Tim Kelley: How many human beings do you think this morning woke up and rushed to work early because they were excited to create value
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: for shareholders? And the whole audience laughs because they know the answer is zero, not zero percent, not zero point one. Literally zero human beings out of the eight billion did that. Everyone knows that immediately. And I'm like, well, then that's a useless purpose. If it doesn't cause people to want to do anything, who cares?
Tom: Welcome back to the Lead with More podcast, where we help you lead with character and build a culture that people choose. Now, most leaders can tell you their company's purpose or mission, but far fewer can actually tell you their own and many don't find out that difference until something actually forces that question. And today we're going to talk about that and about how to find it before it happens. And to help me unpack this, I brought in some horsepower. I brought an expert on finding purpose, Tim Kelly. And Tim created the True Purpose process and he's spent more than twenty years coaching senior executives and governmental officials and even presidential candidates. He's done purpose work with around hundred organizations worldwide. And the second edition of his book, True Purpose, just released, I just finished it. It's a really good book. So we're gonna talk about all that today. Tim, welcome to Lead With More.
Tim Kelley: Thank you so much, Tom. I've never been called horsepower before. I like it.
Tom: Well, yeah, I read your book, so you've got some you've got some time in this and I really wanna start
Tim Kelley: I I have I have logged time and purpose before it was a before it was the new black, before it was a thing. So
Tom: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's that's good. And that's what I want to get to. But I I really want to start our conversation talking about drift. We we had this conversation earlier about a line that I've heard Michael Hyatt use that says leaders can't drift to a desired location. And
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm.
Tom: I think it's true. And I wanted to start there and ask you what you're seeing in leaders that are working hard, they're doing really well. But they're drifting. What are you seeing
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm.
Tom: there?
Tim Kelley: Well, the the what's what's the other line? If if you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there. Said Louis Carroll or something, one of the one of the characters
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: in Alice in Wonderland. so so that what I'm seeing is that some of the traditional leadership approaches are starting to break down. so what's happening is that the market's evolving so rapidly and the world is changing so quickly, and there's so so much economic uncertainty and geopolitical uncertainty, like, look, there's a new war and now we don't have any wheat, you know, or natural gas or whatever. that traditional sort of prediction and forecasting and five-year plans and all this kind of stuff was when people are making those, they kind of know that they're a joke. But they sort of feel like they're supposed to do it anyway. And part of the reason for that is they don't know what to do instead, which is, which is a completely valid problem. The, the, the extra feature to this that I know you'll appreciate, Tom, is that when the level of uncertainty goes up, the brain responds in exactly the wrong way. So the
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: brain perceives uncertainty the same way it perceives a hungry lion, right? That this is a threat. Which it is, right? It's true. It is a threat. But the way the brain is designed is when it perceives a threat, the amygdala kicks in, which is this tiny little thing, and then shuts off your cerebral cortex. And now you're operating like instinctually and not strategically. It's not a good problem solving part of the brain. It's an immediate action part of the brain, which is why people
Tom: Yeah, it's survival.
Tim Kelley: that's right. But that's why so so I've had I've been saved by mine. you know, I had a bicycle accident where I did I blacked out and did everything perfectly and wound up without a broken neck as a result. I don't remember any of it because my amygdala shut off my brain completely and then solved the immediate survival problem. So it works for that type of situation, but this is why people sell stocks right after a stock market crash, right? Which is their amygdala kicks in and they go sell, which is the worst thing you can do, right? But they're looking for that immediate survival move, move. And so the problem is with this ongoing uncertainty, it actually makes everybody a little bit stupider. And
Tom: Mm.
Tim Kelley: they're and they're trying to get certainty rather than trying to move forward and do something useful and productive. And it's it's difficult to overcome. But the the leaders who really succeed in that environment is the ones. Who aren't relying on their ability to predict the future in order to figure out their next move.
Tom: That leads into their purpose then.
Tim Kelley: Well, that would be that's the way I do it, right? I imagine there are other ways of doing it, but it some people call it a north star, right? You can use a purpose
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: or a vision or values or something, but you have to have some kind of north star so that way when you're you know out thrashing around in the sea, you can look up and see, there's north, right? So that you always have a direction. And so purpose-driven
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: leaders always have a direction. They're like, well, under these conditions, my purpose tells me to do this. the conditions just changed. My purpose is telling me to do this. And people love to follow purposeful leaders, especially when things are really confusing and uncertain, because they're confused, they're uncertain. And it's like, this person here, she knows which way to go. Let me follow them, right? That's a it's they they love that under any conditions, but even more under these kind of conditions.
Tom: And I guess one of the keys there is not to be following these these made up I I I don't know what way to put it, but these these purpose statements, for instance, or mission statements that that people will come up with that that basically look good in a frame, but they're not to to borrow your phrase, it's not true purpose. And
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm. Yeah, people people really throw a lot of shade on folks for for well for two things. One is for having a purpose that's really not that inspiring and not that good. and the other thing is for not being successful at actually manifesting it and keeping making decisions, for example, for financial reasons rather than because things are purposeful. I actually have a lot of empathy for these people because I've worked with them. If you read like the the the the kind of business press and stuff, there's a lot of people who are saying, they're not serious and they don't care and they just want the money and it's all purpose washing and blah, blah, blah. That's not my experience. I'm sure that somebody somewhere is doing that. I haven't met them yet. Everyone I meet is really trying to make it work. There's there's a couple problems of trying to make it work. One is it's actually fiendishly difficult to come up with a really powerful, accurate, compelling purpose for yourself or for your company. It's really hard. And I can't tell you how many leaderships, leaders and leadership teams have told me. They said, Well, Tim, you know, we worked for six months and he came up with this. And I'm like,
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: I hate to tell you your ug baby's ugly, but you know that's crap, right? And they're like, Yeah, yeah, we know. And that's people
Tom: Well if they know
Tim Kelley: who who really worked so hard for so long trying to come up with something, they just don't know how, right?
Tom: Yeah, and if it and if they know it's it's not good, then they know they've just come up with something superficial. It sounds good maybe, but and i
Tim Kelley: It's the best they could do. It's the best they could do.
Tom: it's not a true purpose. It's I I think you used a phrase, you talk about borrowed purpose, and that may be part of a that may be a borrowed purpose. I don't know, but it's not truly one that they've discovered.
Tim Kelley: Well, e so there's this odd phenomenon I've found, which is that if I asked you to fly a F-16 jet, or I asked you to perform brain surgery on someone, or I said, Well, here's a piano and here's a huge audience of people. Would you please play the sonata? Unless you're really good at one of those things, and I'm j just guessing statistically that you're not. I don't know you that well, you would probably decline all three, right? You would say Don't know how to fly a fighter jet, don't know how to do brain surgery, don't know how to play that sonata well enough that this audience should be listening to me try to play that sonata, right? Even if you've played
Tom: Right. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: the piano a little bit. But if I say, let's find your company's purpose, people suddenly have this imagination that they ought to be able to do that themselves. They'll hire a plumber to unclog their toilet, but they'll somehow imagine that they have the necessary skills to find their own purpose or find their company's purpose. It's just like anything else. There's technique involved. There's methodology involved. And if you don't have the technique and you don't have the methodology, it's really difficult or impossible. I just have a very funny quick story. When my son was 10, he asked me if he could drive the car. And I was gonna repark it just like 15 feet. And I said, sure. And I handed him the keys. And he was like, really? I said, absolutely. Now the car was a stick, and I knew the
Tom: Okay.
Tim Kelley: odds of him making that car move. were vanishingly small. And he sat there frustrated for 10 minutes, trying to get the car to start and trying to get the car to move because he doesn't know how to use a clutch. He's 10 years old, right?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: And and then comes out of it really with very angry and hands me the key back and then I move the car. And so it's just
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: like that, right? If it like driving a car isn't that hard if you've had the necessary training. And if you haven't, it's a terrible idea to try to try try it on your own. But for some reason where purpose is concerned, I won't think so I should already know how, I have no idea why.
Tom: Yeah, and I have to admit that I fell into that. I was I was in that category in corporate life is that I I felt like and it wasn't just purpose, it was everything about the corporation, it was everything about strategy and that, you know, we can figure this out. We're pretty smart. And it you know, for me it the discovery process actually didn't happen until I left corporate and and then I started to realize that, you know, we didn't really know what we were doing. And as You know, it's crazy is as as I was reading your book, I was walking as you walk through some of these processes, I was like, Okay, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Cause I've lived that and I you know, and I can appreciate the fact and I'll probably refer to the book a lot, which you know, that's I guess you won't mind that. But,
Tim Kelley: I I forgive you.
Tom: you know, the fact that you you break it down in such a way
Tim Kelley: Just just quick bragging. We we made it to number two in Amazon. We can't unseat the number one. I'm so I know, yeah.
Tom: Well, it just it just released too, 'cause I d I just found the the second edition that was released. But you break it you actually broke it down into four components and we don't have t time to dig into all four of those, but you know, that's the one that peop
Tim Kelley: Let's talk about mission, because that's the one that applies to companies. That's the one
Tom: it's something that people Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: that so every company that I know, with very few exceptions, has some sort of mission statement. But the kind of mission statement that businesses create, in my opinion, is the wrong type. The kind of mission statement they create is one that talks about what they do, what's the service they provide and who do they provide it for, and how well do they provide it. That's the wrong kind of mission. That's good for focus. But it provides no inspiration. When we're talking about having people choose a culture, people make choices emotionally, right? They decide
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: whether they like this movie or don't like this movie. That's not a logical decision. That's an emotional decision that takes place in the limbic brain. Same thing if you ask, well, how do you feel about your company? That's an emotional question, right? So I I love to say to audience of CEOs, raise your hand if anyone has ever cried when you read them your company mission statement. And they all laugh, because of course none of them have. And I say, I've seen it. I've seen it more than once, right? That's a thing. That could happen.
Tom: Ye yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: but that it's just not part of people's thinking, right? So that's not the right kind of mission statement to use. The right kind of mission statement to use is the kind that nonprofits use save
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: the whales, feed the starving children, end war, right? You know, resolve climate change, that kind of mission. So it doesn't have to be one of that list. But it's that type of mission statement where you're saying, here's why the world is a better place because this company exists. Here's the thing we're trying to do for all of you, not just our shareholders, not just our owners, not just our employees. Here's what we're trying to do for all of you. So think about Fair Trade Coffee is a great example, right? You can buy this coffee that costs a dollar. You can buy $6, $8, whatever it is now, right? And here you can buy this other coffee that costs, you know. 10% more, 20% more, something like that. Tastes the same, but this one, the farmer's kids will go to school and they'll have health care or whatever, right? People will spend that extra money, not all of them, but a bunch of them will, because they want to contribute to making the world a better place. And if those two coffees cost the same, there's no contest. Research says something like 91% of people will choose the one with the social benefit over the one where we're just here to make money.
Tom: Yeah. So even if a company has done a good job creating a mission statement, we that one of the things we're talking about here today is the fact that we're we're talking about the need for your own, for your personal mission or your
Tim Kelley: Absolutely.
Tom: personal purpose. because it's good to have that for the company, but it you really need to have that for yourself as well.
Tim Kelley: Well, if there's only a company purpose and no individual purposes, you're actually giving up a lot of value, a lot of benefit, a lot of benefit to the bottom line. so, so, and and you can, it's interesting, there's kind of three different approaches here. One is the company's purpose, another is the leader's purpose. That could be one leader or a bunch of leaders or all the leaders, right? But you want the people at the top to have a personal sense of purpose. And then there's the employees' purposes.
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: And each of those is a different independent strategy, all of which add value for approximately the same reasons. The ideal situation, which I've only seen happen a couple times, is where all of the employees know their individual purpose, they all know the organization's purpose, and they see alignment between their purpose and the organization's purpose. Now that's that's like the holy grail. I've seen it happen only one or two times. And the times when I've seen it, the f financial results of the company just took off in an unimaginable way. Like one of them it was 1200% in three years growth or something. Just just crazy numbers that you would never put on a financial plan as an objective.
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: because people are no longer coming to work because they have to, right? That there's this assumption in economics that everyone wants to avoid work. That's a Fundamental belief in how they model humans in classic economics, right? Which is a terrible thing to say. as opposed to purpose-driven employees come to work because that's where they're going to manifest their purpose. That's
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: where they're going to use the company's resources to manifest their purpose and create a better world. And use the company's resources to manifest the company's purpose to create a better
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: world.
Tom: Yeah. I mean you mentioned the financial performance and of course from a business perspective that's something you want to see, but I'm curious what sh what it was like. What do you see in the culture there and in the people there when they finally when it clicked, when they finally got it?
Tim Kelley: So i it's it it becomes more than a workplace and the relationships become more than work relationships. Like the people really start to care about each other and they really start to care about the company. And pardon my French, but they Tolerate less bullshit, right? If there's someone
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: who doesn't want to play, it's kind of like, you know, I I live in Berkeley, California. So I'm sorry, San Francisco 49ers and a Golden State Warriors fan, right?
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: So those really top-performing teams like that. If you get picked for that team and you kind of sort of don't feel like working that day, you don't have to worry about the coach. You have to worry about the other players, because
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: they are not gonna tolerate that, right? And so it's kind of like that. You get these high performing team environments where the people are like, hey, you know what? You're not pulling your weight over here. And we're up to important big things. You need to get on board or you need to get out. And it's interesting, peer pressure actually works better than pressure from a superior does.
Tom: yeah. Yeah. I believe that. so much of our society, well, everything about social media is driven around that.
Tim Kelley: Right. Exactly.
Tom: And so, yeah. You know, it's interesting to me because this whole this whole journey of purpose, you know, I found I'm I'm in what I consider to be the second season of of life. And, you know, for those and I've talked about Arthur Brooks's book on strength of strength and David Brooks calling it the second mountain, all these good things. Usually when people get there, they really start honing in on actual true purpose. And
Tim Kelley: This it raises a lot of questions, right? When you've got
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: less time left than you've already lived, those
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: questions just I remember when it happened to me. you know, quite just the questions start to pop up and go and and achievement loses its luster. And this is especially true for men, right?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: That that young men, there's this achievement drive to go make something happen if everything's working properly, which it isn't always, right? But there's this a this drive to make a mark of some kind to have something happen to create something. and that lasts usually to 40s, 50s, sometimes
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: early 60s. And then it just sort of tails off as a motivational thing. and then something else comes in to replace it. And that's a need for meaning.
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: And meaning is generated differently than achievement is. It's a different yardstick. It's a different measurement. And so the people who have a need for meaning Don't necessarily know how to fulfill that need. And sometimes this is where you get the midlife crisis. You get the driving gloves and the, you know, young mistress and the sports car and all this other garbage. That's someone who's trying to meet some need they're not familiar with and they don't really know how, and they're sort of groping.
Tom: Yeah, they're looking for love in all the wrong places.
Tim Kelley: Exactly. but so meaning and fulfillment actually produce, according to the research, more sustained happiness. Than things like excitement or pleasure. Excitement or pleasure are very, very short-term blips in the happiness graph for an individual. And meaning and fulfillment have a very long tail, like they last much, much, much longer. And they create a better deathbed experience if we're gonna go there, right? You know, but people
Tom: Sure.
Tim Kelley: don't remember the the really great meal they had, they remember the difference that they made in other people's lives and that it mattered that they were alive. And so pr
Tom: Yeah. I mean it
Tim Kelley: one One definition of purpose that I love, which was from a Texas tech CEO who didn't wasn't into any of this soft spiritual garbage. He he came up with his own definition of purpose, which I loved, which was the path of maximum impact. What's the greatest difference you you as an individual could conceivably make during your lifetime? I
Tom: Mm.
Tim Kelley: love it. It's great.
Tom: Yeah. You know, so I guess my question to you is i we know that it happens in the second season for a lot of people or in a crisis, but does it have to be there? I I mean, does a or does a thirty year old leader find it while they're still in the first season?
Tim Kelley: So they can. And and I'll tell you, the youngsters are more interested in it, their own purpose and organizational purpose than previous generations were. And there are companies that have vicious turnover that I've talked to, like 26% turnover, 50% turnover in different groups within their, you know, different age groups or genders or whatever, where it's just absolutely eating away at their bottom line, just horrifically expensive to replace that many people that frequently. and and it's because the people don't see any meaning in working for that company, right? The the the the youngsters have an additional filter on there, yeah, can I do the job? Yeah, can I make money? And yeah, do I wanna? Is this is this an organization I want to support either as a customer or as an employee? And if the answer is no, they won't play. And they'll they'll move back in with their parents rather than work for some company whose values they don't like or something like that.
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: And so there's lot of companies struggling with retention problems who could solve them using this. And they
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: just they they can't quite get over the fact that like playing with the compensation plan won't fix it. Like that's just really hard for them to accept.
Tom: Yeah, 'cause you're you're really talking about a cultural thing, and this is why the whole focus of my company is around this idea of culture is that 'cause I made the mistake of trying to solve cultural issues with strategic solutions. And and they don't work. That does not work. And
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tom: I I can attest. So anybody thinking of trying it, don't don't do it. It's not worth it. Yeah, it's it's important.
Tim Kelley: And I'm not saying strategy is not important. I'm not saying compensation. All those things are important. If you get them wrong, you will pay for it.
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: But they're necessary but not sufficient. That's not
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: enough to create a culture that people want to be part of. A c c because they have to choose every day to come to work,
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: right? We we gloss over that, right? And the here's another one. I I so so every now and then I run into a CEO who says to me, Well, the purpose of business is great value for shareholders, they're quite Milton Friedman, right? Thanks, Milton. and I say, okay, and this is usually in the context of like, you know, picture 200 CEOs or something fitting in an audience. And I say, great. How many human beings do you think this morning woke up and rushed to work early because they were excited to create value
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: for shareholders? And the whole audience laughs because they know the answer is zero, not zero percent, not zero point one. Literally zero human beings out of the eight billion did that. Everyone knows that immediately. And I'm like, well, then that's a useless purpose. If it doesn't cause people to want to do anything, who cares? What value does that have? You need a purpose that people are excited about, right? I and
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: other companies that I've worked with, for-profit companies have volunteers who work for nothing for the for-profit company because they care about the company's purpose.
Tom: Yeah. And that's that's a good indication that they're on the right track with it. you know, and we talked about that when when the employees and when the leaders purpose is when they're they're discovered they're known and they they align, they work out, they support the company's purpose, then the sky's the limit. But what happens when they don't? Mike, you know, do they do they end up having to encourage those employees to leave or do they just end up leaving?
Tim Kelley: This is a tough question. And I this always comes up when we're finding the company purpose, because this is a fear people have. And it turns out that you have to work the fears out in advance, or else you'll get a very watered down purpose. And this is something
Tom: yeah.
Tim Kelley: most people don't realize is it's like, okay, you gotta you're because that remember we talked about what the fear does to the brain, right? Makes you stupid. And so
Tom: Right.
Tim Kelley: you can't come up with creative, powerful, inspiring purposes if your amygdala is all wiggly. Because you're afraid, no, what do we do we have to fire everyone who doesn't like our purpose? Or until that question's resolved, people can't play. They can't do the process. So we have to talk about that in advance. And the answer is it depends. The that's a decision the company has to make. Most companies, and I support this, most companies do not walk people out the door if they don't support the purpose, right? That's a little, it's a little harsh. I think it's unnecessary. But you can make the culture go in a certain direction. And then some people will walk themselves to the door. And it's usually
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: if you do a really good job with a purpose or a value or vision, like you really implement it full bore, you'll have about 10% of the employees leave. And for the most part, that won't be the 10% that you're gonna miss the most.
Tom: Yeah, it's usually not it's usually not the ones that are I mean, you may have some of that are very good workers, very productive. They may not buy into
Tim Kelley: Yeah.
Tom: it, but they're also not dragging it. They're not anch they're not acting as an anchor.
Tim Kelley: Right. That's right. And if someone's willing to come to work every day, I don't believe that people should like that. I don't believe in the thought police at work, right? People should get to believe
Tom: Right, absolutely.
Tim Kelley: what they believe and and feel what they feel. And if they're doing the job and not creating hate and discontent with their fellow employees, that's good enough for me as a boss. I'm I'm okay with that. Right. I don't
Tom: Yeah, right.
Tim Kelley: need everybody to drink the Kool-Aid. It's all right. I don't like it when other people tell me what to believe, right?
Tom: That's right.
Tim Kelley: So, or how to feel. Yeah, yeah. So, so that's okay. Now, I have seen in a couple cases where the company said, no, no, no, you have to like explain to us why you, you know, how you feel about this purpose and why it's aligned with your own purpose. And and if and if it's not, that's okay. We'll help you find another job. We don't you know it's none of this hit your, you know, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. It's like, no, we'll we'll let you we'll help you find another job that is more purpose-fueled. We have connections and we have friends, we'll find a good spot for you to land. We're not going to kick you out right away. It could take two or three months, who knows, right? but they were very, very serious about it. And they were one of those companies that had the the the huge increase in revenue. Actually, in their case, it was right in the middle. It was a South American consulting firm, and they had their best year ever. right in the middle of the 2008 global financial meltdown,
Tom: Wow.
Tim Kelley: right after they found their purpose. And, you know, w when there's a financial meltdown, the consultants are the first ones to get fired
Tom: Right. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: bef before the temporary employees and the layoffs and everything. First you fire all the consultants and executive coaches, then we'll talk about that other stuff. And they had their best year. and and so I don't I don't encourage it, but every now and then there's a company it's like, no, no, no, we only want employees who are passionate about and aligned with our purpose working in this company. Okay.
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: That that's that's that's a a choice you can make. with a larger company, I would say absolutely not. You can't do that with a you know 10,000 person company or something.
Tom: Right. And then you'd wanna know, you know, if those if those leaders are asking those kind of questions of the employees, then employees may not have given this most of them aren't giving a lot of thought to this kind of stuff. And so
Tim Kelley: Well, in this case they had all found their individual purpose as part of the process. So so there
Tom: Okay. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: was that they they knew exactly what was going on. So yeah.
Tom: Okay. Well that's you know, 'cause a lot of times you're dealing with concepts that most of the general employee population doesn't care about on the surface. You know, they're they're not so interested in this tr in right.
Tim Kelley: They care more than you'd think. This is this is a leadership distortion. It's a perception. It's it's one of the features of hierarchy that it causes the people at the top to think in certain ways and the people in the bottom think in certain ways that just aren't true. and so this is one of the things that the when you interview middle managers and upper managers about their subordinates, they say they only care about the money. They don't care about any of this kind of stuff. When you interview the people who work for them, it's absolutely not true. Compensation's like 10 on their list of reasons why they're engaged and interested in the company, right? So it's it's there's a there's a distortion that happens that people aren't seeing each other clearly because the difference in levels creates projection and other stuff like that.
Tom: Well, and that's where trust comes into it because
Tim Kelley: Yeah.
Tom: in one of many places, because if the employees don't trust that the that they can be honest with it and say you know, something that p potentially differs from what the corporation is saying, then you won't get the accurate you won't get anything accurate out of it anyways. And I've
Tim Kelley: Right. And the the the one purpose gig I ever absolutely failed at. I mean I'm you know, they they they all worked except for one. It was a company purpose gig. the one that failed, that was the issue, was a lack of trust between the employees and the top leadership. And so I switched and started working on that and and couldn't fix it. The the leader had something going on. I don't want to get into too much specifics, but he had he had something going on that really had him kind of unconsciously feel like that he could do whatever he wanted and that everyone else had to put up with it. And and and it was it was not pretty and and and no one wanted to play when we were doing the company purpose work. They didn't they didn't trust him enough to be honest about what they thought about individual purpose statements and stuff like that. We couldn't we couldn't get anywhere with it. Tried
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: three times and it it didn't work. So some there is a minimum amount of what's called psychological safety that's necessary for these more advanced culture games. If everybody hates each other or afraid of each other, you're too low on Maslov's hierarchy. You're not gonna be able to do this kind of stuff.
Tom: Yeah, that's true. And so Tim, I wanted to before we get get to the end and we have to close this out, I do want to talk a little bit about what you're doing
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm.
Tom: with your company and and how you're helping people because I want to make sure that we don't just talk about this on a high level and say, Okay, well that that's all well and good. But I'm hoping this sparks something and they're gonna say, Look, you know, this this purpose stuff sounds really good. What what do I need to do? What how do they what do they need to do as far as you're concerned? How can they get in touch with you and and what what kind of things do you do and offer?
Tim Kelley: Yeah, so the so the the thing that I'm best known for, slightly famous for to ball from far borrow from Van Yoder, the thing I'm slightly famous for is this purpose methodology that's literally a better mousetrap. Like it's just better than the other purpose methodologies by a significant margin. And it's especially useful for companies and leaders who want to be up to big things. Right. If you want to optimize and you know reduce the cost of the widgets you sell or something like that, it's not the right purpose methodology. It's it's the ones who feel like they want to transform their market or change the world or something, you know. which many companies are like that. They don't necessarily think of themselves that way, but it's not just about the money, right? We're trying to do this big thing, right?
Tom: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: So those are the ones who love This particular purpose methodology because it gives a much more detailed, accurate purpose information. That's a much better guide in the confusing VUCA market. So the there's two approaches. So the employee purpose usually only happens as part of an organizational purpose thing. I haven't seen many companies. There are a few, but I haven't seen very many companies just say we want all our employees to find their purpose, and that's it, right? So usually the place to start is with the leader's purpose. That could be one leader. Or it could be all the leaders. And usually I say, well, let's just do, let's just do one. Let's test drive it. See what you think. And usually that leader is like, wow, this is the bomb, right? They're all inspired and everything. Everybody's gonna do this. I'm like, well, not everybody. Game for volunteers, but yes, we can offer it to everybody. And so usually that leads to then wanting to do it for the executive team, wanting to do it for the company, and often but not always wanting to do it for the employees to get that, you know, that kind of ramp up. in revenue that comes from all the alignment that comes out of that. So it's usually in that order. So start with your own purpose first. That's my advice. Start with your own purpose first. And don't expect that you can go home and sit in a chair and gaze at the stars and know what your purpose is, right? Just like you can't fly a plane or do brain surgery or play the piano. Like you these things require method and skill and training and usually outside help, right? So you have to you have to get the the the help to do it. So that's that's where it begins. And even if only the CEO found his or her purpose and that was it, that will help. That will absolutely
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: help the company. Even if he or she never tells anyone what purpose they found, it will still help. Like that, that's all you need to get started and get actual bottom line benefit is just that one thing.
Tom: Yeah. Well I can tell just from what I read that your approaches go a lot a lot deeper than what what a lot
Tim Kelley: Yeah.
Tom: of things that I've seen. There were some questions that you asked, that I I pulled out of your box I screenshotted it 'cause there were things I remembered that that help to discover stuff, but I and I've seen people use just a few of those questions and think that's it. But they don't go into the depth and the different methods you talk about and and Direct, the indirect, the the the the huge section on ego is a big one that that needs to be covered. That we, you know, we there's no way we can cover the it yeah. But it it's a huge component of this that I, you know, until
Tim Kelley: Ego is not a four letter word. Yeah.
Tom: I read that and I I discovered a lot of this stuff the hard way through lots of years of of painful experience and realizing that I I kind of reached some of these places. That and I and there were some things that after reading the book, I was realizing okay, that was the final piece that I needed. But I say final piece. I I don't want to sound like it's ever. Yeah, that's the way. It's is I I've learned that much that I I've, you know, you get new enlightenment, but
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm. Until the next one, yeah. It's the final piece for now. Yeah.
Tom: but but yeah, I I think that it's it it's so important and the depths that you take it are are so necessary that I don't think people are just gonna. find it themselves that
Tim Kelley: Well, it's it's the the game here, right? And this is what you're talking about in all your stuff is about being a better leader and
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: how that's internal personal work, right? I'm gonna change myself so that I become a better leader. And then that better leader is gonna go out and produce better results, right? Rather than trying to play with the knobs
Tom: Yeah, build that culture and yeah.
Tim Kelley: on the machine to try to get it to spit out more money, which is kind of the classic view of business. It's like, no, no, we're we're not dealing with machine, we're dealing with human beings. You're a human being. All the people who work for you are human beings. And if you want better employees, become a better leader. And then you will have better employees. Like that's how that works.
Tom: So I'm gonna one thing I'm telling people here is that they need to get your book and read it. True purpose.
Tim Kelley: Thank you.
Tom: it's a good they can they can find it on a lot of places. It's everywhere as far as I can tell. but we also wanna be able to send to your website and check out.
Tim Kelley: Yeah, so the so the best website to reach me, interestingly, this could be a whole other conversation, is canceledleader.com. My my
Tom: Yeah, I
Tim Kelley: my new side hustle is working with leaders who've been exiled by the collective and helping them find their purpose. So you don't have to be canceled to go to canceledleader.com to find me.
Tom: Yeah, I saw that and I thought, man, that that's a whole episode in and of itself because that's a that's a rabbit hole we could really spend some time on. But purpose just
Tim Kelley: It is a whole episode in another cell. The can people who've been canceled by cancel culture have a very serious purpose problem as I've discovered. Yeah.
Tom: Yeah. Well this this whole thing with purpose is a big thing. But I wanna ask you as we try to put a cap on this thing is if if somebody listening here says i is listening and they what's one thing they should take away from this? If if nothing else, what's one thing they should take away?
Tim Kelley: So here's a little exercise you can do by yourself in 10 seconds. All right. It's, it's, it's so easy. People who do not know their purpose know how purposeful they're being in their lives. Like you do not need to know your purpose to know how purposeful your life is. So right now, ask yourself, at work, how purposeful am I being? And come up with a percentage, right? 37%. 58%, 92%. You tell me, right? Just notice that number in your mind right now, right? Good. If you were able to up that number, what impact would that have? And you can probably up it a little bit without even knowing your purpose because you know that some aspects of your job are more purposeful than others. And if you do
Tom: Absolutely.
Tim Kelley: a little bit more of this. And a little bit less of that, you and your company will benefit.
Tom: Absolutely. Well, I would love to keep going with this conversation because there's some stories that you and I could exchange that would be I we'd enjoy it. I don't know if anybody else would, but we would.
Tim Kelley: are indeed. We would entertain ourselves very well.
Tom: Because I spend a lot of time thinking about this, but I I do wanna just make sure and and and reemphasize that people need to connect with you. They need to read your material, they need to visit your website. This is really, really good stuff. It's really important.
Tim Kelley: Thank you. Yep, so the book is true purpose. The website is cancelledleader.
Tom: Absolutely. Well Tim, I've enjoyed it. I wanna thank you for joining me
Tim Kelley: As have I.
Tom: today and I'm looking forward to getting this out to people and
Tim Kelley: Let me just say I really appreciate this view of leadership because it's one I've held for a very long time and
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: and people debate it a lot, but I see the results of it. I see the results of that leadership from the inside out. That that seeing oneself as
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: the instrument of leadership and how do I tune that instrument the way you're talking about this? I hope everybody hears this stuff and and listens to your podcast.
Tom: Yeah, I hope they do too. I'm not holding my breath, but I hope they do. Well, very good. I've I've appreciated that. to everybody that's watching and listening, I do want to thank you for for your attention and and joining us. And I hope it encouraged you. and if it did help you, share it with another leader who might need it. And don't forget to hit like and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming up next. Until next time, I'm encouraging you to keep leading with more.
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: for shareholders? And the whole audience laughs because they know the answer is zero, not zero percent, not zero point one. Literally zero human beings out of the eight billion did that. Everyone knows that immediately. And I'm like, well, then that's a useless purpose. If it doesn't cause people to want to do anything, who cares?
Tom: Welcome back to the Lead with More podcast, where we help you lead with character and build a culture that people choose. Now, most leaders can tell you their company's purpose or mission, but far fewer can actually tell you their own and many don't find out that difference until something actually forces that question. And today we're going to talk about that and about how to find it before it happens. And to help me unpack this, I brought in some horsepower. I brought an expert on finding purpose, Tim Kelly. And Tim created the True Purpose process and he's spent more than twenty years coaching senior executives and governmental officials and even presidential candidates. He's done purpose work with around hundred organizations worldwide. And the second edition of his book, True Purpose, just released, I just finished it. It's a really good book. So we're gonna talk about all that today. Tim, welcome to Lead With More.
Tim Kelley: Thank you so much, Tom. I've never been called horsepower before. I like it.
Tom: Well, yeah, I read your book, so you've got some you've got some time in this and I really wanna start
Tim Kelley: I I have I have logged time and purpose before it was a before it was the new black, before it was a thing. So
Tom: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's that's good. And that's what I want to get to. But I I really want to start our conversation talking about drift. We we had this conversation earlier about a line that I've heard Michael Hyatt use that says leaders can't drift to a desired location. And
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm.
Tom: I think it's true. And I wanted to start there and ask you what you're seeing in leaders that are working hard, they're doing really well. But they're drifting. What are you seeing
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm.
Tom: there?
Tim Kelley: Well, the the what's what's the other line? If if you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there. Said Louis Carroll or something, one of the one of the characters
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: in Alice in Wonderland. so so that what I'm seeing is that some of the traditional leadership approaches are starting to break down. so what's happening is that the market's evolving so rapidly and the world is changing so quickly, and there's so so much economic uncertainty and geopolitical uncertainty, like, look, there's a new war and now we don't have any wheat, you know, or natural gas or whatever. that traditional sort of prediction and forecasting and five-year plans and all this kind of stuff was when people are making those, they kind of know that they're a joke. But they sort of feel like they're supposed to do it anyway. And part of the reason for that is they don't know what to do instead, which is, which is a completely valid problem. The, the, the extra feature to this that I know you'll appreciate, Tom, is that when the level of uncertainty goes up, the brain responds in exactly the wrong way. So the
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: brain perceives uncertainty the same way it perceives a hungry lion, right? That this is a threat. Which it is, right? It's true. It is a threat. But the way the brain is designed is when it perceives a threat, the amygdala kicks in, which is this tiny little thing, and then shuts off your cerebral cortex. And now you're operating like instinctually and not strategically. It's not a good problem solving part of the brain. It's an immediate action part of the brain, which is why people
Tom: Yeah, it's survival.
Tim Kelley: that's right. But that's why so so I've had I've been saved by mine. you know, I had a bicycle accident where I did I blacked out and did everything perfectly and wound up without a broken neck as a result. I don't remember any of it because my amygdala shut off my brain completely and then solved the immediate survival problem. So it works for that type of situation, but this is why people sell stocks right after a stock market crash, right? Which is their amygdala kicks in and they go sell, which is the worst thing you can do, right? But they're looking for that immediate survival move, move. And so the problem is with this ongoing uncertainty, it actually makes everybody a little bit stupider. And
Tom: Mm.
Tim Kelley: they're and they're trying to get certainty rather than trying to move forward and do something useful and productive. And it's it's difficult to overcome. But the the leaders who really succeed in that environment is the ones. Who aren't relying on their ability to predict the future in order to figure out their next move.
Tom: That leads into their purpose then.
Tim Kelley: Well, that would be that's the way I do it, right? I imagine there are other ways of doing it, but it some people call it a north star, right? You can use a purpose
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: or a vision or values or something, but you have to have some kind of north star so that way when you're you know out thrashing around in the sea, you can look up and see, there's north, right? So that you always have a direction. And so purpose-driven
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: leaders always have a direction. They're like, well, under these conditions, my purpose tells me to do this. the conditions just changed. My purpose is telling me to do this. And people love to follow purposeful leaders, especially when things are really confusing and uncertain, because they're confused, they're uncertain. And it's like, this person here, she knows which way to go. Let me follow them, right? That's a it's they they love that under any conditions, but even more under these kind of conditions.
Tom: And I guess one of the keys there is not to be following these these made up I I I don't know what way to put it, but these these purpose statements, for instance, or mission statements that that people will come up with that that basically look good in a frame, but they're not to to borrow your phrase, it's not true purpose. And
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm. Yeah, people people really throw a lot of shade on folks for for well for two things. One is for having a purpose that's really not that inspiring and not that good. and the other thing is for not being successful at actually manifesting it and keeping making decisions, for example, for financial reasons rather than because things are purposeful. I actually have a lot of empathy for these people because I've worked with them. If you read like the the the the kind of business press and stuff, there's a lot of people who are saying, they're not serious and they don't care and they just want the money and it's all purpose washing and blah, blah, blah. That's not my experience. I'm sure that somebody somewhere is doing that. I haven't met them yet. Everyone I meet is really trying to make it work. There's there's a couple problems of trying to make it work. One is it's actually fiendishly difficult to come up with a really powerful, accurate, compelling purpose for yourself or for your company. It's really hard. And I can't tell you how many leaderships, leaders and leadership teams have told me. They said, Well, Tim, you know, we worked for six months and he came up with this. And I'm like,
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: I hate to tell you your ug baby's ugly, but you know that's crap, right? And they're like, Yeah, yeah, we know. And that's people
Tom: Well if they know
Tim Kelley: who who really worked so hard for so long trying to come up with something, they just don't know how, right?
Tom: Yeah, and if it and if they know it's it's not good, then they know they've just come up with something superficial. It sounds good maybe, but and i
Tim Kelley: It's the best they could do. It's the best they could do.
Tom: it's not a true purpose. It's I I think you used a phrase, you talk about borrowed purpose, and that may be part of a that may be a borrowed purpose. I don't know, but it's not truly one that they've discovered.
Tim Kelley: Well, e so there's this odd phenomenon I've found, which is that if I asked you to fly a F-16 jet, or I asked you to perform brain surgery on someone, or I said, Well, here's a piano and here's a huge audience of people. Would you please play the sonata? Unless you're really good at one of those things, and I'm j just guessing statistically that you're not. I don't know you that well, you would probably decline all three, right? You would say Don't know how to fly a fighter jet, don't know how to do brain surgery, don't know how to play that sonata well enough that this audience should be listening to me try to play that sonata, right? Even if you've played
Tom: Right. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: the piano a little bit. But if I say, let's find your company's purpose, people suddenly have this imagination that they ought to be able to do that themselves. They'll hire a plumber to unclog their toilet, but they'll somehow imagine that they have the necessary skills to find their own purpose or find their company's purpose. It's just like anything else. There's technique involved. There's methodology involved. And if you don't have the technique and you don't have the methodology, it's really difficult or impossible. I just have a very funny quick story. When my son was 10, he asked me if he could drive the car. And I was gonna repark it just like 15 feet. And I said, sure. And I handed him the keys. And he was like, really? I said, absolutely. Now the car was a stick, and I knew the
Tom: Okay.
Tim Kelley: odds of him making that car move. were vanishingly small. And he sat there frustrated for 10 minutes, trying to get the car to start and trying to get the car to move because he doesn't know how to use a clutch. He's 10 years old, right?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: And and then comes out of it really with very angry and hands me the key back and then I move the car. And so it's just
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: like that, right? If it like driving a car isn't that hard if you've had the necessary training. And if you haven't, it's a terrible idea to try to try try it on your own. But for some reason where purpose is concerned, I won't think so I should already know how, I have no idea why.
Tom: Yeah, and I have to admit that I fell into that. I was I was in that category in corporate life is that I I felt like and it wasn't just purpose, it was everything about the corporation, it was everything about strategy and that, you know, we can figure this out. We're pretty smart. And it you know, for me it the discovery process actually didn't happen until I left corporate and and then I started to realize that, you know, we didn't really know what we were doing. And as You know, it's crazy is as as I was reading your book, I was walking as you walk through some of these processes, I was like, Okay, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Cause I've lived that and I you know, and I can appreciate the fact and I'll probably refer to the book a lot, which you know, that's I guess you won't mind that. But,
Tim Kelley: I I forgive you.
Tom: you know, the fact that you you break it down in such a way
Tim Kelley: Just just quick bragging. We we made it to number two in Amazon. We can't unseat the number one. I'm so I know, yeah.
Tom: Well, it just it just released too, 'cause I d I just found the the second edition that was released. But you break it you actually broke it down into four components and we don't have t time to dig into all four of those, but you know, that's the one that peop
Tim Kelley: Let's talk about mission, because that's the one that applies to companies. That's the one
Tom: it's something that people Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: that so every company that I know, with very few exceptions, has some sort of mission statement. But the kind of mission statement that businesses create, in my opinion, is the wrong type. The kind of mission statement they create is one that talks about what they do, what's the service they provide and who do they provide it for, and how well do they provide it. That's the wrong kind of mission. That's good for focus. But it provides no inspiration. When we're talking about having people choose a culture, people make choices emotionally, right? They decide
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: whether they like this movie or don't like this movie. That's not a logical decision. That's an emotional decision that takes place in the limbic brain. Same thing if you ask, well, how do you feel about your company? That's an emotional question, right? So I I love to say to audience of CEOs, raise your hand if anyone has ever cried when you read them your company mission statement. And they all laugh, because of course none of them have. And I say, I've seen it. I've seen it more than once, right? That's a thing. That could happen.
Tom: Ye yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: but that it's just not part of people's thinking, right? So that's not the right kind of mission statement to use. The right kind of mission statement to use is the kind that nonprofits use save
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: the whales, feed the starving children, end war, right? You know, resolve climate change, that kind of mission. So it doesn't have to be one of that list. But it's that type of mission statement where you're saying, here's why the world is a better place because this company exists. Here's the thing we're trying to do for all of you, not just our shareholders, not just our owners, not just our employees. Here's what we're trying to do for all of you. So think about Fair Trade Coffee is a great example, right? You can buy this coffee that costs a dollar. You can buy $6, $8, whatever it is now, right? And here you can buy this other coffee that costs, you know. 10% more, 20% more, something like that. Tastes the same, but this one, the farmer's kids will go to school and they'll have health care or whatever, right? People will spend that extra money, not all of them, but a bunch of them will, because they want to contribute to making the world a better place. And if those two coffees cost the same, there's no contest. Research says something like 91% of people will choose the one with the social benefit over the one where we're just here to make money.
Tom: Yeah. So even if a company has done a good job creating a mission statement, we that one of the things we're talking about here today is the fact that we're we're talking about the need for your own, for your personal mission or your
Tim Kelley: Absolutely.
Tom: personal purpose. because it's good to have that for the company, but it you really need to have that for yourself as well.
Tim Kelley: Well, if there's only a company purpose and no individual purposes, you're actually giving up a lot of value, a lot of benefit, a lot of benefit to the bottom line. so, so, and and you can, it's interesting, there's kind of three different approaches here. One is the company's purpose, another is the leader's purpose. That could be one leader or a bunch of leaders or all the leaders, right? But you want the people at the top to have a personal sense of purpose. And then there's the employees' purposes.
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: And each of those is a different independent strategy, all of which add value for approximately the same reasons. The ideal situation, which I've only seen happen a couple times, is where all of the employees know their individual purpose, they all know the organization's purpose, and they see alignment between their purpose and the organization's purpose. Now that's that's like the holy grail. I've seen it happen only one or two times. And the times when I've seen it, the f financial results of the company just took off in an unimaginable way. Like one of them it was 1200% in three years growth or something. Just just crazy numbers that you would never put on a financial plan as an objective.
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: because people are no longer coming to work because they have to, right? That there's this assumption in economics that everyone wants to avoid work. That's a Fundamental belief in how they model humans in classic economics, right? Which is a terrible thing to say. as opposed to purpose-driven employees come to work because that's where they're going to manifest their purpose. That's
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: where they're going to use the company's resources to manifest their purpose and create a better world. And use the company's resources to manifest the company's purpose to create a better
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: world.
Tom: Yeah. I mean you mentioned the financial performance and of course from a business perspective that's something you want to see, but I'm curious what sh what it was like. What do you see in the culture there and in the people there when they finally when it clicked, when they finally got it?
Tim Kelley: So i it's it it becomes more than a workplace and the relationships become more than work relationships. Like the people really start to care about each other and they really start to care about the company. And pardon my French, but they Tolerate less bullshit, right? If there's someone
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: who doesn't want to play, it's kind of like, you know, I I live in Berkeley, California. So I'm sorry, San Francisco 49ers and a Golden State Warriors fan, right?
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: So those really top-performing teams like that. If you get picked for that team and you kind of sort of don't feel like working that day, you don't have to worry about the coach. You have to worry about the other players, because
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: they are not gonna tolerate that, right? And so it's kind of like that. You get these high performing team environments where the people are like, hey, you know what? You're not pulling your weight over here. And we're up to important big things. You need to get on board or you need to get out. And it's interesting, peer pressure actually works better than pressure from a superior does.
Tom: yeah. Yeah. I believe that. so much of our society, well, everything about social media is driven around that.
Tim Kelley: Right. Exactly.
Tom: And so, yeah. You know, it's interesting to me because this whole this whole journey of purpose, you know, I found I'm I'm in what I consider to be the second season of of life. And, you know, for those and I've talked about Arthur Brooks's book on strength of strength and David Brooks calling it the second mountain, all these good things. Usually when people get there, they really start honing in on actual true purpose. And
Tim Kelley: This it raises a lot of questions, right? When you've got
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: less time left than you've already lived, those
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: questions just I remember when it happened to me. you know, quite just the questions start to pop up and go and and achievement loses its luster. And this is especially true for men, right?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: That that young men, there's this achievement drive to go make something happen if everything's working properly, which it isn't always, right? But there's this a this drive to make a mark of some kind to have something happen to create something. and that lasts usually to 40s, 50s, sometimes
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: early 60s. And then it just sort of tails off as a motivational thing. and then something else comes in to replace it. And that's a need for meaning.
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: And meaning is generated differently than achievement is. It's a different yardstick. It's a different measurement. And so the people who have a need for meaning Don't necessarily know how to fulfill that need. And sometimes this is where you get the midlife crisis. You get the driving gloves and the, you know, young mistress and the sports car and all this other garbage. That's someone who's trying to meet some need they're not familiar with and they don't really know how, and they're sort of groping.
Tom: Yeah, they're looking for love in all the wrong places.
Tim Kelley: Exactly. but so meaning and fulfillment actually produce, according to the research, more sustained happiness. Than things like excitement or pleasure. Excitement or pleasure are very, very short-term blips in the happiness graph for an individual. And meaning and fulfillment have a very long tail, like they last much, much, much longer. And they create a better deathbed experience if we're gonna go there, right? You know, but people
Tom: Sure.
Tim Kelley: don't remember the the really great meal they had, they remember the difference that they made in other people's lives and that it mattered that they were alive. And so pr
Tom: Yeah. I mean it
Tim Kelley: one One definition of purpose that I love, which was from a Texas tech CEO who didn't wasn't into any of this soft spiritual garbage. He he came up with his own definition of purpose, which I loved, which was the path of maximum impact. What's the greatest difference you you as an individual could conceivably make during your lifetime? I
Tom: Mm.
Tim Kelley: love it. It's great.
Tom: Yeah. You know, so I guess my question to you is i we know that it happens in the second season for a lot of people or in a crisis, but does it have to be there? I I mean, does a or does a thirty year old leader find it while they're still in the first season?
Tim Kelley: So they can. And and I'll tell you, the youngsters are more interested in it, their own purpose and organizational purpose than previous generations were. And there are companies that have vicious turnover that I've talked to, like 26% turnover, 50% turnover in different groups within their, you know, different age groups or genders or whatever, where it's just absolutely eating away at their bottom line, just horrifically expensive to replace that many people that frequently. and and it's because the people don't see any meaning in working for that company, right? The the the the youngsters have an additional filter on there, yeah, can I do the job? Yeah, can I make money? And yeah, do I wanna? Is this is this an organization I want to support either as a customer or as an employee? And if the answer is no, they won't play. And they'll they'll move back in with their parents rather than work for some company whose values they don't like or something like that.
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: And so there's lot of companies struggling with retention problems who could solve them using this. And they
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: just they they can't quite get over the fact that like playing with the compensation plan won't fix it. Like that's just really hard for them to accept.
Tom: Yeah, 'cause you're you're really talking about a cultural thing, and this is why the whole focus of my company is around this idea of culture is that 'cause I made the mistake of trying to solve cultural issues with strategic solutions. And and they don't work. That does not work. And
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tom: I I can attest. So anybody thinking of trying it, don't don't do it. It's not worth it. Yeah, it's it's important.
Tim Kelley: And I'm not saying strategy is not important. I'm not saying compensation. All those things are important. If you get them wrong, you will pay for it.
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: But they're necessary but not sufficient. That's not
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: enough to create a culture that people want to be part of. A c c because they have to choose every day to come to work,
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: right? We we gloss over that, right? And the here's another one. I I so so every now and then I run into a CEO who says to me, Well, the purpose of business is great value for shareholders, they're quite Milton Friedman, right? Thanks, Milton. and I say, okay, and this is usually in the context of like, you know, picture 200 CEOs or something fitting in an audience. And I say, great. How many human beings do you think this morning woke up and rushed to work early because they were excited to create value
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: for shareholders? And the whole audience laughs because they know the answer is zero, not zero percent, not zero point one. Literally zero human beings out of the eight billion did that. Everyone knows that immediately. And I'm like, well, then that's a useless purpose. If it doesn't cause people to want to do anything, who cares? What value does that have? You need a purpose that people are excited about, right? I and
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: other companies that I've worked with, for-profit companies have volunteers who work for nothing for the for-profit company because they care about the company's purpose.
Tom: Yeah. And that's that's a good indication that they're on the right track with it. you know, and we talked about that when when the employees and when the leaders purpose is when they're they're discovered they're known and they they align, they work out, they support the company's purpose, then the sky's the limit. But what happens when they don't? Mike, you know, do they do they end up having to encourage those employees to leave or do they just end up leaving?
Tim Kelley: This is a tough question. And I this always comes up when we're finding the company purpose, because this is a fear people have. And it turns out that you have to work the fears out in advance, or else you'll get a very watered down purpose. And this is something
Tom: yeah.
Tim Kelley: most people don't realize is it's like, okay, you gotta you're because that remember we talked about what the fear does to the brain, right? Makes you stupid. And so
Tom: Right.
Tim Kelley: you can't come up with creative, powerful, inspiring purposes if your amygdala is all wiggly. Because you're afraid, no, what do we do we have to fire everyone who doesn't like our purpose? Or until that question's resolved, people can't play. They can't do the process. So we have to talk about that in advance. And the answer is it depends. The that's a decision the company has to make. Most companies, and I support this, most companies do not walk people out the door if they don't support the purpose, right? That's a little, it's a little harsh. I think it's unnecessary. But you can make the culture go in a certain direction. And then some people will walk themselves to the door. And it's usually
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: if you do a really good job with a purpose or a value or vision, like you really implement it full bore, you'll have about 10% of the employees leave. And for the most part, that won't be the 10% that you're gonna miss the most.
Tom: Yeah, it's usually not it's usually not the ones that are I mean, you may have some of that are very good workers, very productive. They may not buy into
Tim Kelley: Yeah.
Tom: it, but they're also not dragging it. They're not anch they're not acting as an anchor.
Tim Kelley: Right. That's right. And if someone's willing to come to work every day, I don't believe that people should like that. I don't believe in the thought police at work, right? People should get to believe
Tom: Right, absolutely.
Tim Kelley: what they believe and and feel what they feel. And if they're doing the job and not creating hate and discontent with their fellow employees, that's good enough for me as a boss. I'm I'm okay with that. Right. I don't
Tom: Yeah, right.
Tim Kelley: need everybody to drink the Kool-Aid. It's all right. I don't like it when other people tell me what to believe, right?
Tom: That's right.
Tim Kelley: So, or how to feel. Yeah, yeah. So, so that's okay. Now, I have seen in a couple cases where the company said, no, no, no, you have to like explain to us why you, you know, how you feel about this purpose and why it's aligned with your own purpose. And and if and if it's not, that's okay. We'll help you find another job. We don't you know it's none of this hit your, you know, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. It's like, no, we'll we'll let you we'll help you find another job that is more purpose-fueled. We have connections and we have friends, we'll find a good spot for you to land. We're not going to kick you out right away. It could take two or three months, who knows, right? but they were very, very serious about it. And they were one of those companies that had the the the huge increase in revenue. Actually, in their case, it was right in the middle. It was a South American consulting firm, and they had their best year ever. right in the middle of the 2008 global financial meltdown,
Tom: Wow.
Tim Kelley: right after they found their purpose. And, you know, w when there's a financial meltdown, the consultants are the first ones to get fired
Tom: Right. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: bef before the temporary employees and the layoffs and everything. First you fire all the consultants and executive coaches, then we'll talk about that other stuff. And they had their best year. and and so I don't I don't encourage it, but every now and then there's a company it's like, no, no, no, we only want employees who are passionate about and aligned with our purpose working in this company. Okay.
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: That that's that's that's a a choice you can make. with a larger company, I would say absolutely not. You can't do that with a you know 10,000 person company or something.
Tom: Right. And then you'd wanna know, you know, if those if those leaders are asking those kind of questions of the employees, then employees may not have given this most of them aren't giving a lot of thought to this kind of stuff. And so
Tim Kelley: Well, in this case they had all found their individual purpose as part of the process. So so there
Tom: Okay. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: was that they they knew exactly what was going on. So yeah.
Tom: Okay. Well that's you know, 'cause a lot of times you're dealing with concepts that most of the general employee population doesn't care about on the surface. You know, they're they're not so interested in this tr in right.
Tim Kelley: They care more than you'd think. This is this is a leadership distortion. It's a perception. It's it's one of the features of hierarchy that it causes the people at the top to think in certain ways and the people in the bottom think in certain ways that just aren't true. and so this is one of the things that the when you interview middle managers and upper managers about their subordinates, they say they only care about the money. They don't care about any of this kind of stuff. When you interview the people who work for them, it's absolutely not true. Compensation's like 10 on their list of reasons why they're engaged and interested in the company, right? So it's it's there's a there's a distortion that happens that people aren't seeing each other clearly because the difference in levels creates projection and other stuff like that.
Tom: Well, and that's where trust comes into it because
Tim Kelley: Yeah.
Tom: in one of many places, because if the employees don't trust that the that they can be honest with it and say you know, something that p potentially differs from what the corporation is saying, then you won't get the accurate you won't get anything accurate out of it anyways. And I've
Tim Kelley: Right. And the the the one purpose gig I ever absolutely failed at. I mean I'm you know, they they they all worked except for one. It was a company purpose gig. the one that failed, that was the issue, was a lack of trust between the employees and the top leadership. And so I switched and started working on that and and couldn't fix it. The the leader had something going on. I don't want to get into too much specifics, but he had he had something going on that really had him kind of unconsciously feel like that he could do whatever he wanted and that everyone else had to put up with it. And and and it was it was not pretty and and and no one wanted to play when we were doing the company purpose work. They didn't they didn't trust him enough to be honest about what they thought about individual purpose statements and stuff like that. We couldn't we couldn't get anywhere with it. Tried
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: three times and it it didn't work. So some there is a minimum amount of what's called psychological safety that's necessary for these more advanced culture games. If everybody hates each other or afraid of each other, you're too low on Maslov's hierarchy. You're not gonna be able to do this kind of stuff.
Tom: Yeah, that's true. And so Tim, I wanted to before we get get to the end and we have to close this out, I do want to talk a little bit about what you're doing
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm.
Tom: with your company and and how you're helping people because I want to make sure that we don't just talk about this on a high level and say, Okay, well that that's all well and good. But I'm hoping this sparks something and they're gonna say, Look, you know, this this purpose stuff sounds really good. What what do I need to do? What how do they what do they need to do as far as you're concerned? How can they get in touch with you and and what what kind of things do you do and offer?
Tim Kelley: Yeah, so the so the the thing that I'm best known for, slightly famous for to ball from far borrow from Van Yoder, the thing I'm slightly famous for is this purpose methodology that's literally a better mousetrap. Like it's just better than the other purpose methodologies by a significant margin. And it's especially useful for companies and leaders who want to be up to big things. Right. If you want to optimize and you know reduce the cost of the widgets you sell or something like that, it's not the right purpose methodology. It's it's the ones who feel like they want to transform their market or change the world or something, you know. which many companies are like that. They don't necessarily think of themselves that way, but it's not just about the money, right? We're trying to do this big thing, right?
Tom: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tim Kelley: So those are the ones who love This particular purpose methodology because it gives a much more detailed, accurate purpose information. That's a much better guide in the confusing VUCA market. So the there's two approaches. So the employee purpose usually only happens as part of an organizational purpose thing. I haven't seen many companies. There are a few, but I haven't seen very many companies just say we want all our employees to find their purpose, and that's it, right? So usually the place to start is with the leader's purpose. That could be one leader. Or it could be all the leaders. And usually I say, well, let's just do, let's just do one. Let's test drive it. See what you think. And usually that leader is like, wow, this is the bomb, right? They're all inspired and everything. Everybody's gonna do this. I'm like, well, not everybody. Game for volunteers, but yes, we can offer it to everybody. And so usually that leads to then wanting to do it for the executive team, wanting to do it for the company, and often but not always wanting to do it for the employees to get that, you know, that kind of ramp up. in revenue that comes from all the alignment that comes out of that. So it's usually in that order. So start with your own purpose first. That's my advice. Start with your own purpose first. And don't expect that you can go home and sit in a chair and gaze at the stars and know what your purpose is, right? Just like you can't fly a plane or do brain surgery or play the piano. Like you these things require method and skill and training and usually outside help, right? So you have to you have to get the the the help to do it. So that's that's where it begins. And even if only the CEO found his or her purpose and that was it, that will help. That will absolutely
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: help the company. Even if he or she never tells anyone what purpose they found, it will still help. Like that, that's all you need to get started and get actual bottom line benefit is just that one thing.
Tom: Yeah. Well I can tell just from what I read that your approaches go a lot a lot deeper than what what a lot
Tim Kelley: Yeah.
Tom: of things that I've seen. There were some questions that you asked, that I I pulled out of your box I screenshotted it 'cause there were things I remembered that that help to discover stuff, but I and I've seen people use just a few of those questions and think that's it. But they don't go into the depth and the different methods you talk about and and Direct, the indirect, the the the the huge section on ego is a big one that that needs to be covered. That we, you know, we there's no way we can cover the it yeah. But it it's a huge component of this that I, you know, until
Tim Kelley: Ego is not a four letter word. Yeah.
Tom: I read that and I I discovered a lot of this stuff the hard way through lots of years of of painful experience and realizing that I I kind of reached some of these places. That and I and there were some things that after reading the book, I was realizing okay, that was the final piece that I needed. But I say final piece. I I don't want to sound like it's ever. Yeah, that's the way. It's is I I've learned that much that I I've, you know, you get new enlightenment, but
Tim Kelley: Mm-hmm. Until the next one, yeah. It's the final piece for now. Yeah.
Tom: but but yeah, I I think that it's it it's so important and the depths that you take it are are so necessary that I don't think people are just gonna. find it themselves that
Tim Kelley: Well, it's it's the the game here, right? And this is what you're talking about in all your stuff is about being a better leader and
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: how that's internal personal work, right? I'm gonna change myself so that I become a better leader. And then that better leader is gonna go out and produce better results, right? Rather than trying to play with the knobs
Tom: Yeah, build that culture and yeah.
Tim Kelley: on the machine to try to get it to spit out more money, which is kind of the classic view of business. It's like, no, no, we're we're not dealing with machine, we're dealing with human beings. You're a human being. All the people who work for you are human beings. And if you want better employees, become a better leader. And then you will have better employees. Like that's how that works.
Tom: So I'm gonna one thing I'm telling people here is that they need to get your book and read it. True purpose.
Tim Kelley: Thank you.
Tom: it's a good they can they can find it on a lot of places. It's everywhere as far as I can tell. but we also wanna be able to send to your website and check out.
Tim Kelley: Yeah, so the so the best website to reach me, interestingly, this could be a whole other conversation, is canceledleader.com. My my
Tom: Yeah, I
Tim Kelley: my new side hustle is working with leaders who've been exiled by the collective and helping them find their purpose. So you don't have to be canceled to go to canceledleader.com to find me.
Tom: Yeah, I saw that and I thought, man, that that's a whole episode in and of itself because that's a that's a rabbit hole we could really spend some time on. But purpose just
Tim Kelley: It is a whole episode in another cell. The can people who've been canceled by cancel culture have a very serious purpose problem as I've discovered. Yeah.
Tom: Yeah. Well this this whole thing with purpose is a big thing. But I wanna ask you as we try to put a cap on this thing is if if somebody listening here says i is listening and they what's one thing they should take away from this? If if nothing else, what's one thing they should take away?
Tim Kelley: So here's a little exercise you can do by yourself in 10 seconds. All right. It's, it's, it's so easy. People who do not know their purpose know how purposeful they're being in their lives. Like you do not need to know your purpose to know how purposeful your life is. So right now, ask yourself, at work, how purposeful am I being? And come up with a percentage, right? 37%. 58%, 92%. You tell me, right? Just notice that number in your mind right now, right? Good. If you were able to up that number, what impact would that have? And you can probably up it a little bit without even knowing your purpose because you know that some aspects of your job are more purposeful than others. And if you do
Tom: Absolutely.
Tim Kelley: a little bit more of this. And a little bit less of that, you and your company will benefit.
Tom: Absolutely. Well, I would love to keep going with this conversation because there's some stories that you and I could exchange that would be I we'd enjoy it. I don't know if anybody else would, but we would.
Tim Kelley: are indeed. We would entertain ourselves very well.
Tom: Because I spend a lot of time thinking about this, but I I do wanna just make sure and and and reemphasize that people need to connect with you. They need to read your material, they need to visit your website. This is really, really good stuff. It's really important.
Tim Kelley: Thank you. Yep, so the book is true purpose. The website is cancelledleader.
Tom: Absolutely. Well Tim, I've enjoyed it. I wanna thank you for joining me
Tim Kelley: As have I.
Tom: today and I'm looking forward to getting this out to people and
Tim Kelley: Let me just say I really appreciate this view of leadership because it's one I've held for a very long time and
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Tim Kelley: and people debate it a lot, but I see the results of it. I see the results of that leadership from the inside out. That that seeing oneself as
Tom: Yeah.
Tim Kelley: the instrument of leadership and how do I tune that instrument the way you're talking about this? I hope everybody hears this stuff and and listens to your podcast.
Tom: Yeah, I hope they do too. I'm not holding my breath, but I hope they do. Well, very good. I've I've appreciated that. to everybody that's watching and listening, I do want to thank you for for your attention and and joining us. And I hope it encouraged you. and if it did help you, share it with another leader who might need it. And don't forget to hit like and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming up next. Until next time, I'm encouraging you to keep leading with more.
