I have always been passionate about purpose, and I consider it one of the main drivers of my personal and professional growth. I believe that having a sense of purpose can help us overcome challenges, find meaning in our work, and inspire others to join us in our journey. However, I also know that not everyone shares this view, and that for many people, focusing on purpose is not easy or natural.

When I first joined local government, this came as a bit of a shock to me. Even when I first came to Cambridge, I assumed that everyone who works for the Cambridge City Council would easily be able to tell me why they do what they do, not just what they do. After all, we are part of one of the most innovative cities in the country, with a vision to lead a united city, ‘One Cambridge — Fair for All’, where everyone can achieve their potential and contribute to the city’s growth and well-being. How could anyone not connect to that?

But as I talked to more people across the council, I discovered that while everyone has a strong sense of overall purpose, many of them struggle to connect their daily tasks and responsibilities with the bigger picture of the council’s vision. Many simply struggle to move past articulating what they do and considering why they do it (most common answer I would get back when asked why we deliver a service is “cause it’s the law”).

Some of them feel overwhelmed by the workload and the complexity, and lose sight of the positive outcomes and benefits of their work for the residents and the communities. And some others simply don’t care about purpose, and see their work as just a job, a way to pay the bills and nothing more.

Why is it so hard for some people to articulate purpose?

There could be many possible reasons, depending on the individual and the context. Here are some of the most common ones that I encountered:

They’ve never been asked.

In a working world that is based on theories of organisational design and development initially created as part of the industrial revolution, and with limited genuine evolution thereafter, it’s not entirely surprising. Taylorism was very clear that workers were meant to “do” and managers were meant to “plan”.

There was no role for the everyday employee to consider why they were attaching one cog onto another cog — it was for the manager to know that it was step 384 in building a car. And then it was marketing’s job to sell people as to why they needed that car — freedom, happiness, or whatever was selling at that particular time.

Obviously, this doesn’t apply to modern working, but we still have these vestiges in how we operate across the globe. Genuinely ask yourself, in your first job, were you ever told or asked as to why you did it? Or was it only when you got into management that you started being asked to think about why?

We induct and train people based on “what” not “why”

Similarly to the above and probably for similar reasons, the way we teach people about jobs focuses on what, not why. The process and the tools tend to be the driving force behind getting someone through their induction process and we rarely stop to outline why all of this matters.

It’s easier to think about “what”

You do your job every single day. When you plan out your to do list, you know what you have to do and you add it there. You think about the what every single day, but you don’t think about the why (or at least most don’t). So it’s only natural that the what comes more easily to mind, than the less tangible “why” of what you do.

Seeing a focus on “why” as a potential threat to what they do

This is less common than the rest of the reasons, but it is something I have come across in my time. When I start probing into “why”, it starts to become clear that the actual work that is being done (while being done very well) doesn’t add very much value to why that team exists. Either it’s something that is a nice to have or something that someone decided to do years ago that simply continues. And when you start to investigate the “why”, and prioritise work based on impact, these roles and activities may not be needed anymore and that can feel threatening.

Aversion to fluffiness

All those who have been involved in transformations in the past, whether delivering them or participating, knows the eye roll that happens in workshops when questions like “what is the purpose of your team”, “if you has an unlimited budget, what would your team do”, “what if…”.

These questions aren’t practical. They aren’t even necessarily actionable. And, therefore, a lot of people see them as a waste of time. Why are we talking about abstract purpose, when we should be talking about what questions we ask in the online form.

I would challenge this perspective and say that both practical and less practical conversations are valuable in different ways. The less practical, theoretical conversations like theories of change or purpose, are where you start to inspire creativity and imagination. And it’s when you have creativity and imagination, as well as practical, that change can really happen.

Impact is out of their control

The moment you start to judge success based on impact, you start to stake your performance based on factors outside of your control and that can feel very scary.

Whether or not ASB reduces in the local area is influenced by a number of factors and only one of which is the new ASB campaign that you’ve just launch.

It’s easy to show that you have 12 officers patrolling the streets every night, they have spoken to 150 residents or distributed 100 leaflets. But what if ASB doesn’t go down because that week there was particular societal unrest across the country? Or it’s summer and the weather has been particularly lovely, so more people are out playing music at 4am?

Is your team succeeding or failing? If you measure based on outputs/inputs (leaflets, staffing, etc), you have succeeded. If you measure based on impact, you have failed. And that is scary to a lot of people.

The change that needs to happen is that we need to be clear and consistent that it’s okay to fail. It’s okay that what we did didn’t have the impact we wanted. What isn’t okay is keeping doing it even though it’s not moving the needle.

These are soe of the reasons I’ve come across which start to unpick this. But I am sure there is a whole PhD worth of work out there to truly answer the question.

To conclude, focusing on purpose is not easy, but it is worth it. It can help us find more joy and fulfilment in our work, and make a positive difference in our communities and in our world. I hope that this series of articles has inspired you to think more about your purpose and how you can share it with others.

Thank you for reading and, in this small way, for being part of Our Cambridge. Together, we can make a positive difference in our communities and in our world.

Massive thank you to my amazing team at Cambridge City Council. Its been such a pleasure working with you all.