Read: The importance of finding your purpose

In my recent Insight series I talked directly about the importance of finding your purpose. In this blog I develop that point and explain how we can all find the thing that drives us and why it’s so important for the organisations we’re part of.

Having purpose matters for companies because having purpose matters for people too. We all want to feel that what we do in our lives has some real meaning and for lots of people it’s about having a sense of making a difference in a wider world. For many of us, we use our life outside of work to put our time into the things we care about the most, whether it’s our local community, the environment or anything else. But increasingly it’s important for people to feel that their time spent in work is also one that has real purpose.

When I graduated from my MBA course at the London Business School back in 2000 most of my peers were on the course to further their career and earnings. When I went back in 2015 to give a lecture on social mobility to make the case that it intrinsically links to purpose and underwrites long term success for a business, the lecture theatre was packed. I was preaching to the converted - a group of future business leaders who understood that purpose and values had to be at the heart of any organization they worked for and wanted to lead. It was clear that increasingly they were unlikely to work for organisations that they didn’t feel share their values.

In a recent IPSO Mori Poll 64% of people aged 16-34 said social progress was more important to them than the economy. That number is almost the exact reverse for those over 50. For many people finding their purpose and being the part of the broader change they want to see is just as, if not more important than a purely pounds and pence decision on which role or career in which business. 

I’m fortunate in that I’ve always known what my sense of purpose is about – equality of opportunity and levelling up. Growing up in Rotherham in the 1980s I saw the impact of unemployment first hand through my father’s time out of work. I didn’t have as much opportunity as I would have liked, so I’ve always really valued the opportunity that I did have access to, mostly through business, and felt that everyone should have the chance to get on in life. It’s what first drove me into politics and now I’m lucky enough to spend my time and pay the bills doing what really drives me, advising businesses on how to go further faster on levelling up and social mobility. Not everyone can of course find the perfect role or job but when organisations are able to clearly set out their purpose – the wider force for good they can be – it’s a way to galvanise everyone who’s part of it and give everyone in the organisation a meaningful sense of the part they can play. 

For others it might be finding it in your hobbies and volunteering or even through supporting family and friends. Whatever your purpose, and however you are able to lean into it, you can make a big difference - whether that’s to one person or hundreds of people. 

It’s what purpose is all about and it’s something we can put at the core of our lives, whoever we are and whatever our role. 

By Rt Hon Justine Greening
Former Secretary of State for Education and founder of the Levelling Up Goals