A Mission, Profit, Growth Philosophy: Fueling Meaningful Work & Lasting Impact

If you think making a profit is the main goal of your business, you are missing the point of being in business.

Oh yes, profit is very important. Your business cannot sustain itself without it. But by itself, making a profit as the main reason for being in business falls short of bringing true meaning and purpose for your hard working and committed teammates. When your organization has a clear purpose that is fulfilling and engaging for employees, your whole organization, and the people within it, thrive. And since we spend a significant portion of our lives working, it matters a lot!

“… It is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work,” affirms Jim Collins.

Jerry Seinfeld states it this way, “If your work is unfulfilling, the money will be too.”

The book, Profit First, by Mike Michalowicz is a popular read for those who need a clearer sense of actually making money, not just having cash in the bank. Yet, the title can be misleading, especially to business owners and company leaders who want their team to be motivated to do their best work and feel truly satisfied at the end of the day.

Jim Collins hits hard on this point in his classic book, Built to Last. His poignant quote says it well, “Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.”

Partway into the life of our business as we were experiencing solid growth, one of our trusted teammates, Dennis, asked me this question in front of our entire team, “How big are we going to get?”

It was one of those questions that was simple on the surface, yet it struck deep at my core. It caught me flat footed. My answer in the moment was weak at best. I went home that night chewing on what motivated him to ask it and feeling like there was a much better answer than what I gave.

I thought about why we were growing. I thought about what was behind his question. I thought about where our company was headed and how it mattered to our team.

After a few days of trying to reconcile the importance of growth and profit with meaningful work, I realized that meaningful work is what we all long for at the end of the day. Profitability and growth are supportive cast members to that end. At that moment, I wrote down these three words in this order of priority, “Mission, Profit, Growth”.

I had just discovered the framework upon which I could better answer Dennis’s question. At the same time, it gave clarity and purpose to why we needed to make a profit and why we wanted to grow; otherwise, both would feel empty.

Mission, Profit, Growth, or MPG for short, became our overall philosophy of business. And it works well for all types of organizations, not just for-profit businesses.

At a corporate level, the words, “Mission, Profit, and Growth”, can be defined pretty easily. But when you look deeper, they give deeper context to everyday decision making and activities for everyone within your organization, not just your top leaders. Let’s look at each of these words individually.

Mission Drives Everything

You don’t need to be a saint to understand the practical truth in this biblical proverb, “Without vision, people flounder.”

In other words, without clarity of purpose, without a compelling mission, or without a defined direction—people will spin their wheels. They will waste valuable time and resources trying to move forward—whatever forward means to them both at an individual level and an organizational level. It is not unifying, motivating, or satisfying for anyone.

Can you imagine the confusion and frustration a team would feel if not only what they were supposed to be doing and how they were supposed to be doing it were not clear—but why they were even doing it in the first place?

Can you picture the arguments and differing opinions on what success looks like for your team and your organization? Why you are even there in the first place?

This is a real issue in many organizations. It can waste so much energy, both financially and emotionally.

At DISHER, our Business Solutions team works with diverse organizations to clearly define their mission, vision, and values. We’ve had the privilege of supporting businesses, nonprofits, schools, government entities, and churches alike lay a strong foundation.

Maybe you are experiencing pockets of swirl in your organization right now. The unfortunate side effect is that the performance of your organization might be suffering. Your mission is failing to truly motivate and align your team into reaching their full potential.

In my lifetime, I haven’t seen a company, entity, or group where this is not true. The organizations I’ve seen who have a clear purpose and understand their why—perform well. They operate at a higher level than those who don’t. Their people work better together. Their culture is stronger, and they are able to endure greater hardship together. Success is achieved more often and with higher levels of true satisfaction.

Attributes of a Great Mission

For a mission to be meaningful and engaging in any organization, it needs to have the following attributes:

• Defines your organization’s purpose clearly
  • Why does your organization exist?
• Identifies forwhom your organization exists.
  • For whom, outside the organization, are you in business?
  • Existing only for the benefit of yourself, investors, and/or employees is too narrow and misses the point of being in business.
• Is simple, concise, and easy to remember.
  • A short sentence or phrase is best … a mantra. 
  • A long paragraph can be valuable to explain the mission in detail but is not easily remembered. If your organization only has a paragraph for its mission, it needs to also create a summary phrase that captures the essence of the paragraph.
• Is easy for every employee to engage with.
  • Can every person in your organization connect their daily tasks to the mission?

When a mission has these four attributes, it sets the foundation well for your organization to thrive in a meaningful way. You know your company’s mission is effective when each teammate can lay their head on their pillow at night knowing they’ve lived out the mission that day.

On a side note, whether you like to use the word mission, vision, or purpose to indicate the highest description of your organization’s existence—it doesn’t matter as long you are consistent, and your team understands. I like to use mission at the top as the why we exist, and vision next as the where we’re going, and values next as the how we behave. Now let’s look at profit in more detail.

Broaden Your Perspective on Profit

Let’s think about profit as more than just a financial return on your organization’s work. Think of it in terms of the greater benefits your organization and your teammates receive from their daily efforts.

What comes to mind? A solid brand in the marketplace, employees learning how to be good teammates with each other, lessons learned or skills developed through difficult projects?

Maybe you think about a better community because of your organization’s philanthropy. These are just a few examples of the non-financial profit that can be gained from the good work of your organization.

When you look at profit from this expanded perspective, you quickly see how it can begin to apply to not-for-profit organizations like charities, schools, government, churches, and even within your family at home.

Give yourself 10 minutes to think about other ways you, your team, and your organization can profit beyond just a financial return. You’ll start to see how widely applicable the concept of profit can be for an organization.

When we look at profit from a financial point-of-view, we see its benefits are much broader than merely putting more money in team member pockets.

Profit dollars can allow you to reinvest back into the business for future growth and improvements. It can be donated to nonprofit entities that are focused on making your community better and stronger, and it can be saved for stability and future cash needs down the road.

Profit sustains the organization into the future so that its mission can continue to be lived out. Finally, let’s look atgrowth in more detail.

Growth Enables Greater Impact

Have you ever asked yourself or your organization the same root question, “Why grow?” or “What (assets) are we growing?” Fully understanding these questions can unlock renewed motivation in your organization and your team. Let’s continue to dive into these questions one at a time.

Why grow? After all, growth requires more work. It’s harder. There’s more that can go wrong with more people, equipment, and customers. Why not just stay the same size and enjoy the comfort of that? For many, the quick answer is, “We want to get bigger to earn more money.” They think more revenue alone is worth the extra effort of growing. However, if you are like most people seeking meaningful work, that is an empty answer.  

When growth is a supportive cast member to your mission and your profit—it can fuel their expansion. Here are some compelling reasons to grow beyond just earning more money.

How Growth Can Make Positive Ripples of Influence

• Enables your mission to have a greater impact on more customers which in turn allows your customers to make a bigger impact in the
• Gives you the ability to hire more people and give them a great employment experience on your team impacting their lives and families
• Enables you to give back more to your team and your community
• Gives you a chance to develop and improve the capabilities of all teammates
• Provides more opportunity to stay relevant in your industry and not fall behind
• Enables exciting opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible

These are just a few. I’m sure you can think of more if you put your mind to it. Now to answer the second question, “What (assets) are we growing?” Understanding this can help you and your team find more meaning in growing beyond increased sales and profit. Here are some additional assets to grow beyond the obvious balance sheet assets.

Benefits of Growth Beyond Profitability

• Enhanced opportunities to develop and expand leadership capabilities
• Increased breadth of offerings and skills in the marketplace
• Strengthened brand awareness
• Ability to scale up and down as your market / industry demands and yet stay profitable
• Increased quality and reliability of your offerings/products
• Improved closed/won % from your sales team

As you can see, there are so many assets, skills, and opportunities that can grow beyond the balance sheet that will directly support your mission. And when you make this connection of Growth to Mission for your employees, you give them a meaningful reason to work hard and serve others well. It deepens their understanding of where it all is pointed and what it’s all about.

Below is a simple graphic that shows the relationship between Mission, Profit, and Growth in a way that ties MPG together in a meaningful way.

An added benefit of the MPG philosophy is it can act as a filter for all kinds of decisions within your organization. For example, adding a new customer may cause growth but it might not be profitable, or it might not actually fit with your mission. In those cases, you might choose to not pursue that work.

When your organization is unified around a strong mission, and the mission is fueled by profit and growth—you will reap the benefits of an energized workforce, increased performance, and the ability to have a greater impact in our world.  

How do you nurture a culture of engagement and impact at your organization? I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’d like to visit DISHER for a complementary culture tour, or if you’d like to learn more about creating a mission, profit, growth culture, let us know. We exist to make a positive difference with you.