In a wide-ranging conversation on The Business Philosopher Within You podcast, I sat down with Carol Cone, a pioneer in purpose-driven strategy whose work stretches back three decades, to dig into one of the most important shifts for modern leadership: putting purpose at the center of business. Our discussion ranges from what purpose actually means, to how individuals discover theirs, to the practical, measurable ways purpose lifts brands, transforms organizations, and builds companies that endure.
Below I’ve captured the core lessons, stories, and practical steps Carol shared, presented as a guide you can use personally and organizationally. If you lead a team, an entire company, or are simply trying to align your own career with what matters, this is the roadmap to making purpose real: not as a poster on the wall, but as a strategic force embedded in strategy, products, people, and performance.
What Is Purpose? The “Why Beyond Profit”
Purpose is deceptively simple in definition and profound in effect. At its core, purpose answers one question: why do we exist? Carol phrases it as “an organization or a brand’s why,” the reason beyond making a profit. It’s grounded in humanity: in how work, products and relationships touch minds hands, and hearts.
"Employees don't wake up in the morning to make money for somebody else. They want to do something that engages their head, their hands and their heart."
That triad — intellect (head), behaviors and results (hands), and emotional connection (heart) — is a useful way to check whether a purpose is complete. A strong purpose appeals to people’s reasoning, gives them something tangible to do, and moves them emotionally toward the company’s mission.
Personal Purpose vs. Organizational Purpose
Purpose shows up in two complementary ways: as personal purpose and as organizational (or brand) purpose. The most powerful situations are where the two align.
Personal purpose is what gives someone direction and meaning in life and work. Carol’s own personal purpose, for example, is to help organizations and individuals discover and live their purpose.
Organizational purpose is the collective “why” of a company, brand or nonprofit. It needs to be authentic to the company’s history, products and impact.
When personal and organizational purpose meet, you don’t just get motivated employees, you get people who stay, produce better work, and recruit others who resonate with the mission.
Examples That Make Purpose Real
Concrete examples help translate abstract ideas into practical models. Carol shared several that illustrate different kinds of purpose in action:
Unilever: Paul Polman led a transformation grounded in the company’s origins (e.g., Lifebuoy soap’s handwashing history). Unilever’s purpose, “making sustainable living commonplace,” wasn’t a marketing line; it became a lens for product choices, brand investments and employee engagement. The brands that embraced authentic purpose grew faster and contributed disproportionately to profit.
Patagonia: A founder-led purpose with a planetary focus: “We exist to save our home planet.” Patagonia aligns every business decision, including donations and corporate structure, to that mission.
Mars: “The world we want tomorrow is how we do business today” is a simple, ambitious phrase that translates into long-term corporate behavior across products, supply chains, and investments.
Lineage Logistics: A B2B example where cold-storage warehouses framed their work as feeding the world and eliminating food waste. That elevated a functional business into a purpose-led supply-chain partner and inspired new initiatives like large-scale meal donations.
Aflac: Turning the iconic Aflac duck into a social robot for kids fighting pediatric cancer demonstrates creative product-level purpose: a tangible invention born from both brand assets and societal need.
Why Purpose Isn’t a Slogan; It Must Be Lived
A danger many organizations encounter is treating purpose as a marketing headline. Purpose must be embedded across the business to be strategic and durable. Carol’s research over thirty studies makes that clear: purpose drives results when it is authentic and operationalized.
Key pitfalls:
Letting the loudest voice in the room define purpose, rather than listening broadly.
Creating a beautiful statement, then failing to weave it into values, behaviors, product decisions, and KPIs.
Starting the work in the middle of the organization and hoping it spreads upward — Carol is clear that real transformation needs CEO commitment.
The Discovery Process: How to Find Purpose (Personal & Organizational)
“Discover” is the operative word. Purpose is typically found rather than invented in thin air. Carol’s firm uses a framework called P3: Precision Purpose Programming. It’s a deliberate, evidence-driven process that combines archival work, interviews, surveys, workshops, and quantitative research.
Here are the practical steps distilled from that approach:
Start with history. Look back to the company’s origins. What was the original problem the founders solved? Lifebuoy soap’s hygiene mission was a seed for Unilever’s later work.
Map products, services, and customer relationships. How do existing offerings already impact people and communities? Where is there natural resonance?
Interview broadly. CEO-led initiatives are essential, but you must interview people at every level: the CEO, senior leaders, factory workers, salespeople, and frontline staff. If you don’t interview enough people, the loudest voice wins — and that risks producing a shallow or inauthentic purpose.
Survey employees. Ask what causes matter to them, where they find pride in the company, and what changes would make work meaningful. Survey data complements qualitative interviews and can be especially useful for global organizations where you can’t conduct workshops everywhere.
Define ambition and scope. Is the purpose global in scope, or focused on a local community? How much budget and energy do you want to commit? Clarity on ambition influences the nature of the purpose.
Prototype and refine. Bring draft language to workshops, adjust based on feedback, and test reactions across regions and business units.
Make it measurable. Embed purpose in KPIs, performance evaluations, product roadmaps, and supply-chain decisions.
Discovery is collaborative. Carol emphasizes co-creation because when people participate in the creation of purpose, they more readily buy into its execution.
Launching and Activating Purpose: From Statement to Strategy
Even the best-crafted purpose needs a launch and a living plan to make it stick. Carol shared how effective rollouts include storytelling, leadership visibility, and practical integration:
CEO sponsorship is non-negotiable. The CEO must champion the work publicly and personally. When the CEO introduces purpose at a global meeting, it sends a signal that this is strategic, not cosmetic.
Create a compelling launch. Off-site launches with creative assets — especially video — help convey the emotional and practical dimensions of the purpose. Employees need to feel it and understand their role in delivering it.
Embed it everywhere. Review values and behaviors: if purpose changes the company’s why, values must be revisited. Translate values into observable behaviors and link them to performance metrics.
Use purpose as a decision lens. Product investments, M&A decisions, supply-chain policies (e.g., sourcing free of child labor), and divestitures should be tested against the purpose. Kerry Group used purpose to decide which businesses to divest.
Keep measurement and follow-through. Regularly measure how well purpose is being lived. Too often organizations have purpose on the wall but not in practice.
Embedding Purpose into Business Decisions
Purpose should guide the hard choices. Carol gave the example of Kerry Group: after defining its purpose (“Inspiring Food. Nourishing Life.”), leadership used that lens to refocus the company and divest businesses that were not aligned. Purpose, properly applied, becomes a strategic filter that simplifies choices and reduces mission drift.
CEO Responsibility: Why Purpose Needs Top-Level Commitment
Who leads purpose work? Carol is unequivocal: it starts at the top. CEOs set direction and allocate resources. Without CEO commitment, purpose initiatives risk becoming a middle-management project that never achieves scale.
Why the CEO matters:
CEOs set the operational tone: values, behavior expectations, and allocation of capital.
CEO visibility during launch demonstrates seriousness and prevents cynicism from spreading.
CEOs can align boards, investors, and external stakeholders around long-term commitments required for lasting change.
Carol noted that purpose rarely works when initiated from the middle out. The CEO and C-suite must be present in interviews, in priority-setting conversations, and in the public rollout.
Proof That Purpose Moves the Needle (The Data)
Purpose is moral and it’s measurable. Carol’s decades of research, and third-party studies, demonstrate the business case:
Unilever: Not every brand needed a purpose, but the 30-ish brands that found authentic purpose grew faster and contributed disproportionate profit. Carol cites that these purpose-led brands grew about 69% faster and produced around 75% of the profit among Unilever’s brands that embraced purpose.
Deloitte/Other research: Companies that authentically live their purpose can achieve materially better financial results. Deloitte’s research, for instance, found that purpose-driven companies can deliver up to three times greater returns (exact figures vary by study and methodology, but the pattern is consistent).
Internal P3/B2B work: In a sample of about 2,000 B2B respondents, 86% claimed to have a purpose, but only 24% truly lived it. That gap illustrates that intention alone doesn’t equal impact; embedding purpose into the business does.
Public opinion: After a recent election, Carol’s team asked Americans whether companies should invest more in social impact. Forty-six percent said companies should do more. Support varied by party (66% Democrats, 49% Independents, 36% Republicans), but the overall takeaway is clear: citizens expect corporate contribution to societal well-being.
And when asked what issues companies should address, health and well-being rose to the top, with mental health emerging as a cross-partisan priority.
From "Me" to "We": Societal Trends and the Purpose Pendulum
Society swings between "me" and "we" over time. Whether this is cyclical or generational, purpose and social responsibility are part of a larger cultural conversation. Carol — someone who grew up in the activist eras of the 1960s and 70s — believes that when people and businesses prioritize the collective wellbeing (the “we”), companies that embed purpose create more resilient, future-ready organizations.
Two points to keep in mind:
The planet is a stakeholder. Beyond employees and communities, businesses must incorporate planetary health into decisions. Paul Polman summarized it bluntly: “We need more trees and more people.”
Younger generations are hungry for meaning. Gen Z and Millennials care about purpose and are increasingly choosing employers and brands that align with their values. They also lead cultural practices: putting down phones, seeking nature, prioritizing mental health.
How Individuals Find and Activate Personal Purpose
Personal purpose is discoverable. It often emerges through self-reflection, experimentation, and connection. Carol suggests practical steps for individuals:
Explore what energizes you. What are the activities you lose time doing? What makes you feel alive?
Talk with trusted peers. Honest conversations with friends or mentors help surface consistent themes.
Be curious. Read, listen to podcasts, try brief stints in different industries before locking into a long-term path.
Try roles that align with your strengths. If you like words and ideas, find roles that let you write, design, or shape narratives.
Find companies that mirror your values. If societal impact matters to you, consider working for B Corps, mission-driven firms, or foundations.
Don't rush. Personal purpose often crystallizes through time and repeated experience.
And a practical career tip Carol emphasizes for younger professionals: be a great student of your craft. Study, prepare for interviews, and show up with curiosity and competence.
Superpowers, Creativity, and Invention: Stories That Inspire
Carol’s work frequently combines a superpower (her own is “connection-making”) with brand assets to create novel purpose-led initiatives. Two standout projects illustrate this inventive approach:
My Special Aflac Duck: Carol paired Aflac’s iconic duck with a social robot designed for children battling pediatric cancer. The product is an emotional, practical tool: a toy that helps children communicate, manage treatment days, and feel less isolated. Aflac donated thousands of the robots to hospitals and families.
Whirlpool washing innovations: Recognizing that billions lack electric washing machines, team members designed hand-cranked or low-resource washers that deliver dignity and hygiene to communities where women spend many hours washing by hand.
These projects matter because they turn brand identity into measurable societal outcomes. They also demonstrate that purpose is fertile ground for product innovation and partnership design.
Practical Checklist: Bring Purpose to Life in Your Organization
If you’re leading purpose work, here’s a condensed checklist that combines Carol’s guidance with practical execution steps:
Secure CEO sponsorship and board alignment.
Conduct broad discovery: archival research, interviews at all levels, global workshops (if relevant), and employee surveys.
Define ambition, scope, and budget so the purpose is actionable, not aspirational without teeth.
Draft the purpose statement and test it with employees and customers; iterate until it feels right and real.
Launch with storytelling assets (video, employee testimonies, leadership Q&A) and clear examples of how the purpose will influence decisions.
Revisit values and behaviors. Translate values into observable actions and build them into performance metrics.
Use purpose as a decision lens for product development, M&A, divestitures, supply chain sourcing, and community partnerships.
Measure and publicize outcomes. Track employee engagement, brand growth, product performance, and societal impact.
Train managers and leaders to embody the purpose daily; avoid making it a one-off communications campaign.
Common Missteps to Avoid
Putting purpose in marketing only. If an organization markets purpose but doesn’t operationalize it, employees and customers will sense the mismatch and call it out.
Starting from the middle out. Without C-suite commitment, purpose rarely achieves the scale required to impact product choices and financial performance.
Failing to measure. Purpose initiatives without measurable goals and KPIs become feel-good projects without sustaining effects.
Rushing the rollout. Purpose work is long-term by nature; it requires patience and continuous reinforcement.
Final Thoughts: The Power of Head, Hand and Heart
Purpose is strategic and soulful at the same time. It equips organizations to make better choices, design better products, and build deeper relationships with employees and customers. But for purpose to create lasting business value it must:
Be authentic — rooted in history and honest about capabilities.
Be collaborative — created and owned by people across the organization.
Be operational — embedded in values, behaviors, KPIs, and product decisions.
"You can do work that truly involves your head, your hand and your heart."
That is the practical promise of purpose. When done right, purpose is not a soft-end initiative. It’s a strategic resource that helps companies accelerate growth, protect long-term value, and make stronger, more aligned choices for people and planet.
For Individuals and Young Professionals
If you’re early in your career, Carol’s advice is particularly helpful:
Experiment with industries and roles, but avoid changing jobs every six months. Build depth that employers notice.
Identify your superpower and find roles that make use of it.
Be curious: read, listen, get off your phone, and spend time in nature. Those practices sharpen the inner signals that point to purpose.
Look for organizations with genuine commitment, not just marketing copy. B Corps, social enterprises, and companies with transparent measurement are a good starting point.
What’s Next
Carol continues to pursue big ideas — invention, product-led social impact, and creative partnerships — and her teams are looking for collaborations that turn corporate assets into measurable social outcomes. For business leaders, the invitation is clear: start with the why, involve people broadly, and then commit to living the purpose every day.
If you’re a leader wondering where to begin: start by asking the people who know your business best, your employees, what matters to them. Then bring that feedback to the C-suite and make the commitment to act. Purpose is not a trend. It’s a durable way to build organizations that matter.
Parting Note
Purpose moves organizations from transactional to transformative. It bridges business and society, aligns personal and corporate meaning, and — when properly discovered, launched, and embedded — delivers measurable growth and stronger communities. It’s worth the hard work because the payoff is nothing less than companies that last.
For leaders, the question is no longer whether to have a purpose; it’s how to make yours real, measurable, and central to the business so that it guides decisions and mobilizes people. As Carol reminded me: when purpose is authentic and activated, it becomes the living, breathing execution of why we’re here.
Get In Touch with Carol Cone
This article was created from the video How Purpose-Driven Leaders Transform Organizational Culture with the help of AI.
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