I have no idea where I am going… #46 #cong22

Reading Time in Minutes

3

1. Always rely on what you already know when making your way through life

2. Always learn new things to replace or upgrade what you already know when making your way through life

3. Never believe that your destination is your purpose

4. Never lose sight of the joy in the journey

Alan Tyrrell – at work I’m a collaborator, a problem solver in corporate reputation, corporate purpose, vision, mission, values, and behaviours, and various other things. Outside of that, I’m still looking…read my post!

By Alan Tyrrell

When I saw the theme for this year’s #Cong22, I was immediately enthused. ‘Made for me’, I thought.

I set about writing a piece on corporate purpose based on what I already knew from my work in helping clients with their corporate purpose, vision, mission, values, and behaviours. With lots of experience, I reckoned an informed piece on this topic would fit the bill.

But, as I researched, explored https://congregation.ie/ booklist, and read posts from fellow Congregationists, I realised that corporate purpose just wouldn’t cut it.

I started afresh on a new approach.

I really like music – though can’t hold a note, and looked into songs with Purpose in the name on Spotify. I reckoned a clever playlist would carry multiple messages and be a little different. I learned that there’s actually an artist called ‘Purpose’. He has 900 followers but every song fails the explicit content filter. So, no go.

Then I read some more, thought some more, gnashed my teeth.

I stumbled on some poetry. Number 72 from Palgrave’s Golden Treasury (expanded edt.). It’s very good. On topic, and I reckoned it could play a role. Alas, plagiarism ain’t my style, not to mention that I owed @eoin kennedy much more than a copycat piece. So, I was lost again.

This time, a full reboot. Grabbed the dictionary and looked up ‘purpose’. And also ‘purposeless’. Well worth doing. Just don’t read the N section of the dictionary – its full of next to nothing.

It did though point me in a direction. Back to home turf of corporate purpose. I took out Friedman’s keynote advising that the sole responsibility (or purpose) of business is to make profits. An interesting take but obviously only one facet of the reason for being for corporations. Then I went to Joan Margetta and ‘Understanding Michael Porter’. Understanding a behemoth like him had to be good for a piece on purpose. It turns out, it’s one of the best books on strategy I’ve read in a long time. It highlights the real tests of competitive advantage and why lofty statements about being ‘The best…’ at this or that, really do not make for a strategy.

Still unhappy and with my destination in mind, I went back to the well. And then my pursuit hit a spot of luck or divine guidance (you choose which). I fell into Rollo May’s ‘Man’s search for himself’. It opens by describing this modern age of anxiety and the listlessness and boredom felt by so many. [Note: check the publication date, this is not a ‘great resignation’ or ‘quiet quitting’ moment in time.]. And there, on page 67, he nails it when he says that “Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our nature as human beings….”

When I reflected on that line, and my journey to write a short piece for #Cong22, I discovered a journey where I had known what I knew but also learned new things – songs, poets, strategists, prayers, and more. I realised too that joy had been my companion on the journey – the joy of finding a nugget that could work, but the frustration that it then didn’t work. Or simpler joys akin to finding a fiver in your pocket. So, yes, in one way, I still don’t know where I am going; how many of us really do?

But I believe that our purpose in life is to keep going; keep learning, keep looking; keep sharing; keep being.

That’s my take on ‘Purpose’ for #Cong22. Hope you enjoyed it. And looking forward to an epic event.