The most potent ingredient in organizational effectiveness is a clear sense of purpose shared by every member of the organization. Organizational problems, including nasty interpersonal conflicts and wrenching internal schisms, can literally begin to dissolve when people in an organization rediscover the depth of their common vision. Similarly, a myriad of organizational problems -- manifested in everything from burn-out to unsuccessful fund-raising to power struggles among the staff or board -- can be the result of confusion or subtle disagreement about the organization's basic mission and thrust.
     There are a number of reasons why organizations can lose sight of their purpose or become unclear about it, and thus miss the power that purpose supplies. Sometimes organizations are afraid of surfacing disagreements about purpose that they suspect are there. Other times their staffs become so caught up in day-to-day responsibilities that they do not take the time to refocus on what their jobs are ultimately about. Still other time's organizations so emphasize toughness and realism that the people in them are too embarrassed to reveal the magnitude of their vision and caring. And sometimes organizations simply assume their purpose is clear and never look to make sure that it's actually so.

What Purpose Is

     What we mean by purpose is the end or result at which an entire organization is aimed. Purpose is the organization's driving force and reason for being. It is always translatable into vision - that is, an image shared by the organization of what the world or society or an environment or community would look like if that purpose were realized. True purpose is always inspiring; if it doesn't motivate and unify the staff and board of the organization, something is off or missing.
      Organizations, in essence, are a series of relationships built around a common purpose. It is purpose that brings people together to create an organization, moves them to foster and sustain the relationships necessary for effective, productive work, revitalizes them when they're tired or discourage, and compensates for their long hours and low pay. To spend time clarifying- or recapturing - the purpose of one's organization can thus be tantamount to recovering its soul.

Substituting the Litany for the Experience

      Most organizations tend to take their purpose for granted. They often allow it to become a litany that everyone repeats, but without heart or meaning. The board and staff assume they have the same purpose but never stop to think or talk about it- never probe beneath the litany to see what they really mean. They are thereby robbed of the power that purpose brings, for they are unaware of how deeply and strongly it's mutually shared. Their assumption of agreement has thus become a barrier to their experience of it.
      This was the case for one community economic development group we know. The staff was on the verge of burn-out. They were overworked, underfunded, and irritated with each other. In the day-to-day hassle of problems, crises, and petty annoyances, they had forgotten what their jobs were about and why they had come there to work in the first place. Of course they knew what the organization's purpose was and could state it, but they had lost sight of how profoundly they felt it and what a powerful driving force it was for them all. At a retreat, they were asked to answer the question: "Why are you here? Why are you doing this job?" At first they joked around and would not deal with the question seriously. Then, after about fifteen minutes, the most hard-nosed of the bunch broke through the embarrassment and replied, "It may sound corny, but... " and stated what his work really meant to him. All of the others then spoke in turn, each saying something different, but the identical message came through loud and clear: no matter what words they use, each person shared the same purpose and the same vision of what their community would look like if their goals were reached. Restoring them to that sense of purpose reviewed the energy, commitment, and fellowship of that staff.

Confusing the Mission with A Mission Statement

      People often make the mistake of confusing what their group's purpose really is with what they've agreed to as a mission statement. Organizations in which there are fundamental differences about purpose can fool themselves into thinking that they are in agreement by carefully constructing a statement of purpose that is so vague or bland or all-inclusive that it satisfies everyone. The board and/or staff then think that they are aligned when in fact all they've done is avoid or suppress the conflicts. This can be insidious because it not only deludes the group into thinking that there is a shared purpose but retards it from coming to grips with its differences and arriving at a true alignment.
      We can remember one organization in which everyone agreed that the agency existed to help young people in trouble but disagreed sharply about what kinds of youth it was meant to serve- poor or middle class. The organization convinced itself that it had resolved this problem by developing a mission statement that satisfied both camps. The problem was that the basic division remained, and even though the organization had a mission statement everyone could live with, it still had no agreed-upon purpose. Differences kept cropping up over which kinds of programs were most important- those for the middle class or those for the poor. The result was ongoing bickering about where the organization's priorities should lie in resource allocation, fund-raising, and new program development.
      Sometimes avoiding conflict can have the ironic effect of preventing organizations from discovering that the disagreements they fear aren't really there. We know one organization whose board and staff spent a year skirting a discussion about the basic thrust of the organization. When they finally confronted there imagined differences they found that they had been in agreement all along -- but the potency of that unity had been lost because they were unconscious of it.

Detecting Subtle Differences

     Sometimes differences over purpose are so subtle that they're hard to see. There are a number of tell-tale signs, however, that disagreements do exist: vague feelings of mistrust, tensions that can't be tied to anything specific, constant communications problems, or just a sense of being out of sync.
      Often these differences are difficult to spot because they are not about what the group ultimately wants to accomplish, but what trade-offs people are willing to accept, or not, in order to reach that end. In other words, there is absolute agreement on the purpose, but slight variations in what people value most -- or emphasize most -- within the circle of what that purpose holds.
      This was the case in one community health organization we worked with. Everyone in the group was clear that its purpose was to improve the health rural poor by helping them to establish community health clinics. Everyone also agreed that those clinics ought to be organized and controlled by the low-income communities themselves. But some people in the organization believed the clinics would be worthwhile only if they were community controlled. Others, while caring about community empowerment, valued improved health more and felt that any clinics would be better than none at all. That difference was so subtle that people didn't realize it was there. The result was that they felt suspicious of each other but did not know why. An intense self-examination by the staff of the organization finally revealed what had been troubling them. When it was brought to the surface, they discovered it was a manageable difference, one they could all tolerate and deal with. Indeed, we have found that organizations have a remarkable capacity to live with the creative tensions caused by slight variations on the same theme -- as long as those differences are out in the open and everyone clearly agrees to disagree.

A Purpose Obscured by the Funding Chase

      Nothing can obscure an organization's purpose more quickly than the funding chase. This happens when a group stops looking at what its mission is and what it needs to do and starts focussing instead on what the funders seem to be interested in.
      We have rarely seen an instance where this fund-raising strategy, even if interimly successful, did not come back to haunt the organization. Chasing money moves the organization away from its true purpose, causing it to engage in tangential activities that leave everyone questioning where it's going and what it's all about. The heart not only drops out of the organization, but there's no conviction in the fund-raising so eventually funding dries up, too.
      A legal advocacy organization we know had all the superficial signs of success -- a growing budget, burgeoning staff, and rapidly expanding activities. But that growth had been largely the result of seizing whatever funding opportunities had come along, regardless of whether the new project was really important to the organization's purpose. The result was a bunch of disaffected, dispirited staff members -- divided into separate, turf-conscious projects with no sense of coherence or larger purpose -- who were suffering from the most degenerative disease a nonprofit staff can have: a waning belief in the value of their own work.

Focussing on the Trees Instead of the Forest

      Even organizations that don't slip into the funding chase have a tendency to lose sight of their purpose as they age and grow. Purpose is nearly always clearest for an organization at its start. Then, as new people come on board and the group gets bigger and less cohesive, the focus tends to shift from the central purpose of the organization to individual jobs and projects.
      As still greater growth occurs -- with the inevitable increase in specialization, decentralization and communication breakdowns -- it becomes even more difficult for an organization to maintain a sense of connectedness, coherency, and singularity of purpose. That's why an organization must keep attending to its purpose -- refining it, and making sure that it continues to be the central integrating force in the organization's life.
      Organizations also lose sight of the bigger picture just in the course of focussing on meeting day-to-day demands. Most nonprofit organizations operate in a particularly uncertain environment in which they must constantly react to crises and seize opportunities. Sometimes this can take them off in directions that, while attractive and even quite worthwhile are not critical to the organization's basic thrust. It is therefore essential for an organization to keep looking at all its programs and activities in light of its purpose, so that it makes sure that its purpose is evident in everything it does.
      Sometimes organizations fall into the trap of turning a specific activity into an end in itself. When that happens, the group may wind up with a successful activity, but one that has made little contribution to its core purpose. For example, one peace group we know invested a great deal of time, money, and effort into a day-long event. But somewhere along the way the predominant concern subtly shifted from having an impact on people's thinking to getting lots of people to show up. The result was a big turnout, but it did little to further the group's real intention, which was to activate people on the issue.
      Immediately realizable results have an irresistible attraction for us all. It also is usually much easier to respond to events and circumstances than it is to think and plan strategically. For that reason we all have a tendency to focus on our in-boxes rather than concentrate on our organization's broader goals and ultimate mission.

Antidote to Internal Schisms

      Organizational life is filled with the kinds of interpersonal conflicts and tensions that arise whenever any group of people work together in close harness. Nurturing those relationships- indeed, just keeping them functional-thus requires ongoing attention and hard work. But organizations often miscalculate how important the experience of a shared purpose is to binding people together and motivating them to make their relationships work.
      In fact, the recognition of a common purpose can be so powerful that it can reopen communication in an organization that is on the brink of tearing apart. We saw one polarized organization begin the process of healing when the warring factions, on rediscovering their unanimity of vision, realized their determination to mend their differences. The group had been split into camps over the question whether the executive director should be fired. In lengthy individual interviews, we found that despite severe divisions over management structure and style, every person on that staff still shared the same purpose and had a profound commitment to its realization. But that underlying commonality had become buried in all the conflict. In the course of an intense nine-hour meeting, the staff was able to get back in touch with their fundamental unity. Their common purpose then served as the glue that held the staff together as they fought about and worked through their many differences. In fact, many of the differences took on a whole new cast - of much less significance - in light of the importance of the purpose they shared.

Purpose Is Important for Everyone

      Many organizations make the mistake of thinking that their purpose is only important to the people involved in their substantive programs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, complaints from administrative and support staff about feeling unimportant and excluded often stem from a failure to make sure that they, too, are clear about the group's purpose and understand the essential part they play in its realization. Support staffs of nonprofit organizations usually are not there because they, too, want to work for something they care about -- like the mail clerk we met in a highly visible human rights agency who felt personally attacked each time "her" organization received a piece of hate mail. Or like the talented secretary we know who preferred to take a second job as a sales person in a department store rather than quit her anti-poverty agency when it had to cut back staff salaries, so deeply did she believe in its cause. Thus, to fail to include support staff in an organization's vision - or to fail to continually acknowledge their contribution to it - is to deny them the very thing that will give them a sense of ownership of their agency and inspire them to do their jobs well.

Keys to Staying on Purpose

      Given all the things that can blur a purpose or get in the way of a powerful sense of mission, the question is: how can an organization make sure that its purpose is clear, felt by everyone, and reflected in all its activities? We know two keys. One is leadership. The other is periodic "purpose check."
      Effective organizational leaders understand that perhaps they're most important role is to serve as the custodian of purpose. It is the leader's job to make certain that the entire organization is embued with a strong, sense of mission, and that everyone understands the larger context in which all their jobs are held. When that happens, the normal centrifugal forces in organizational life (particularly the gradual loss of cohesion that always accompanies growth) can be successfully counterbalanced. For example, there's a major national advocacy organization we know that has a staff so large, so complex, and so departmentalized, that it's hard to imagine how they're not operating as little fiefdoms. But the organization functions as a single, organic whole because its leader has done such a splendid job of aligning the entire organization behind one shared vision. The result is that everybody in that organization is willing to drop whatever they're doing and pitch in as a team whenever the broader needs of the organization demand it- so clear are they that there is a purpose larger than their individual jobs or projects.
      Although it is normally the executive director of an organization who serves as the keeper of the vision, it is sometimes the board that must play that role. Often it is only the board that has maintained enough distance to return an organization to its core mission when the staff has gotten off track or lost the connection between what they're doing day-to-day and what the organization is all about. That's why it's important for boards not to get caught up in operational detail but to keep their eye on the larger purpose and maintain that broader perspective.
      The second key to preserving the power of purpose is regular check-ups to make sure the organization's purpose is clear and present in all that the organization is doing. Indeed, it is essential that an organization take some time at least once a year to relook at its purpose, to reassess its programs, and to make sure that it is doing those things that are most critical to the achievement of its vision. For us, that is the essence of planning.
      Most nonprofits both overrate and undervalue the importance of planning. They usually do planning in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons. Either the executive director frantically puts together a plan to satisfy a funding source, or the staff develops a plan to please the board or to ally the anxieties of the executive director. Everyone puts a great deal of time and energy into the process- only to resent it because they know that at least half the plan will be ignored or modified as a result of shifting circumstances or unexpected occurrences.
      What organizations generally do not realize is that the plan itself is less important than the process of producing it. When an annual planning process is done well, the organization reexamines what it is fundamentally about, where it currently is on that line of purpose, where it now needs to go given changing circumstances, and how it plans to get there. This process realigns the board and staff on the purpose, instills them with new clarity about, what their jobs are about, gives them the sense that the ir purpose is attainable, shows them that they do have a strategy for getting there, and reaffirms the value of what they they're doing. The plans may then go into the filling cabinet perhaps not to be looked at until the next annual planning retreat- but the powerful sense of purpose that planning process produced will guide and fuel the organization throughout the next year.