Purpose and Organizational Design
19th January 2023, Thursday at 9am Eastern Time
Drawing upon my recent book, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High Performance Companies, I will offer a reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms get purpose right. Few business topics have aroused more skepticism in recent years than the notion of corporate purpose, and for good reason. Too many companies deploy purpose, or a reason for being, as a promotional vehicle to make themselves feel virtuous and to look good to the outside world. Some have only foggy ideas about what purpose is and conflate it with strategy and other concepts like "vision," and "values." Even well-intentioned scholars and practitioners don't understand purpose's full potential and engage half-heartedly and superficially with it. Outsiders spot this and become cynical about companies and the broader capitalist endeavor. Based on extensive field research, I will show how deep purpose companies energize their enterprise by inspiring employees and fostering greater loyalty and trust with customers and partners. Purpose is also a compass with which these firms navigate the inevitable tradeoffs across stakeholders more deliberately and effectively and balance their short- and long-term goals. Ultimately, a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity's future.
Ranjay Gulati
Ranjay Gulati is the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor and the former Unit Head of the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Until recently, he chaired the Advanced Management Program, the flagship senior leader executive program, at the school. Professor Gulati studies how "resilient" organizations-those that prosper both in good times and bad-drive growth and profitability. His work bridges strategy (establishing clear strategic pillars for growth), organizational design (reimagining purposeful and collaborative organizational systems), and leadership (fostering inspired, courageous and caring execution). He was ranked as one of the top ten most cited scholars in Economics and Business over a decade by ISI-Incite. His research has been published in leading academic journals of business, the Harvard Business Review, and a range of other outlets. He is the author of a number of books, and has been a frequent guest on CNBC and other media outlets. Professor Gulati advises and speaks to corporations large and small around the globe. He has served on the advisory boards of several entrepreneurial ventures and has appeared as an expert witness in business litigations.
Link to register: https://orgdesigncomm.com/event-5096344
Registration closes 18th January 2023 at 10 am (eastern time).
The live webinar is open to the public. The recorded webinar is only available for ODC members.
Come join us!
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Francisco Brahm
London Business School
LONDON
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