine, that enable us to improve the contribution of our people, processes, products and positioning towards the delivery of our purpose?
What additional contributions can we make to our key stakeholders that are aligned with our purpose?
It’s an exciting time to be in the business of purpose – especially focusing from inside-out, with a people-based approach to brand purpose which elevates the employee experience. When effectively discovered and articulated, brand purpose can be embedded throughout the broader stakeholder group as both an anchor and North star, with authenticity and alignment to advance and optimize performance and impact.
Continue to the next article “Exceed your brand’s promise through purpose-driven collaboration”.
About PurposeFused
At PurposeFused, we use purpose to unlock people’s potential to optimize their performance and impact. We act as Purpose Partners with organizations, individual leaders and teams to solve immediate challenges while driving long-term value. We do this by inspiring people and organizations to establish meaningful objectives fused with purpose, so they can be intentional about the positive impact they aspire to have on themselves, each other and society as a whole. Everything we do is at the intersection between people, purpose and performance, with the vision of making a meaningful contribution to a better world with purpose.
Did you miss PurposeFused at Agency Growth Events Season ONE?
Livestreamed over three virtual events in Q4 of 2021, Agency Growth Events brought together experts from the worlds of Digital Agencies, Media, and Management Consulting to talk about How to Grow a Digital Agency.
Watch📹 “The Personality of Purpose” by Mark Griffin and Neil Turnham, PurposeFused.
