David Attenborough at 100:
The Voice That Changed the Conversation

Last week, Sir David Attenborough turned 100. An extraordinary milestone for a man whose life’s work has shaped not only how we see the natural world, but also how we think about leadership, responsibility and the future of human progress itself.

The coverage has been immense, and rightly so. Over more than seven decades, Attenborough has become one of the most recognised and trusted public figures on the planet. His documentaries have reached hundreds of millions of people globally and, in many respects, created an entirely new category of public consciousness around nature and environmental decline.

Yet what makes Attenborough so remarkable is not simply longevity or popularity. It is influence. Very few individuals can credibly claim to have shifted the behaviour of governments, businesses and entire populations without ever standing for office, leading a corporation or seeking ideological confrontation. Attenborough achieves something far more difficult. He makes people care.

I have been fortunate enough to encounter his influence up close on more than one occasion. In 2017, I attended a private screening of Blue Planet II at WWF’s UK headquarters in Woking. The room was filled not with environmental activists, but business leaders, advisers and communicators. As I recall, the atmosphere was unusual. Quiet. Reflective. At times, distinctly uncomfortable. I remember leaving with a peculiar feeling of guilt. How could we have let this happen?

The series would go on to trigger what became known as “The Blue Planet Effect”, a measurable shift in public awareness and behaviour, particularly around plastic pollution. Following its release, environmental charities experienced major spikes in engagement, governments began exploring bans on certain single-use plastics, and businesses realised that public sentiment around sustainability was hardening into accountability. For sometime I would often start my keynote addresses and workshops with a short clip from Blue Planet II.

It was not the first time visual storytelling had changed the environmental conversation. More than a decade earlier, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth performed a similar role for climate change. The film took what had largely been treated as scientific abstraction and transformed it into something emotionally immediate and politically unavoidable. Whatever one’s politics, it shifted public discourse.

Attenborough does something similar, but differently. Where Gore brings urgency through argument, Attenborough brings it through wonder, witness and storytelling that entertains as well as informs. That distinction matters.

Because unlike many campaigners, Attenborough rarely approaches the issue through accusation or ideology. His method is subtler and arguably more effective. Wonder first. Consequence second.

Through an approach perfected over decades, he invites humanity to fall back in love with nature and the living world before explaining what is happening to it. As he once observed:

“No one will protect what they don’t care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.”

That may be one of the most important leadership lessons of the modern era.

One of the reasons Attenborough’s influence endures so powerfully is precisely because of the manner in which he exercises it. He is never bombastic. Never self-righteous. Never performative.

In an age shaped by social media algorithms that reward outrage, tribalism and uninformed simplistic certainty, Attenborough’s approach remains remarkably measured. Mild in tone. Humble in manner. Curious rather than ideological.

He speaks not like a politician or activist demanding allegiance, but like a trusted guide inviting people to look more closely at the world around them.

That quiet credibility is one of his greatest strengths. Here is a man who has spent a lifetime celebrating the beauty of the natural world calmly explaining, almost with sadness rather than anger, the scale of the damage humanity is causing to it.

Perhaps that is why I left the WWF screening feeling angry with myself. Not because Attenborough attempts to provoke guilt or outrage, but because his restraint somehow makes the reality harder to dismiss. The absence of moral grandstanding leaves nowhere to hide. It creates a different kind of accountability. One rooted not in ideology, but in conscience.

I was reminded of this again years later at COP26 in Glasgow, where I caught sight of him while attending the conference in connection with an SOI® related fringe event I was delivering. Amid the noise, politics, security and spectacle that inevitably surround gatherings like COP, his presence there felt oddly different. Calmer somehow. More grounded. Less interested in positioning than truth.

It is this, perhaps more than anything else, that allows him to transcend politics in a way few public figures ever manage to do.

Today the World Economic Forum (WEF) consistently ranks environmental risks among the greatest threats to long-term economic stability. Global green investment has climbed into the trillions annually. Consumers increasingly reward brands perceived as sustainable and punish those seen as performative. Investors ask harder questions. Progress-minded regulators are becoming less patient and young people increasingly want to work for organisations that stand for something purposeful that goes beyond simply generating profit for owners and shareholders.

And yet, during the very same week the world celebrated Attenborough turning 100, many of the world’s largest oil and weapon producing companies once again reported enormous profits.

That tension says a great deal about the age we are living through. On one side sits growing scientific clarity, ecological pressure and public awareness. On the other sits an economic system still heavily dependent on the very activities that perpetuate the issues facing our planet. Add rising geopolitical instability, political division and short-termism, and it becomes obvious why progress feels slow and indifference takes hold.

This is precisely why Attenborough’s lifelong quest matters.

Because throughout all of this incredible upheaval we are collectively experiencing, he remains calm. Rational. Evidence-led. Hopeful without being naive.

Fundamentally, he understands and demonstrates something many leaders today clearly struggle with. That lasting change is rarely created through fear alone.

Purpose, at its best, works in much the same way. It is not about moral theatre or corporate virtue signalling. Nor is it about pretending businesses exist solely to solve societal problems. Organisations must still perform commercially. They must innovate, compete and generate returns.

That has profound implications for leadership. Because the defining challenge facing many organisations today is no longer whether they can generate growth, but whether they can do so responsibly, credibly and sustainably in a world that is becoming more transparent, more connected and less forgiving of contradiction.

Purpose sits at the centre of that challenge. Not as corporate theatre. Not as branding. But as a means of aligning commercial ambition with long-term responsibility, wellbeing and consequence.

Attenborough understands something fundamental about humans — that people rarely protect or value what they feel disconnected from and that, at its heart, purpose is really about building connections. Whether in business, society or nature, a sense of shared purpose begins with emotional connection, trust and understanding.

Neil Gaught On Purpose: In Conversation is a monthly interview series featuring leaders, thinkers and practitioners at the forefront of purpose-driven business.

Each conversation goes beyond the rhetoric to explore how purpose is being applied in practice, across strategy, governance, culture and performance.

At a time of growing complexity and uncertainty, the series brings together diverse perspectives to examine a simple but increasingly urgent question: What does it take to build a business that creates enduring value for both shareholders and society?

Dr Victoria Hurth is a leading authority on purpose-driven business and the author of Beyond Profit. She is also a central figure in the development of ISO 37011, the first international standard designed to embed purpose into organisational governance. Her work challenges traditional economic thinking, arguing that business must move beyond profit as an end goal and instead serve long-term wellbeing for all.

NG: You’ve been at the forefront of redefining the role of business in society. What first led you to question the profit-first model?

VH: I’m not sure I ever accepted it. Even as a child, I noticed a disconnect between what people said mattered, connection, community, nature, and the decisions they made, which often prioritised wealth and status. That tension stayed with me.

Over time, I came to see that treating profit as if it were the goal is a foundational flaw. My work has been about understanding that contradiction and helping to resolve it.

NG: What is the most important shift in thinking you hope leaders take from your recently published book Beyond Profit?

VH: That money is not an end goal, it’s a means. The true goal of an economy is collective long-term wellbeing.

Once you recognise that, it becomes clear that we’ve built a system that often works against its own purpose. We focus organisations on profit as if it were the objective, based on the assumption that wellbeing will follow. Increasingly, the evidence suggests the opposite.

The shift, then, is from governing for financial outcomes and hoping for positive societal impact, to governing explicitly for long-term wellbeing, with financial performance as a necessary, but secondary, result. This is how we start stemming the harm and unleashing the best of our innovative capacity.

NG: Why do so many organisations struggle to translate purpose into practice?

VH: Partly it’s a misunderstanding of what purpose actually means. But more fundamentally, it’s a governance issue.

Most organisations are still operating within a system that prioritises short-term financial returns. In that context, purpose gets reshaped to fit this logic, it is effectively pulled back into the logic it is meant to challenge.

That’s why so much purpose work feels superficial. Without changing the foundations (how decisions are governed), purpose cannot take hold. It remains an idea, rather than becoming a discipline that shapes all decisions and action. However, despite all the washing, people keep returning to purpose, and will do, because it’s the only concept that is designed to create good lives for everyone, into the future.

NG: What is ISO 37011, and why does it matter now?

VH: ISO 37011 is the first international standard on purpose-driven organisations. It sets out how organisations can govern their decisions so that they both create, and at the same time, do not harm, collective long-term wellbeing.

Its importance lies in providing a shared, globally agreed understanding of what purpose-driven governance actually looks like in practice. Without that, purpose risks remaining vague, inconsistent, or open to misuse and we will continue to create serious problems that we are then tied down trying to resolve (but inadvertently making the situation worse).

In many ways, ISO 37011 represents a shift from purpose as aspiration to purpose as an operational and governance discipline; something that can be applied, assessed and improved over time.

NG: How does ISO 37011 help operationalise purpose?

VH: Standards bring precision and clarity that can be questioned and improved. ISO standards define terms clearly and set out specific principles and practices shaped through a highly refined and rigorous global consensus process, by up to 174 countries.

ISO 37011 helps organisations diagnose the gap between their current approach to governance and what purpose-driven governance requires. That clarity is critical as it allows leaders to see where change is needed and to align strategy accordingly.

What follows is a more disciplined and effective approach to decision-making, where effort is directed towards closing that gap over time and the hard choices are faced head on – rather than ignored and left to create more issues.

NG: What does good look like when purpose is genuinely embedded?

VH: It means that purpose guides all decisions so that an organisation is operating in its fullest capacity to ‘do good’ (e.g. drive and not harm long-term wellbeing for all) and remain a health going concern in the process.

It does this through governance which means three core things: direction, oversight of this direction and accountability for it. In other words, an organisation defines the value it exists to generate and protect which are aligned with long-term wellbeing for all, ensures decisions and processes align with that direction, and holds itself accountable for the decisions it makes.

While there are no perfect examples yet due to the absence of clarity, it is important that we now have a clear model of what organisations should be working towards.

NG: What are the most common mistakes leaders make?

VH: The most common mistake is trying to apply purpose within an unchanged governance system. If decision-making is still driven by short-term self-interest, then an organisation cannot be purpose-driven, because its decisions won’t be geared for this.

A related issue is the belief that words, initiatives or even hiring purpose-driven people will be enough. Without embedding purpose into governance and strategy, purpose just cannot endure.

Ultimately, if purpose is not shaping decisions through governance (or genuinely on the journey to), then it is not yet part of how the organisation operates, and an organisation claiming they are purpose-driven will be purpose-washing.

NG: How do you see the role of business evolving over the next decade?

VH: There are two broad paths.

One is a continuation of the current trajectory — greater instability, increasing regulation, resource constraints and widening inequality, all of which place growing pressure and drag on businesses and the systems they operate within.

The alternative is a shift towards purpose-driven governance, where business becomes intentional about addressing the challenges that matter most to society and not inadvertently creating harm, and lobbying for government and all other organisations to be governed with the same frame.

Which path we take will depend largely on whether leaders recognise that the current model is broken—and act accordingly. The decisions being made now are critical and we need all leaders to step up.

NG: What is a practical first step for leaders?

VH: Start by questioning your assumptions about business, value and success. From there, build your skills of purpose governance. Use those skills to assess where you and your organisation are today, and define an ambition transforming your personal and organisational governance system to being purpose-driven.

The important thing is to begin and work at the foundational level first. By continuously improving the governance frame, strategy can evolve over time as the frame improves.

Beyond Profit: Purpose-Driven Leadership for a Wellbeing Economy is available at all leading booksellers and online stores.

Walking the purpose talk: A series exploring how leaders bring purpose to life by aligning what they do with what they say their organisations stand for.

Sales & Marketing

If there is one place where purpose is ultimately tested, it is in how an organisation goes to market. As this series draws to a close, it is here, at the point where intent meets revenue, that the alignment between what an organisation says and how it grows becomes most visible.

If purpose is to be more than a statement, it must ultimately influence how an organisation creates demand and converts it into revenue. Not just what is said in campaigns, but how opportunities are pursued, how customers are treated and, crucially, which opportunities are declined.

This is where the tension becomes most visible. Sales and marketing sit at the sharp end of commercial performance. Targets are immediate. Incentives are clear. The pressure to deliver can be intense. In such an environment, purpose can quickly become something that is referenced in brand language but quietly set aside in the pursuit of quarterly numbers.

And yet, this is precisely where purpose matters most.

A genuinely purpose-driven organisation does not view sales and marketing as functions designed simply to maximise volume or short-term gain. Instead, they become mechanisms for aligning commercial success with the organisation’s reason for being. Purpose begins to shape not only how value is communicated, but what value is offered in the first place.

This has several practical implications.

First, it sharpens focus. When purpose is clear and operationalised, it acts as a filter for where to play and how to win. Not every customer is the right customer. Not every opportunity should be pursued. Sales teams are given permission, and indeed encouragement, to walk away from business that does not align. In the short term, this can feel counterintuitive. In the long term, it builds a more coherent, resilient and trusted brand.

Some of the most consistently cited high-performing brands have followed precisely this path. By being explicit about who they are for (and, just as importantly, who they are not for!), they reduce the cost of acquisition, increase conversion quality and build deeper loyalty over time. What appears to be constraint is, in reality, focus.

Second, it changes the nature of the conversation. Marketing shifts from persuasion to clarity. The aim is no longer to convince customers to buy, but to help the right customers understand why they should. This demands a different level of discipline. Claims must be credible. Trade-offs must be acknowledged. The distance between what is promised and what is delivered must be tightly managed.

There is growing evidence that this approach is not only more ethical but more effective. Trust-based marketing consistently outperforms more aggressive, short-term tactics over time. Studies such as the Edelman Trust Barometer have shown that customers increasingly expect organisations to demonstrate both responsibility and integrity as well as competency before they commit. In this context, clarity becomes a competitive advantage.

We have seen what happens when that discipline is absent. Organisations that overstate their environmental or social credentials may enjoy a short-lived reputational uplift, but the correction, when it comes, is often severe. Trust, once lost, is expensive to rebuild. Purpose-led marketing, by contrast, is grounded in evidence. It communicates progress and transparency, as well as ambition, and is as clear about what is not yet achieved as what has been.

This shift is particularly visible in the automotive sector as it transitions from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. At a time when fuel prices and supply concerns have once again reminded drivers of the volatility built into the old model, companies such as Tesla, have not simply marketed electric cars as substitutes for petrol vehicles, but as part of a broader narrative around energy transition, performance and technological progress. In contrast to traditional automotive marketing, which has often leaned heavily on price, promotion and incremental upgrades, the most effective electric vehicle brands have focused on education, long-term value and alignment with changing customer priorities. In doing so, they are not just selling products, they are helping to reshape customer expectations and accelerate adoption.

Third, it redefines success. Traditional sales metrics such as volume, revenue, market share etc., do not disappear, nor should they. But they are complemented by measures that reflect the quality and sustainability of growth. Customer lifetime value, retention, advocacy and alignment with the organisation’s purpose become more prominent. The question shifts from “How much did we sell?” to “How well does what we sold advance our purpose and strengthen our position in the market over time?”

Leading businesses are already embedding this thinking into their operating models. Revenue is increasingly analysed alongside indicators such as customer trust, brand advocacy and long-term relationship value. In some cases, sales teams are evaluated not only on what they close, but on the long-term performance and suitability of what was sold. This introduces a level of accountability that extends well beyond the point of transaction.

This has implications for incentives and governance. If sales teams are rewarded solely on short-term revenue, behaviour will follow. If they are measured and recognised for building long-term, purpose-aligned relationships, a different set of behaviours begins to emerge. As with every other function, alignment is not achieved through rhetoric but through the systems that shape decisions and actions.

There is also a broader strategic effect. As more organisations begin to align their sales and marketing practices with a clearly defined purpose, markets themselves start to change. Customers become more discerning. They look not just at price and performance, but at intent and impact. What was once a differentiator becomes an expectation.

This shift is already visible across multiple sectors despite what DJT would have us believe. In financial services, lending decisions are increasingly scrutinised through an environmental and social lens. In consumer goods, transparency around sourcing and production is no longer optional. In technology, questions of data use and ethics are becoming central to purchasing decisions. In each case, sales and marketing are not driving the change alone, but they are the point at which it becomes visible to the market.

For those prepared to lead, this creates a distinct advantage. Early movers are able to define the standards by which others are judged. They build trust before it becomes a baseline requirement. They attract customers, partners and talent who are aligned with what they stand for. Over time, this compounds. What begins as a principled choice becomes a commercial one.

There is, in effect, a quiet rebalancing taking place. The historical model of “sell more, sell faster” is giving way (albeit admittedly unevenly), to one of “sell better, and be chosen more often.” Enlightened businesses that understand this are not abandoning growth, they are simply redefining its foundations.

None of this suggests that purpose makes sales and marketing easier. In many respects, it makes them more demanding. It requires greater clarity, greater consistency and a willingness to make difficult trade-offs. It asks leaders to resist the temptation of easy wins that undermine long-term intent.
But it also makes them more effective.

Because when sales and marketing are aligned with a core purpose that stakeholders care about, they do more than generate revenue. They reinforce the organisation’s identity, strengthen its relationships and help shape the market in which it operates.

And in doing so, they close one of the most important gaps in business today — the gap between what organisations say they stand for and how they actually grow.

Walking the purpose talk: A series exploring how leaders bring purpose to life by aligning what they do with what they say their organisations stand for.

Products and services

If purpose is real, it ultimately shows up in what an organisation chooses to sell.

Not in its statements, not in its campaigns, but in the products and services it brings to market, the problems it chooses to solve, and the needs it decides are worth meeting. This is where purpose moves from philosophy to consequence. It is also where it becomes most visible, and most exposed.

Many organisations claim to be purpose-driven, yet continue to offer products and services that sit uneasily alongside those claims. The tension is often rationalised. Legacy revenue streams must be protected. Market demand must be met. Transition will take time. All of which may be true. But taken together, they reveal a more fundamental reality — that purpose has not yet been allowed to align and organise the enterprise, and remains siloed in the communications department.

In a genuinely purpose-driven organisation, products and services are not simply commercial outputs. They are expressions of intent. They reflect a clear point of view about the role the organisation chooses to play in the world, and the kind of future those that run it are helping to create.

This has two immediate consequences. The first is focus. Purpose acts as a filter, shaping which opportunities are pursued and which are declined. It forces choices. Not every customer segment is equally attractive. Not every revenue stream is worth retaining. Not every innovation deserves investment. When purpose is working as a Single Organising Idea (SOI), it narrows the field in a way that sharpens both strategy and execution.

The second is innovation. Contrary to a common misconception, purpose does not constrain creativity; it directs it. By defining what matters, it creates a clearer brief for innovation teams. The question shifts from “What can we build?” to “What should we build, given what we stand for?” The result is often a more distinctive, differentiated pipeline of products and services, and one that is harder for competitors to replicate.

Unilever has long provided one of the stronger illustrations of what happens when purpose drives an organisation and is allowed to shape a portfolio rather than simply decorate it. Brands such as Dove, Lifebuoy and Hellmann’s have all been positioned around forms of social or environmental relevance that are directly connected to what they sell, rather than appended to them as a marketing device. Whatever one makes of the detail, the broader strategic intent is clear: Products are being developed not simply to capture demand at Unilever, but to express a broader role in people’s lives and in society, aligned with its core purpose to make sustainable living commonplace.

The opposite dynamic was visible in BP’s infamous Beyond Petroleum era. The branding implied a company in strategic transition towards a cleaner, more responsible energy future, but the underlying business remained overwhelmingly anchored in the same core extractive model. The result was not simply a communications problem, it was a products-and-services problem. The gap between what was being implied and what was actually being sold created a credibility deficit that became impossible to ignore. It remains one of the clearest reminders that purpose cannot be claimed meaningfully if the offer itself tells a different story.

This is where the commercial case for purpose becomes particularly clear and most compelling. Products and services that are aligned with a credible and consistently applied purpose tend to build stronger trust with customers, attract more engaged employees, and create more resilient forms of value. They are less vulnerable to shifts in sentiment because they are grounded in something more enduring than short-term demand. Over time, this can translate into more stable revenue, stronger margins, and a clearer basis for growth.

Of course, none of this suggests that transition is straightforward — it’s not. For many organisations, the current portfolio reflects years, if not decades, of accumulated decisions made under different strategic assumptions. Moving towards a purpose-aligned portfolio requires careful navigation. Some products and services will need to be evolved. Others may need to be retired. New capabilities may need to be developed. But the challenge usually runs deeper than the offer itself. If purpose is to shape what an organisation sells, it must also shape the chain of decisions that sit behind it, such as where materials come from, which suppliers and partners are chosen, what standards are enforced, and what compromises are no longer acceptable. In this sense, product and service alignment is never just a front-end exercise. It reaches back into procurement, operations and governance. Companies such as Nike and IKEA have both, in different ways and with varying degrees of consistency, shown how difficult and necessary that work can be. Once purpose starts to influence decisions across the supply chain, it ceases to be a positioning exercise and starts becoming an operating discipline. Measurement systems aligned with the enterprise’s core purpose, in turn, need to track not only financial performance, but also the broader value being created or eroded through those decisions.

This is where leadership and courage matter. Leaders who see the value of purpose must be willing to confront the gap between what the organisation says it stands for and what it actually sells. They must be prepared to make trade-offs, to explain those trade-offs clearly, and to manage the transition with both discipline and transparency. Perhaps most importantly, they must recognise that credibility is built not through perfection, but through clarity and determination when it comes to the direction of travel.

For leaders prepared to act, particularly where inertia has long held sway, there is a substantial prize to be won. Those who move first do not simply respond to changing expectations, they actually help shape them. As more organisations follow and begin to align their products and services with a clearly defined purpose, markets themselves start to shift. Customer expectations evolve. Competitive dynamics change. What was once considered acceptable becomes questionable. What was once differentiated becomes expected. In this sense, purpose does not simply reshape individual organisations — it reshapes the context in which they operate and often rewards those bold enough to lead in the first instance.

Alignment of products and services is not a peripheral exercise. It is central to the transition towards a more purpose-driven form of business. It is also, in many ways, the most revealing test. Because when all is said and done, an organisation is defined less by what it says than by what it sells.

Walking the purpose talk — a series exploring how leaders bring purpose to life by aligning what they do with what they say their organisations stand for.

People and culture

In my previous article in this series, I explored how systems and processes must be aligned with an organisation’s purpose, just as innovation, communications and every other function must be, if a business is to claim it is genuinely purpose-driven. But even when an approach to alignment is created and agreed, it is people and culture that determine whether it is ever truly realised.

Neither the most compelling purpose nor the most well-thought-through approach to alignment can compensate for a culture that is indifferent, fragmented or quietly resistant, nor can they unlock the full potential of a team that does not understand, believe in, or feel connected to what the organisation is trying to achieve. As the management thinker Peter Drucker famously observed, culture has a habit of overwhelming strategy; not because strategy is unimportant, but because culture determines whether it is ever made a reality. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” he said.

Culture is often described as “how things are done around here.” In practice, it is far more consequential. It shapes how decisions are made when no one is watching, how people treat one another under pressure, and whether individuals feel they are part of something meaningful or simply passing through. Many organisations falter here. Identifying a purpose is easy to declare, but if ‘business as usual’ practices persist and culture is left to chance, shaped by legacy behaviours, informal hierarchies and a quiet cynicism that nothing will change, don’t be surprised if nothing does.

A purpose-driven organisation closes that gap by understanding that high performance is achieved through communities of highly engaged people bound by a shared intent that has been collectively recognised. When that intent is clear, credible and consistently reinforced, work becomes more than transactional. It becomes contributory. This is where the idea of being purpose-driven moves from abstraction to advantage. Trust, relationships and a shared sense of purpose are not “soft” considerations; they are strategic assets in today’s world, where AI and constant uncertainty are reshaping how people experience work and, increasingly, their sense of wellbeing.

Like purpose, wellbeing is too often treated as something to be managed at the edges, through programmes or initiatives that sit alongside the “real” work. In reality, wellbeing is shaped by the work itself, and by whether people feel trusted, valued and able to contribute to something that matters, not only to the company but to them personally. A construction company that sees itself as simply building assets for profit will extract effort. One that collectively understands it is helping to build better communities will generate pride, ownership and a shared sense of achievement. The difference is not cosmetic. It is cultural, and it is reflected not only in engagement, but in consistency, quality of performance and tangible outcomes — including profit.

High-performing cultures are not built on inspiration alone. They are built on the alignment of understanding and commitment. Only when individuals both understand the objective and are committed to it do they become true contributors, lifting performance and bringing others with them. This is where many organisations struggle, particularly when purpose and values are defined top-down as the output of a senior management strategy day, rather than through involving people in identifying and defining purpose from the outset to create genuine ownership.

This kind of thinking requires more than management. Managers maintain systems; leaders create meaning. Leaders who create environments in which individuals understand not just what they do, but why it matters — and where what they think and feel is valued — create the conditions in which people thrive. They help shape cultures where individuals see themselves in the story of the organisation, where their contribution is visible, valued and measured. When that happens, purpose is no longer seen as a slogan, but as a shared endeavour that matters.

When clearly defined and properly embedded, purpose provides a shared reference point that aligns individual effort with collective ambition. It allows performance to be understood not only in functional terms, but in terms of contribution to a common goal across individuals, teams and the organisation as a whole. It creates clarity about what is expected, what is valued and what success looks like, and that clarity, in turn, creates confidence.

Without a clear sense of purpose, even capable people hesitate. They second-guess, hold back or retreat into the safety of their defined roles. In cultures where cynicism has taken hold, or where the tall-poppy syndrome quietly punishes those who step forward, this hesitation becomes self-reinforcing. Ambition is muted and potential diluted. Purpose, when made real as the enterprise’s single organising idea (SOI), does the opposite. It legitimises ambition in service of something bigger than the individual and gives people permission to care, to contribute and, importantly, to lead, regardless of their role or title.

This is where courage becomes central. It takes courage to hold people to a standard that goes beyond short-term performance, to make decisions that reinforce the integrity of the culture and, at times, to confront behaviours that undermine it. It also takes courage to lead in a way that is consistently human — to listen, to be transparent and, when necessary, to be vulnerable. Without that courage, culture drifts. With it, culture becomes a source of advantage.

Culture is not an output of strategy. It is the environment in which strategy either succeeds or fails. Leaders who understand this do not leave culture to chance. They design for it, measure it and lead it consistently, recognising that purpose does not live in statements or systems, but in people, and in what they choose to do together.

Walking the Purpose Talk Series:A series exploring how leaders bring purpose to life by aligning what they do with what they say their organisations stand for.

Processes & Systems

If purpose is to be more than rhetoric, it must ultimately show up in the machinery of the organisation. Not in the language of strategy documents or on the walls of headquarters, but in the systems and processes that govern how work actually gets done.

This is where many organisations quietly falter. Purpose is often expressed in brand language and leadership speeches but left largely disconnected from the operational architecture that drives daily performance. Processes continue as they always have. Systems remain optimised for yesterday’s priorities. The result is a subtle but persistent misalignment between aspiration and execution.

A genuinely purpose-driven organisation closes that gap. Purpose becomes a design principle for the systems that support decision-making, collaboration, innovation and performance, while recognising that even in the most technologically advanced environments it is ultimately human judgement that determines the outcome.

I was reminded of this recently at an event hosted by the British New Zealand Business Association (BNZBA), featuring members of the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team. SailGP is one of the most technologically advanced sporting competitions in the world, where national teams race identical high-performance foiling catamarans capable of exceeding 90 kilometres per hour.

The margins between victory and defeat are measured in seconds, sometimes fractions of seconds. Performance therefore depends on the relentless optimisation of systems, data and processes, and of course the ability of highly skilled sailors to interpret and act on that information under intense pressure.

What was striking about the panel conversation with Emirates GBR strategist Hannah Mills and driver Dylan Fletcher was how explicitly purpose featured in their description of how the team and the competition itself operates.

SailGP’s purpose extends beyond the competition we see on the water. The league was established not only to stage world-class racing but also to accelerate the transition to clean energy through sport. The boats are powered entirely by wind, and the championship runs an Impact League alongside the racing series, rewarding teams for measurable environmental and social performance.

For the British team, this purpose is not simply a narrative attached to the sport. It is embedded in the way the team organises itself and in the systems that shape its performance.

As Hannah explained, GBR’s processes and systems are designed to ensure that racing excellence and environmental impact are pursued simultaneously rather than treated as competing priorities. Decisions about what the team chooses to start doing, stop doing and continue doing are filtered through that dual lens.

High-performance sport offers a useful mirror for business because it reveals what happens when alignment is taken seriously. In an environment where outcomes are transparent and the feedback loop is immediate, any gap between stated purpose and operational reality is quickly exposed.

SailGP teams rely heavily on advanced data analytics and increasingly on artificial intelligence to interpret the enormous volume of performance data generated during a race. Decisions about sail trim, positioning, tactics and manoeuvres are informed by sophisticated systems that translate data into actionable insight in real time.

But those systems are only as effective as the logic that governs them. When purpose is clear, it helps define what should be measured, what should be optimised and what trade-offs are acceptable. It shapes the questions teams ask of their data and the priorities embedded in the processes that guide decision-making.

In this sense, purpose acts as a Single Organising Idea (SOI) and a form of operational intelligence that is brought to life through an operating system.

Every organisation runs on a complex network of systems and processes: Performance management frameworks, procurement rules, innovation pipelines, incentive structures, governance mechanisms and increasingly AI-enabled decision tools.

These systems quietly determine what gets prioritised, rewarded and repeated. They influence how resources are allocated, how risks are assessed and how opportunities are pursued. But if those systems are not aligned with the organisation’s stated purpose, purpose will inevitably lose the argument and with that comes inconsistency and reputational risk.

In practice, this often explains why purpose initiatives struggle to gain traction. The organisation may have declared a new direction, but the processes governing budgets, incentives, reporting and performance measurement remain anchored in a different set of priorities.

People respond rationally to the systems around them. If those systems reward short-term outcomes or narrow financial metrics, behaviour will inevitably follow.

Embedding purpose into systems and processes changes that dynamic. It redefines the criteria by which success is measured and ensures that the operational infrastructure of the organisation reinforces the direction it claims to be pursuing.

This is not about adding complexity. On the contrary, purpose can simplifies decision-making.
When teams (and businesses), are clear about what they are ultimately trying to achieve, systems can be designed to support that aim directly. The organisation becomes better able to decide what to start, what to stop and what to keep doing.

High-performing teams understand this instinctively. GBR’s ambition, like any elite sporting team, is to win. But as the conversation with Hannah Mills made clear, how you win matters just as much as whether you win. Purpose therefore becomes a constraint as well as an inspiration. It defines the boundaries within which performance must be achieved.

For businesses navigating an increasingly complex world, shaped by technological disruption, rising stakeholder expectations and intensifying environmental pressures, that kind of clarity and understanding is becoming indispensable.

Because in the end, purpose is not proven by the elegance of the statement that describes it. It is proven by the systems and processes that bring it to life.

Walking the purpose talk: A series exploring how leaders bring purpose to life by aligning what they do with what they say their organisations stand for.

Communications

Late last year, a review of the ASX100 by Griffith University produced a statistic that should make all business leaders pause for thought. Seventy-two per cent of the companies analysed had a publicly available purpose statement. On the face of it, that sounds like real progress, a moment to celebrate even.

However, the gloss quickly fades. According to the researchers, fewer than half of those identified could credibly be described as being purpose-driven. In other words, while most large companies on the ASX have convinced themselves that having a purpose is reputationally advantageous, far fewer have understood or allowed purpose to function as the guide to the future of their organisations.

That gap, the difference between what you say your purpose is and what it actually drives, is critical and will define whether your communications help build business success or simply undermine it.

A lesson from history


A quarter of a century ago, BP unveiled a new brand identity and its infamous ‘Beyond Petroleum’ positioning. It was elegant. It was bold. It was, from a creative standpoint, irresistible. BP no longer stood for British Petroleum and oil; it stood for Beyond Petroleum and the harnessing of the forces of nature to generate energy. Green, already a corporate colour, became of four declared values underpinning it. The alignment between acronym, aspiration and aesthetics was almost too perfect.

Announced internally, it was a truly inspiring rallying call that had the potential to unite over 100,000 people around an exciting new direction that would secure the long-term investment and interest of key stakeholders, including shareholders and the planet. Announced externally, it was a premature declaration that would lead to costly outcomes and a reputation that has never fully recovered.

‘Beyond Petroleum’ implied arrival, but the business hadn’t gone anywhere and remained overwhelmingly locked into its oil and gas heritage. When operational failures followed in Texas City, Prudhoe Bay and finally in the Gulf of Mexico, the phrase did not merely look optimistic. It looked hubristic. As former CEO John Browne later acknowledged, the issue was the gap between rhetoric and reality. A more prosaic line such as ‘Going beyond petroleum’ would have lacked the creative neatness. But it would also have been more honest.

That was 25 years ago. One might have expected the lesson to stick.

It has not.

Since then, airlines have been reprimanded for implying that flying can be made sustainable through marginal adjustments. Financial institutions have been censured for advertising green credentials without adequately disclosing the carbon intensity of their lending books. Asset managers have faced fines for overstating ESG processes. Retailers have been challenged over the elasticity of words like “conscious”, “ethical” and “responsible”.

The pattern is familiar. A business highlights a positive slice of activity. The wider context tells a different story. Regulators intervene. The public shrugs and trust erodes a little further.

The cumulative effect has been corrosive. Each overstatement reinforces the suspicion that purpose is merely marketing fluff and that corporate virtue is a veneer applied when convenient and discarded when costly.

The tragedy is that many of these organisations are not insincere. They are in transition. They are wrestling with legacy assets, shareholder expectations, technological constraints and political headwinds. But communications that declares victory before the work is done converts a difficult journey into a credibility problem.

In a world mediated through screens, communication is no longer a decorative overlay. It is evidential. It is archived. It is searchable and scrutinised. It is compared against performance in real time. When purpose sits outside the operating system of the business, communications becomes theatre. When it sits at the core, communications becomes accountability.

From slogan to substance


So what does disciplined purpose communication look like in practice, especially in the vulnerable transition phase?

First, be transparent about the gap. Don’t pretend you’ve already become what you are still becoming. Use language that invites scrutiny rather than dodges it. The public is more forgiving of ambition than of misdirection, provided you’re honest about what is still work in progress.

Second, communicate trade-offs, not just goals. Purpose is real when it constrains as much as it inspires. If your purpose is shaping strategy, you will be able to point to choices you won’t make, revenues you won’t chase, suppliers you won’t tolerate and markets you won’t enter.

Third, manage the creatives. Advertising and PR agencies are paid to amplify. In a purpose transition, amplification without governance is how you manufacture reputational risk at speed. The brief must be anchored to the core purpose and bound by what the organisation can evidence. Passionate creativity is not the problem, untethered creativity definitely is.

Fourth, publish goals and report progress, religiously. Announcing targets is not virtue signalling; it’s a contract between you and your stakeholders. Regular reporting turns communications into an ongoing dialogue and brings stakeholders on the journey with you. It also creates internal pressure for delivery, because once you’ve made commitments public, the organisation can’t hide behind internal narratives.

Finally, put employees at the centre. Most purpose failures are not external, they are internal credibility collapses. If your people think purpose is a ‘slick marketing campaign’, you’ve already lost the plot. Internal communications must be grounded in operational changes, clear decision rules and genuine invitations to contribute, not grand declarations about saving the world.

The point of this series is simple – walking the talk is not about being perfect. It is about being aligned. And when it comes to communications, alignment comes from a deceptively unglamorous discipline; saying only what the operating system of the business can support and then steadily expanding what that system can truthfully claim.

In the age of social media, the most strategic communications move is often the least dramatic one. Be precise. Be proportionate. Let the evidence do the persuading.

Walking the purpose talk: A series exploring how leaders bring purpose to life by aligning what they do with what they say they stand for.

Innovation

Over the past decade, purpose has moved from the margins to the mainstream of business thinking. Many organisations now have a clearly articulated purpose, a statement that explains why they exist and what they seek to contribute beyond financial return.

Far fewer, however, are genuinely driven by one.

Being driven by purpose is not about intent or aspiration. It is about consequence. It shows up in what products and services an organisation chooses to sell, which markets it participates in, which revenues it is prepared to forgo, and which opportunities it actively pursues. When purpose is real, it constrains as much as it inspires.

In a genuinely purpose-driven organisation, purpose acts as the single organising idea of the enterprise. It sits at the core of strategy, not running in parallel with it, not competing with commercial priorities, but actively shaping them. It informs decisions across the whole system: sales and marketing, systems and processes, communications, products and services, innovation, people and culture, procurement, and leadership itself.

This is where many organisations struggle. Purpose is identified, sometimes eloquently, but the business continues to operate much as it did before. Strategy advances down one track; purpose runs alongside it on another. Over time, that separation creates inconsistency, confusion and accusations of hypocrisy labelled as purpose-washing.

This series of articles is written to prompt reflection for leaders navigating that terrain. Some will already have a stated purpose and be grappling with how to align the organisation around it. Others may sense that something more is required but are unsure where to begin. The intent here is not to prescribe the Single Organising Idea (SOI®) methodology, but to surface the questions leaders need to ask if purpose is to become operational rather than ornamental.

We are starting with innovation. Not because it is the first domain every organisation should address, but because it is one of the most revealing. Innovation is not just about the new ideas an organisation chooses to explore and invest in. It is also where intent meets investment, and where the gap between words and action becomes visible very quickly.

Seen this way, innovation becomes a discipline of focus rather than creativity alone. It exposes whether purpose is genuinely shaping priorities, or simply sitting in the background as an expression of good intent.

Innovation as a test of seriousness

Innovation is often treated as a signal of ambition, evidence that an organisation is looking forwards rather than backwards. But viewed through the lens of purpose, innovation reveals something more exacting — whether an organisation is prepared to act differently, not just think differently.

This is why innovation so often exposes the gap between what organisations say they are here to do and what they actually prioritise. It is one thing to articulate a purpose; it is quite another to allow that purpose to shape where time, talent and capital are deployed.

When purpose is genuinely at work, innovation priorities change. Leaders move beyond asking what could we do next? to what should we do next, and why? Initiatives are judged not only on commercial potential, but on coherence with the organisation’s core idea. The result is not less innovation, but more deliberate innovation.

A useful illustration can be seen in Patagonia®. Far from constraining growth, Patagonia’s environmental purpose has actively shaped the company’s innovation agenda, from product design and materials science to repair, resale and circular business models. Initiatives such as Worn Wear, supply-chain transparency and long-term product durability were not bolt-ons to a conventional growth strategy; they flowed directly from a clear point of view about what the company exists to do.

Importantly, this clarity has not diminished commercial performance. Patagonia has grown, not in spite of its purpose, but because its innovation efforts are coherent, differentiated and trusted. Purpose narrowed the field of possibility, and in doing so, strengthened both relevance and resilience.

Innovation is ultimately a leadership choice

For all the language of creativity and experimentation, innovation does not happen in a vacuum. It is shaped, consciously or otherwise, by leadership decisions, incentives, risk appetite and what the organisation chooses to reward or protect.
When purpose is peripheral, innovation defaults to familiar measures: speed, return, imitation. When purpose is central, those measures are supplemented by a more searching question: does this advance what we are here to do?

This does not replace commercial discipline; it refines it. Organisations that take purpose seriously do not innovate indiscriminately, they innovate coherently. They are clearer about the value they seek to create, and the value they are prepared to walk away from. Over time, that coherence compounds.

A revealing place to begin

Innovation is not the only domain that must align with purpose. Communications, systems, culture, leadership and measurement all matter, and each will surface different tensions. But innovation is a revealing place to begin because it forces intent into contact with reality.

It challenges leaders to move beyond aspiration and ask whether purpose is actively organising decisions, priorities and trade-offs, or merely accompanying them.

Purpose sets direction. Innovation reveals whether the organisation is actually moving.

In the next article, I’ll turn to another domain where this gap becomes visible very quickly — communications, and how misalignment there can undermine even the strongest intentions.

Opportunity Knocks: From Purpose Promise to Purpose Practice

Aotearoa New Zealand has always punched above its weight when it is united by something more than short-term advantage. Our best chapters, whether in social progress, enterprise, innovation or community resilience have enhanced and enriched our reputation abroad and delivered pride at home when we’ve acted as if we were responsible for far more than just ourselves. For me, this is the very essence of what sets us apart, what defines this extraordinary country and what defines those who call ourselves Kiwis.

Now imagine a near future in which the essence of that approach helps us navigate the chaos of today’s world. An approach that embraces, and enables, the birth of a new world out of the old one. An approach that challenges outdated, self-serving practices that benefit a few and catalyses new ideas that benefit everyone.

Imagine a business sector where every enterprise treats employees as stakeholders in the real sense. Investing in capability, wellbeing and belonging because it improves performance and strengthens society. Imagine supply chains designed for resilience and trust, not just cost. Imagine organisations measuring success through a wider lens that results in both commercial strength and societal wellbeing.

Imagine what that would do to our confidence, our productivity, our innovation, our social cohesion and our standing in the world. A small country, at the edge of the map, quietly pioneering and establishing a more coherent model of capitalism. One that is competitive, inventive and fit for everyone, today and tomorrow.

This is not utopian. It is simply what happens when new ideas are made possible by a purpose that is not limited to a clever line captured in a slick slogan, but sits at the core of the systems we organise ourselves around. Helping us daily shape decisions, guide trade-offs and align what we reward with what we claim to value.

2026 is not ‘just another year’. It arrives in an era where disorientating geopolitical and social-economic turbulence powered by dizzying technological advances are testing every leader and every institution. The old world is not coming back and the new one is arriving faster than many expected.

The question is no longer whether your organisation has a purpose statement that sounds relevant in this new world. It is whether your business is actually driven by a core purpose that will help you navigate this era and emerge stronger and better from it. Because that’s the real gap in the era we now live in. An era where almost every organisation has learned the language of purpose but far fewer have built the machinery and discipline capable of delivering it in real terms. Purpose has been widely adopted as communications but not yet as capability.

That distinction is about to matter more. With the emerging international guidance standard ISO 37011 on the horizon, the expectation will increasingly shift from purpose as promise to purpose as practice, and from what is stated to what can be actually demonstrated. In other words, purpose will become less of a vibe and more of a test. One that is visible in governance, clear in strategy, consistent in incentives and measurable in outcomes.

If purpose is going to drive business advantage and not just organisational virtue it must be treated as a discipline. That means it must be designed into how decisions are made, how performance is evaluated, what leaders are rewarded for and how progress is measured over time. It must live in the operating system of an enterprise not just in the brand management department.

Many people read and shared my articles last year and I’m truly grateful for your support and especially to those who sent thoughtful messages and challenges.

I’ve taken that feedback seriously and my intention is to focus my first few articles this year on how leaders embed purpose once they’ve identified and defined it. How they align governance, strategy, culture, measurement and avoid the drift that quietly turns good intent into reputational risk.

If Aotearoa is going to get back to punching above its weight in the world that is being born around us, we will need more than good values and great storytelling. We will need organisations public, private and social that are prepared to grasp the future. Not organisations nostalgically looking backwards but ones with a clear road-map and a pre-determined destination that will deliver long-term value for people, country, organisations and planet.

That’s the opportunity of 2026.

Beyond business: Why purpose’s moment is still ahead of us

When Beyond Business was published back in 2010, it landed as a serious intervention in the debate about the role of business in society. Written by the former CEO of BP, John Browne, it argued that companies could no longer afford to see profit and responsibility as separate conversations. For Browne, sustainability, integrity and long-term value creation were no longer optional extras, they were becoming the central features of future business success.

I read the book through a particular lens. I worked at Enterprise IG, the global branding agency where BP’s infamous Beyond Petroleum ‘brand promise’ was coined at the turn of the century. That proximity made Browne’s arguments feel less theoretical, more immediate and I wrote about his ideas and challenges quite extensively in my first book, CORE. This was a brand promise not as a cosmetic idea, but as something new and different. It was a rallying call and a bold attempt to re-orient one of the world’s most powerful companies — and potentially an entire industry — around a shared sense of purpose fit for a future that would be better for all. Better for shareholders, better for employees, better for society and better for the planet.

It remains for me a lesson from history. Its failure was not down to a lack of vision, but ultimately, a lack of courage and leadership in the face of short-termist thinking and the self-centred agendas of those who stand in the way of progress and capitalise through business as usual by maintaining the status quo. A status quo incidentally, that often profits from creating problems for people and planet, rather than profiting from solving them.

Fifteen years later, much has changed. Purpose has moved from the margins to the mainstream. It is part of the corporate vernacular and almost every business claims to have a purpose. And yet, much has stayed stubbornly the same. The gap between intent and execution remains just as wide and purpose is still too often treated as brand narrative rather than operational discipline, positioning rather than governance. There is a big difference between having a purpose and being purpose-driven.

Re-reading Beyond Business today is therefore both instructive and uncomfortable. It reminds us how long these questions have been on the table and how slow and uneven our progress has been in answering them. But the lesson it offers us now is not to look back in anger at lost opportunities, but to look forward with resolve.

As we approach a new year and enter the second quarter of the 21st century, it feels like the right moment to lift our gaze. At the very beginning of the first quarter, Browne’s Beyond Petroleum appeared radical, imperfect, ahead of its time and was ultimately, an opportunity missed. Ensuring purpose is properly understood and implemented by today’s leaders will give the next quarter of the century the opportunity to deliver on the promise the first could only glimpse.

For those interested, my original review of Beyond Business can be found on the NG&A website.