Why are we here – defining your Team’s purpose

This is a big question, isn’t it? The ‘Why are we here?’ one. While we could get into a philosophical debate of meanings of life, here we’ll focus on the purpose of your Team. We can get to the meaning of life later 🙂

The definition of your team’s purpose is one of the most essential aspects of leading a team. Being able to answer the ‘Why are we here – in this organisation, in this department’ question is key for a number of reasons.

Why you need to know The Why

It may be an obvious thought. ‘Well, surely we need to know the purpose of the Team!’. And yet, this is not a standard activity that team leaders do. Potentially because it takes a bit of effort to get to the final conclusion.

Why do you need to know The Why and to define a team’s purpose? Because it immensely helps with setting the right direction for the Team. It helps with clarifying the scope of you and your Team’s responsibilities. The purpose gives people a reason to stay engaged.

Whenever someone questions why your Team is involved in something, you’ll be able to give them a clear answer, and thus justify your Team’s presence or engagement.

Lastly, definining your Team’s purpose helps loads in times of crisis as it helps with keeping them motivated. In moments when your Team is stuck in an unfavourable situation, there is a re-organisation going on, or even someone questions your Team’s existence. Being able to clearly state your Team’s purpose is paramount.

So let’s do it.

How to define your Team’s purpose

There may be a process that is established in your organisation for creating e.g. a team’s charter. Absolutely refer to it when working on the Team’s purpose. In fact, if this process exists, then you’re quite lucky to have access to it.

What does it mean to be able to define the purpose? It means being able to answer the following questions:

• What value do we bring?
• Who do we support?
• How do we do that – how do we support our stakeholders and colleagues?
• If we stopped doing what we are doing, what would happen? What kind of a gap would be left?
• When do we usually get involved – are we called on in times of crisis, when a specific situation or project appears, or the timing is undefined?
• Once our job is done, what’s the outcome or output? Who benefits from these most?

Spend time with your Team on establishing answers to these questions – you may think of some others too! – and document them. Share them with your Team – they need to be bought into the narrative that will define them.

Photo by Felipe Furtado on Unsplash

What to avoid when defining your Team’s purpose

It is very easy to use one of cliched statements when working on the definition of the purpose. Let me clarify though – the statements below are ok to be included as long as you support them with further detail and specifics.

Some examples of such statements:

• We are here to help make things more efficient / effective / smoother / sleeker / cost-effective [make your selection]
• We support our customers, partners and colleagues at all levels of the organisation
• The team brings great value
• We are passionate about mission.

Start with an overarching statement

The best definitions of a purpose are shaped in one sentence. Aim to do that. Please note that I’m deliberately not suggesting the length of this sentence!

Here are some examples to give you an idea of you should be aiming at:

We support our organisation by keeping all systems secure, stable, and accessible 24/7, no matter the user, their location, or problem they may encounter.

We support our customers from the start of their job change journey to its conclusion by using our expertise and tailoring the customer’s experience to their needs.

We help our people get ready for the changes and support them through the co-creation of the journey with us, thus making the change more comfortable to them.

Once you have a draft of the overarching statement, run it past your managers, or trusted colleagues from elsewhere in the company. Does this statement resonate with them? Does it evoke what you want a reader to think? If not – why not? What would they change?

Getting to the final statement can take a while, or can be a quick job – all depends on what your team does. But once you’ve defined your Team’s purpose, make sure you make it the focal point of reference when speaking about and to your Team. I have seen people printing it off on a huge piece of paper and hanging it in the Team’s office! Your choice how you’d like to make the purpose of your Team stick.

The main thing is to make the definition of the purpose relevant to the Team and organisation, clear, consise and specific. Give it a go!

If you are a seasoned leader, what other pieces of advice would you give when working on to define a team’s purpose?

PS. I explain this and other aspects of building a Team as a budding leader in my e-book – have a look!

Feature image by Jordan Madrid on Unsplash