Call it what you want, the soul of the company, the heart of the culture, the critical choice, the core of the argument, the tipping point. The more clear and more aligned you are on that essence, the easier it is for others to play their parts and win together. That’s why it’s worth all the effort to cut out all the noise and superfluous arguments and get to the essence.
- The essence and soul of a company is its purpose.
- The essence and heart of a culture is its third value.
- The essence and critical choice of a strategy is where to play and how to win.
- The essence and core of the argument is the main message.
- The essence and tipping point of tactical implementation is the concentration of effort at the decisive time and place.
Soul of the company – purpose
The key principle in Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle is to start with why and then work through how and what. His point is that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
- Why: The purpose, cause, or belief that drives an organization or individual.
- How: The processes or actions taken to realize the Why.
- What: The tangible products, services, or results of an organization’s efforts.
Part of this is getting at how the company defines good. Happiness is good. Actually, it’s three goods: doing good for others, doing things you’re good at, and doing good for yourself. While all of us do all three, different of us weight them differently.
The point here is that the essence of a company is hugely different if its purpose is to do good for others (help someone,) do things it’s good at (be the best at something,) or do good for itself (create value for shareholders.)
Heart of the culture – third value
This gets at Sinek’s second circle – how. His how is one manifestation of the underlying culture. While culture is made up of behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values, and environment, the essence of culture is found in its values, and in particular, the third value.
Almost every organization has values that look like integrity and respect in one way or another. As I’ve written before, their third value must align with their core focus.
- For design-focused organizations, it’s likely innovation
- For production-focused organization, accountability
- For delivery/distribution-focused organizations, collaboration
- For service-focused organizations, customer-centricity
Critical strategic choice – where to play and how to win
This gets at Sinek’s third circle – what. As Michael Porter has taught us, strategy is choosing what not to do. So, the first choice is really about where not to play.
Our company, PrimeGenesis, focuses on executive onboarding and transition acceleration. One prospective client turned us down because she did not want to accelerate as fast as we were suggesting. Some of my partners suggested created a second service offering for people like that. I responded that we already had that covered – by referring them to other companies as that was an area in which we chose not to play because we helped our clients win by helping them accelerate.
Core of the argument – main message
Deep down we all know communication is not about what’s said or written but about what the audience hears or reads and how it makes them feel. Master communicators like Charlie Shimanski get that and tend to drive one main message and three communication points.
Figure out what you’re trying to accomplish. Figure out what will move the people you’re trying to convince. Whittle that down to the core main message. Focus on that.
Tipping point of tactical implementation – concentration of effort
Scaling anything requires delegation. And the art of delegation requires inspiring direction, enabling resources, empowering authority, and credible accountability. At its best, those to whom you’ve delegated will make different decisions than you would make to achieve your objective and intent because they are closer to the action.
The third plank in The Powell Doctrine is to concentrate decisive force at the decisive place and time. The essence of strategy is the creation and allocation of resources to the right place at the right time over time. This is about concentrating your efforts to create a decisive advantage at a particular time and place in line with that strategy.
