Happy Sunday Everyone:
I had breakfast with one of team members on Friday. He was frustrated with his time management. As we talked through the different activities, how to prioritize, etc….we came up with him understanding the concept of urgent and important, urgent and not important, important and not urgent, and then not urgent and not important (garbage)….and him trying to get everything thrown at him into one of those boxes as quickly as possible and prioritize accordingly. What was much more important however was uncovering the idea of process vs. purpose. Part of what is happening is he is following the process but at times missing the purpose. I believe this is something we all struggle with a lot in our businesses. What’s more important, process or purpose? They’re both incredibly important but purpose wins. Purpose is learning process is doing, but we get much better at the process when we understand the purpose, which was the biggest point I was trying to make. If you take the time to understand why you’re doing something, you get much better at actually doing it. A process person is replaceable, just like someone on an assembly line….a purpose person is much less replaceable because they understand A to Z vs. just their letter of the alphabet, and they put meaning to what they’re doing vs. just doing. They understand what I’m trying to create from a client experience, referral partner experience, team experience, and personal experience. I don’t think we can ever think too much about the “purpose” of what we’re doing….in our jobs, in our lives, in our relationships….what’s the purpose?
I don’t think our clients are actually thinking about the question of “does Hunter’s team understand the purpose of what they’re doing”…but I guarantee you they can hear the purpose, or lack thereof, in our voices, in our emails, in everything we do, or don’t do, for them. My take a ways from this great conversation are as follows:
1. As it relates to performance in life, the people that take the time to understand the purpose, grow more, learn more, and are more valuable to those around them.
2. When you understand the purpose, the clarity in what you’re trying to accomplish is crystal clear….You might not be where you want to be today but you know what it looks like, and therefore have a path to follow.
3. Asking yourself the question constantly in your head “what’s the purpose of this”, makes you NOT go through the motions….If I’m talking to a client and I’m thinking “my purpose is to win this client” vs. “I’m tired of talking to people today but I need to return this call”….the client feels this, one way, or the other.
Take today and think about the people you’re communicating with…restaurants, gas stations, whatever….ask yourself if they understand their purpose? Ask your teams if they understand their purpose? Ask yourselves if you understand your purpose? If you don’t….you need to. For my team, this goes all the way from understanding a client’s needs based on the information they provided, all the way down to voice inflection on a call. Take a minute to think about the people you admire, respect, look up to, and then perhaps those you don’t….my guess is the ones you look up to have a much better understanding of their purpose than those you don’t.
For the record-my team member absolutely understands his purpose and he is a huge asset to the team, in part because he’s interested in uncovering this type of stuff with me, and growing from it.
Have a great week ahead…and be purposeful.