Introducing the Management Model Canvas© - Part 3: Purpose & Direction

After looking at the canvas from a holistic perspective, we now turn our attention to the individual building blocks of a management model. We will describe each building block in four short sections:

• rationale: explaining the relative importance of the building block

• what goes in: what the building block should cover

• questions to ask: sample questions you can use to guide your thinking as you reflect on this particular aspect of your management model

• examples: a few examples of both content and theory (see Part 2: Logic of this series for an explanation of these different design elements)

For this series we’ll be brief and won’t discuss the building blocks exhaustively. But it should be enough to give you an idea and start thinking about your own management model.

At the end of this, once we’ve covered all the building blocks, we will present a full case study to illustrate how it all fits together.

So here we go, the first building block we’re going to cover is this: Purpose & Direction.

Rationale

Purpose & direction are really the foundation of any management model. Without a clear understanding of why your organisation exists, you’re lacking a “north star” to navigate the myriad of strategic and operational decisions you’ll inevitably face. The consequence typically are a lack of focus, organisational overload and a constant flow of half-baked change initiatives.

What goes in

• The organisation’s purpose (beyond making money)

• Guidance as to how the organisation intends to fulfil its purpose (these can be elements of a vision or mission)

• Key pillars on which the organisation’s strategy rests

• How the organisation thinks about purpose and strategy in general

Questions to ask

• If our organisation did not already exist, why would we start it?

• Why do we do what we do?

• Why do people work here?

• What do we want customers and competitors to say about us?

• What are the biggest contributions we can make as an organisation to live up to our purpose?

• What is our understanding of the role of business in society?

• What is the main strategic challenge we are currently facing?

• What makes us unique? How do we win?

• Why do we believe in our strategy?

• What is the essence of our purpose and strategy? How would we explain it in 30s?

• Which tools and frameworks are we using to guide our strategic thinking? Why these and not others?

Examples

A really good example of purpose is the one that Mary Kay Cosmetics and Tupperware Brands share: to create business opportunities for women beyond the traditional business career, eg, for stay-at-home moms. It’s this clarity of purpose that makes it easy for them to make strategic decisions. Eg, when a large department store approaches them and offers to carry their products, the answer must be “no”, as that would undermine their purpose (remember their purpose is not selling cosmetics or plastic cups). You can make that decision in an instant, without having to go through lots of analysis.

A good example for a piece of strategic direction is Apple’s commitment to engage in M&A only because of interesting IP and/or people, but never for revenue or market share (which in turn is of course nicely compatible with their purpose of creating insanely great products that change the world and enrich lives).

Finally, if you can agree that your primary mental models for strategy discussions are, eg, blue ocean and the law of conservation of modularity, you have gained a lot of clarity and with it speed and alignment for strategy discussions (that is not to say that other models of strategic thinking are less effective, it’s primarily the clarity that counts, although your specific context of course also determines the usefulness of a particular model).

Almost by necessity, the Purpose & Direction building block needs to remain quite high-level. But don’t worry, we’ll get a lot more specific when, in the next part of this series, we turn our attention to Results. The challenge there will be to articulate specifically what it means to fulfil your purpose and deliver according to your strategy. It will define the yardstick for you to measure your success. Stay tuned!