When Individual Purpose Takes the Wheel
“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be.”
— Parker Palmer —
About 10 years into my career, I woke up one day with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I had been leading proposals for all of that time. And the role was fine, but just fine. I suddenly found myself reticent to go to work each day because it no longer energized me. Not long after, I heard a TedTalk from Simon Sinek that shed some light on my new-found predicament: my “what” no longer matched my “why.” What I was doing for a career had no connection to why I worked in the first place: helping others define and express their own passions.
My passion was squashed over and over when I could not find a way to express my purpose within my job description. Changing my role would have meant changing careers and starting over. I was forced to decide between preserving my job (my livelihood) and pursuing my purpose.
Eventually, my purpose won out...and after some self-employment and soul-searching, RiverNorth was formed.
Something powerful happens when individuals shift their focus from self-preservation to self-purpose. This is the point at which we both understand and express our own authentic selfhood.
This requires the company to prioritize employees’ individual purposes over corporate purpose. Many companies espouse “purpose over profit.” At best, it’s a convenient marketing tactic when the money is flowing, but lean times usually reveal it to be a hollow promise that really just amounts to corporate purpose (defined by owners whose individual purpose is profit). However, organizations that see themselves as the sum of their parts instinctively understand that the easiest path is one where individual purposes become the corporate purpose.
Question:
Once individual purpose is understood, how do you prioritize this over profit?
Answer:
By creating policies that maximize individuals’ abilities to express that purpose.
You feel this difference within the first interview at RiverNorth: we spend the majority of this first greeting understanding what you value, why you work, what you love in life, and who you are as a person -- we spend almost no time discussing your qualifications, experience, or skills. Once hired, we dedicate a significant portion of the onboarding process to helping you further refine your personal philosophy, which appears prominently on your RiverNorth resume. What you’ve spent the majority of your career doing may not prove to be what you’re meant to do. Within the first six months of employment, you focus on finding the best way to express your purpose at the company and proudly announce your intentions at one of our PitchFests.
We are also striving toward fixed-price work (instead of Time & Materials), which allows us to have more flexibility in our time. What do we do with this time? That’s up to each person! Some decide to visit other contracts to learn new skill sets. Some work on corporate projects that stretch their existing knowledge. Some mentor and develop others through meaningful coaching. Some find value-added work they can do for their clients to make the projects more impactful. The only requirement is to “do the most valuable thing possible in pursuit of your individual purpose” (not corporate purpose).
You feel our commitment to individual purpose in our unique staffing process: consultants staff themselves. When new contracts are won, existing consultants have the right of first refusal. No executive or staffing manager decides where a consultant is placed. Instead, if you want to work on the new project, you simply ask for advice from your existing team: do you all agree you are qualified for the new role? Will leaving now hurt the team’s ability to succeed? Is it possible to backfill your position? How would you transition your role to someone new?
RiverNorth people tend to express our individual purposes through deep connections to our communities. We celebrate this through a “Day of Thanking,” inspired by Japanese company, Ozvision. Annually, each employee receives a sum of money in an envelope and an extra day off to be used to thank someone who is important to them. Some buy a meal, some donate it to a charity, others use it to share a day of fun with an important loved one. The only requirement is that employees discuss their days with each other so all may draw inspiration from the experience.
When founding RiverNorth, I spent months thinking about how to help employees express their individual purposes. Admittedly, I had figured this part out well before I ever considered what RiverNorth would sell.