Rallyday Partners is a Denver-based private equity firm that was built by successful entrepreneurs to provide a better way of serving and partnering with emerging companies and their leaders. Drawing upon its four sources of capital - creative, financial, experiential, and human capital - the firm's 'by founders for founders' strategy provides an alternative to traditional private equity for those that want to go even further, elevate entire industries and have an experience of a lifetime together.

What is purpose? Why is purpose important to your business operations?

At its simplest, Purpose captures the difference that an organization is trying to make in the world. It's a definitive statement about why you exist that ensures employees know what they're there to do, suppliers know how to help, customers know what to expect, communities understand your value, and investors can consciously align their capital with the ambition of the organization.

The Purpose should serve as the North Star of the organization. It should inform strategic choices, drive innovation, and catalyze an ecosystem of opportunity to drive extraordinary growth. It also serves as a magnetic force to attract the next generation workforce seeking meaningful, purposeful work in the world and unlocking their discretionary energy to achieve great things. And businesses that are built to make a difference are rewarded with die-hard customers who cherish the brand and reward it with their loyalty. Together, these purposeful advantages translate to higher levels of success that's both deeply gratifying and financially rewarding.

The most Purpose-driven, values-based companies of our time, also turn out to be the highest performing. Not surprisingly, when companies are obsessed with making a difference in the lives of those they serve, they tend to significantly outperform competitors who are focused on profit alone.

If the ultimate purpose of your business is simply making money, your organization won't have the clarity or conviction necessary to create meaningful or sustainable success. Purpose has been the driving force behind iconic and legendary companies like Southwest Airlines, Chipotle, Patagonia, and Whole Foods Market. Each of them had a clear idea of the problem they were built to solve and ended up with better performance than competitors who were myopically focused on just making money.

How do you identify your company's purpose?

The questions we explore:

There's a wonderful quote from Aristotle that captures the heart of the Purpose discovery work that we do. "Where your talents and the needs of the world intersect, therein lies your purpose."

To that end, we investigate the "talents" of the organization, which we define as the unique combination of strengths and passions:

• Strengths: What are you built to do? A lot of people have very noble ambitions, but they don't have the capabilities to back it up in any meaningful way. You need to have core competencies and competitive advantages that will bring credibility to your Purpose.

• Passions: What do you love to do? If you don't have passion for the work of the organization, it's difficult to impossible to summon the energy, dedication and commitment that greatness requires. We seek to understand what the people of an organization care deeply about, what they find gratifying and rewarding about their work, and what makes their work meaningful.

And we look at those strengths and passions in the context of the 'needs of the world':

• Meaningful: What does the world need you to do? What is the biggest problem or need that your organization has the wherewithal and desire to solve?

If you imagine these areas of exploration in a Venn diagram-your strengths, your passions, and your potential for meaningful impact in the world-it's easy to see how a credible, inspiring, and meaningful purpose begins to emerge.

Who should be involved in the purpose discovery process?

Purpose Discovery should be Leader Led and Grassroots Fed. If the leaders aren't brought in and bought in, then it's nearly impossible to execute the purpose in a meaningful way. Without leadership buy-in, purpose work can quickly degrade to a communications exercise resulting in a nice phase that people may ultimately refer to as 'purpose-washing.' You have to have the executive team involved in order to execute the Purpose in a meaningful way throughout the business. You also want grassroots involvement of employees throughout the organization, at all levels, in order to ensure that the Purpose connects with the people who will ultimately have responsibility for championing it and bringing it to life. If they're not involved, you risk developing and launching a purpose that may fall flat with employees. And remember, people are much more likely to champion a Purpose that they had a hand in creating.

Include your most engaged employees. In 25+ years of doing this work, we've found that asking "average" employees generates "average" answers. For this type of work, we want to talk to the best and brightest, the most engaged and fulfilled in order to find out what lights them up and drives their commitment to the work of the organization. We'll ask you to select your most engaged employees to participate in the Perspective Gathering phase of this discovery process to ensure we surface meaningful insights that serve as fodder for your Purpose.

What's the research and discovery process for finding purpose?

Purpose discovery is an inside-out job. You don't go out and do market research to determine what you should stand for any more than you would go ask people what personality you should have. You have to start by exploring the hearts and minds of your leaders and employees and then conduct research with key stakeholders (industry experts, key suppliers, customers) to find the natural intersection between your organizations and the market opportunities that exist in the world.

The purpose discovery process involves ten in-depth interviews with internal and external stakeholders. We start by talking with the leaders of your organization about the strengths, passions, and potential for impact of your organization to surface the initial themes; then we gather perspective from key external stakeholders to get their take on the problems you should be focused on solving and the difference they believe you've made in their life, the industry in which you operate, or even the world at large. The insights from these interviews, along with the implications for the Purpose, are shared in a Purpose Workshop. In thisworkshop-attended by the leadership team-we review the findings, share recommended purpose territories, and align the team around the Purpose that they feel best captures the noblest ambition of the organization.

What are "purpose territories" and how do you ultimately choose one for your organization?

Purpose territories represent viable purpose options for an organization. At the end of the purpose discovery process, we invariably arrive at up to three viable purpose territories that reflect different opportunities for impact in the world that the organization has the wherewithal and desire to address. Each purpose territory would point the organization in a direction with unique implications for strategy, product or service design, employee value

proposition, etc. So, it is critical that the leadership team truly consider the business implications of each purpose territory under consideration before making their decision.

The leadership team has to agree upon the Purpose territory that resonates most deeply and has the potential, if well executed, to catalyze extraordinary success. Sometimes, everyone on the leadership team gravitates towards one purpose; other times there might be something about one territory that's deeply resonant, but something from another territory that should be integrated. In that case, we work through it as a team to arrive at an ideal purpose that feels the most complete, meaningful, and ambitious.

What makes for a good Purpose Statement?

TRANSCEND THE GENERIC MISSION STATEMENT. The modern-day

Mission Statement is often no more than a basic category description wrapped in corporate performance goals. Be clear and definitive about the difference you aspire to make in the world and leave the category descriptions and sales goals for the Annual Report.

REMEMBER, THIS IS NOT A TAGLINE. A great purpose statement errs on the side of clarity over creativity. It is intended to inspire your internal constituents by giving them a clear sense of purpose for all that they do.

Leave clever taglines for the branding process.

STAY FOCUSED. A great purpose is single-minded and focused. Prune away multiple ideas that can end up cluttering and sucking the life out of a great purpose.

KEEP IT SIMPLE. A great purpose statement should be immediately understandable and easy for anyone to repeat in an elevator without the aid of cliff notes.

AIM HIGH. A great purpose statement should feel like a lofty and noble goal worthy of putting your life's work into. Understand that this is the ultimate reason for your organization's existence and not a wholly accurate assessment of all of your current operations. AIM HIGH BUT DON'T END UP IN THE ETHER. A great purpose statement should have enough definition that people readily understand what it is you're actually doing.

PURPOSE STATEMENTS
RALLYDAY PARTNERS	To inspire leaders to go even bigger, create the most value for the most people, and share in the experience of a lifetime.
ESPIRE DENTAL	To provide confidence and joy, one smile at a time.
HIGH BAR	To empower people to feel better, move freely, and live fully.
POWER TECHNOLOGIES	To empower people to feel better, move freely, and live fully.

What's the output of a Purpose Discovery Initiative?

At the end of the purpose discovery process, the client will receive:

• Purpose Presentation: a comprehensive presentation that details the learning from the purpose discovery process so that everyone is crystal clear on the insights that informed the final purpose.
• Purpose Statement: a definitive, credible, inspiring and audacious purpose that will serve as the North Star for the organization.
• Purpose Blueprint: a one-page overview of the Purpose, Mission, Vision, and Values of an organization.

What is a "Purpose Blueprint"?

We're often asked, 'What's the difference between purpose, mission, vision, and values?" These terms are often used interchangeably and, as such, lose their true meaning and power. We believe they are distinct, yet highly complementary, concepts. We bring them all together in what we call a

PURPOSE BLUEPRINT. In the following table, you can see how we define each term, alongside an example from Southwest Airlines under Herb Kelleher's leadership.

		Southwest Airlines Example (Herb Kelleher era)
PURPOSE	WHY you exist. A definitive statement about the difference you are trying to make in the world.	The purpose of Southwest Airlines is: To give people the freedom to fly.
MISSION	HOW you fulfill your Purpose. The mission that must be undertaken to fulfill the purpose; a distillation of the organization's strategy.	Southwest Airlines will operate the most efficient airline the world has ever known­ committed to delivering the lowest fares, most frequent flights, and friendliest service in the air.
VISION	WHAT success looks like. A vivid, imaginative conception or view of purpose-driven success.	We see a day when the skies have been democratized and everyone has the opportunity to go, see, and do more than they ever thought possible.
VALUES	THE WAY we behave. A small set of timeless principles that shape the behaviors and actions of employees and animate the internal culture of the organization.	Servant's Heart: We practice the Golden Rule Fun-Loving: We take the work seriously, but not ourselves. Warrior Spirit: We play to Win.

What is the Purpose Flywheel?

The purpose flywheel reflects three essential activities for helping your Purpose take off and take root in your organization. As with anything, the early stages require the most effort and energy. Over time, the flywheel builds momentum and living and fulfilling the Purpose becomes easier and more natural.

• Communicate - Consistently communicate your Purpose to ensure that everyone is aware of the purpose, understands the purpose, and appreciates it as the galvanizing focus of the organization. Everyone in your organization should (1) be AWARE of the purpose, (2) CARE about and BELIEVE in the purpose, and (3) know how their job CONNECTS to the Purpose.
• Cultivate - Purpose should serve as a catalyst for cultivating new and innovative ways of fulfilling the promise of your Purpose. There will always be gaps between the ambition of the purpose and the reality of the business that will need to be addressed. These gaps reveal where you have work to do. A key aspect of cultivating your Purpose involves ensuring that your people have the KNOW-HOW (expertise & skills) they need to fulfill the Purpose, as well as the ABILITY (capacity, resources, opportunities, strategic directive) to engage in activities that will fulfill the Purpose.
• Celebration - Finally, in the same way that a company measures and celebrates Key Performance Indicators, we recommend the creation of Key Purpose Indicators. Find ways to measure whether or not you are having the kind of purposeful impact you aspire to make in the world. Then develop a system for sharing stories and celebrating successes. The more that people have a felt sense of the difference that they're making, the more fulfilled they'll be in their work and the more inspired they'll be to do more.

How should you COMMUNICATE your purpose?

Host a purpose launch event. One of the first steps taken after the completion of the Purpose discovery process is to host a launch event to unveil the Purpose to employees. During this event, the goal is to inform, inspire and engage people around the new Purpose.

• Inform: share the learning from the purpose discovery process, highlighting the key insights that led to the creation of the Purpose. This provides the rationale that enables people to understand where the Purpose came from and what makes it credible.
• Inspire: create content to capture the power of the Purpose in a way that will move and inspire people and make them feel great pride in the work of the organization. This can come in many forms: a personal and poignant story/speech from the Founder/CEO, a moving 2-3 minute Purpose Anthem Video, an internal employee campaign celebrating the new Purpose, or even testimonials from customers who share how the company has impacted their lives for the better. The goal of this element is to leave people feeling inspired to embrace the new Purpose.
• Engage: develop an exercise that will help begin the process of internalizing the Purpose and thinking about its implications in their work. It often helps to take an existing company initiative and ask people to look at it through the lens of the new Purpose. How might it influence or shape their thinking? What might they do differently in light of the Purpose? This should give people a real world example of how to engage with the Purpose and put it to work in driving the business.

Communicate Purpose Frequently & Consistently. After the launch, leaders and managers should make the Purpose a cornerstone of company communication. If the Purpose is never mentioned, discussed, or heard about post-launch, people will quickly get the message that it's not relevant to the business and it will die quickly from neglect.

How should you CULTIVATE purpose in your organization?

Rather than thinking that your Purpose will usher in an entirely new set of activities on top of everything else you have going on, we recommend embracing the Purpose L.I.F.E.

• Lens
• I
• Filter
• Everything thru

Consider the major initiatives underway at your organization and take the time to reflect on them through the lens of your Purpose. Are they naturally aligned with the Purpose? With a little creativity and intentionality, could they be more aligned with the Purpose? Or, as is sometimes the case, are they potentially undermining your Purpose? The Purpose should help you prioritize initiatives and, as importantly, de-prioritize initiatives or stop something altogether that has little to no value in fulfilling the promise of the Purpose.

Often there is an elephant-in-the-room that needs to be addressed in order for the Purpose to be seen as credible. For example, CVS made the bold decision to stop selling cigarettes (a two billion dollar business) in order to be true to their purpose of Helping people on their path to better health. Every decision that a leader makes to be more congruent with the Purpose sends a powerful signal to employees about the sincerity and seriousness of commitment to the Purpose.

How do you CELEBRATE the fulfillment of your purpose?

Most successful organizations use Key Performance Indicators (KPls) to hold themselves accountable to business performance goals. In the same way, purpose-driven organizations develop Key Purpose Indicators to hold themselves accountable to the fulfillment of the Purpose.

What might you measure to assess whether or not you are having the kind of impact you aspire to have in the world?

For example, Espire Dental is in the business of providing confidence and joy, one smile at a time. A simple survey that measures the level of one's self­ confidence and daily experience of joy before and after a procedure could

provide meaningful data about the impact of Espire in the lives of its patients.

Adding powerful patient testimonials that complement the data is another way to bring the impact to life in more personal and poignant ways. Well­ told testimonials are an easy yet often overlooked way to celebrate the Purpose. They make employees proud of what they do and let future customers know what they can expect from doing business with your company.

How do you avoid losing your sense of purpose as you grow?

Make the implicit animating force behind the organization explicit.

Most founders of extraordinary companies are driven by a sense of purpose. They see a problem or a need and then create a product, a service, an experience to solve that problem in a unique or disruptive way. As the business grows, founders often assume that everyone understands and appreciates the problem the business is built to solve. But that's not a safe assumption to make. The first step to avoid losing your sense of purpose as you grow is to go through the process of discovering, articulating, and codifying the Purpose of the company.

Disciplined practice of the Purpose Flywheel.

Flywheels are very difficult to turn in the beginning, but over time, they gain the necessary momentum to begin turning almost effortlessly. It's the same with Purpose. In the beginning, leaders need to practice communicating, cultivating and celebrating the purpose with great effort and discipline. If you stop investing energy, the flywheel will lose its momentum and eventually grind to a stop. Keep investing energy into the flywheel to ensure it continues to pick up speed and create more dynamic energy over time.

If the business and/or leader evolves significantly, you may need to evolve the Purpose.

While a well-developed Purpose is intended to be timeless, sometimes a significant evolution in the business and/or the consciousness of the leaders might stimulate the need to revisit the Purpose. If the business evolves in a way that changes the opportunity for impact...if a leader evolves in a way that catalyzes a greater sense of responsibility for a broader circle of impact...the Purpose should evolve in lockstep. In this case, losing the company's original sense of purpose isn't a negative, but a positive evolution necessary to reflect a more expansive, impactful sense of Purpose.

What's the most important thing to get right?

AUTHENTICITY. There are a myriad of benefits that accrue from having a clear Purpose, but none of them will come to pass if the Purpose is not Authentic. It has to reflect something that the people of the organization genuinely care about. You want your people to wake up everyday, committed to going to work to fulfill a Purpose they truly believe in. When they do-get out of the way and watch them rally!

What are common pitfalls?

Failure to communicate the purpose consistently, with conviction. If you never talk about the Purpose, people will quickly get the message that it doesn't really matter. Find ways to naturally integrate the Purpose into routine conversations about the business. Talk about strategic initiatives in the context of the Purpose. Talk about the Purpose when recruiting and onboarding talent. And use your environment to visually reinforce the Purpose whenever and wherever it makes sense.

Failure to walk the talk. The purpose should be both genuine and generative. Genuine in that the company has evidence that they are capable of fulfilling the purpose in meaningful ways based on the current business model; and generative in that the company is actively using the Purpose to generate new ideas and address gaps that may exist between the ambition of

the purpose and the reality of the business. If the Purpose isn't being used to generate new ideas, it will likely be interpreted as an inert, pat-on-the-back for past accomplishments but not a meaningful driver of the business.

Failure to develop meaningful Key Purpose Indicators. As Peter Drucker once said, What gets measured, gets managed. If no one is measuring the fulfillment of the Purpose, then no one is likely to be managing the business with the Purpose in mind. Don't forget to measure what matters. And remember, most frontline employees won't care as much about profit margins and market share as management does; what they do care about is being a part of an organization that's making a positive difference in the world.

For more information or to connect with the Rallyday team, reach out to Padraic McConville at 415-385-4714 or Padraic@rallydaypartners.com