S2E1: Purpose is Leadership with Cathy Ann Armour

In this episode of Purpose Project, host Leslie Pagel kicks off season two by delving into the significance of purpose in the workplace. Joined by Cathy Ann Armour, CEO of the Better Business Bureau in Indianapolis, they explore how personal and professional purposes intersect. Cathy shares her journey, emphasizing the roles of self-awareness, intentional leadership, and the importance of aligning one's personal purpose with organizational goals. Through their candid discussion, Cathy highlights the essential qualities of trust, integrity, and the pursuit of meaningful work for both leaders and employees.

00:00 Introduction to Purpose Project Season Two

00:37 Meet Cathy Ann Armour: CEO of Better Business Bureau

01:27 Cathy's Personal and Professional Journey

02:22 The Role of Purpose in Leadership

06:05 Purpose in the Workplace: Aligning Personal and Organizational Goals

08:57 Building a Purpose-Driven Culture

17:58 Challenges and Insights in Purpose-Driven Leadership

41:34 Advice for Leaders on Connecting Teams to Purpose

45:36 Conclusion and Reflections on Purpose and Leadership

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Transcript

Leslie: 0:04

Welcome to Purpose Project. I am your host, Leslie Pagel, and I am on a mission to make the topic of purpose mainstream. I am so excited to be kicking off season two of Purpose Project. This season, we are exploring the topic of purpose in the workplace, how purpose shows up in different roles. In different industries and in different types of organizations. Many of us spend a significant amount of time at work. Why not fill that time with purpose? Today I am joined by Cathy Ann Armour. Cathy is the CEO of the Better Business Bureau in Indianapolis. As a leader, Cathy has dedicated her career. To fostering trust, integrity, and impact in the business community. In this episode, she shares her perspective on what it means to align business with purpose. Let's take a listen. Cathy, thank you for being on Purpose Project. I am really looking forward to having a conversation with you about how Purpose shows up in the workplace.

Cathy: 1:14

Well, thank you for having me and congratulations on season one. I listened to Most of the episodes so far, so I'm excited to be on season two. Yay! Thank you for your

Leslie: 1:24

support and for being here. Yes, yes. Before we dive into the topic of purpose in the workplace, tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is Cathy both, personally and professionally?

Cathy: 1:40

It's fun to stop and take a little bit of breather and to think about who is Cathy both personally and professionally. Because I think that who we are is busy. And sometimes we don't even really stop to think about that. And so I appreciate you asking me that question. So, personally, I am a wife. I'm a mom. Um, I am a, I'm a child of God. I mean, my faith dictates a lot of what I believe and how I act. And, then I happen to have a job as a CEO of the Better Business Bureau serving central Indiana. And so, That's who I am professionally.

Leslie: 2:17

Love that. I want to dive into that role as CEO of Better Business Bureau. But before we do that, one question that I ask everyone is, do you have a life's purpose? And if so, what is that?

Cathy: 2:34

I think I have two. Because of my faith, you know, love God and love others is my kind of personal How I try to live and what my purpose is, but I think even above that, I realized very early on in my life that I was a connector of people that I could see how one person I knew might relate or help another person I knew, or one system I knew about might help someone who was going through a problem. And so very early in life, I. just defined myself by the word connector and connector of people. And then recently I took the strength finders test, the Gallup strength finders test, and found out that that is one of my top strengths. And I think it's interesting that it's, it's been that way all my life. Wow. And sometimes I felt like it was a busy body kind of thing. Like I was giving unsolicited information and that's not really what I meant to do. I just like connecting people together and connecting people with different programs and, yeah, just seeing how all the puzzles fit together.

Leslie: 3:47

Well, and I have to believe that as a connector, it has helped you to get to this role of CEO as at Better Business Bureau. I mean, what a great leadership attribute.

Cathy: 4:00

It's interesting because my, my, really my skill that got me to Better Business Bureau or pretty much got me in all of my jobs is because I'm an accountant. Okay. And so, accounting is a skill that you learn, but typically accountants aren't known for their strong people skills, their kind of, pocket protector, pen in their pocket protector and, like to deal with numbers and have their calculator going and, I wasn't the kind of accountant I wanted to be. Um, I wanted to use those numbers and figure out From those numbers, what could I do differently to change the environment for the better? Um, so I don't know. I mean, definitely have been connected to a lot of good people who have helped me get to where I am today for sure.

Leslie: 4:51

Yeah. When it seems like as an accountant, that's right brain, connector, left brain. And so those two together seem to be a, uh, Interesting dynamic.

Cathy: 5:06

I think the thing is I'm not a to the penny or to the dollar accountant. I'm more about rounding. I'm more about rounding and, and, and getting to the point where it's close enough that, you know, what needs to happen. Um, so more managerial accounting probably than just strict debits and credits. Although I'm very thankful that at better business bureau, we have a very detailed lady who. Yeah. Who likes to be to the penny. Yes. She was off on accounts receivable this week and she said, oh, I can't finalize the financial statements because I'm off this amount. And I said, it's immaterial close the financial statements. And she said, I appreciate that's what you would do, but I don't feel good about that. And I said, you, you do. You

Leslie: 5:57

So, oh, well, thank you for sharing your purpose with us. Yes. I would love to. this topic of purpose in the workplace. And I'm recognizing that you are both a leader of your business with the Better Business Bureau. And also through that role, you've got this Bird's eye view across businesses. Yes. So, if we could, I'd love to hit on both of those angles in your perspective, but let's first start with you as a leader. How does purpose show up in the workforce?

Cathy: 6:38

Well, I mean, I think it's so important. I think that, um, Not only my purpose, but my team's purpose. I just held an orientation, right before I came here, for two new people that started. And I talked about, your purpose has to be aligned with the mission of the organization. And we are a non profit organization, and our mission is to advance Marketplace Trust. Okay. To be the leader in advancing Marketplace Trust. If Marketplace Trust isn't important to you, you're probably not really going to want to be able, you're not going to use your purpose in life for our purpose. Okay. So I think your purpose in life has to be aligned with what our purpose is. Uh huh. Does that make sense? It does make sense. Yeah, so I, I always let them know when I do this orientation that, um, your purpose is your purpose, and if it doesn't match with our purpose, Somewhere else. Yeah, not in a mean way, but like in a life is short. Yeah, you only have one life to live Do what you're meant to do and what your passion is

Leslie: 7:48

Absolutely, and what your

Cathy: 7:49

purpose is because there's only one of you so I I mean to me it's the difference I think too in a decent culture and a bad culture because I believe that if you have people that are aligned with their personal purpose And with the organization's purpose, that they're going to be healthier and happier and that the whole culture is going to be better. Where if you have, you know, half of your team or a third of your team or a quarter of your team are not in a line with your purpose. And don't see how their purpose fits in with your purpose. I'm using the word purpose an awful lot. I apologize for that. That's the show. I love it. Um, if they can't see how their purpose aligns with your purpose, how would they be happy? Right. You know, how would they be fulfilled? And we spend the majority of our waking hours every week, you know, tied to work, or driving to work, or driving home from work, or worrying about work, or Planning for work. So let's make it the best we can.

Leslie: 8:56

Right? Yeah. Yeah, so I'm hearing very much Purpose is a part of culture for sure at Better Business Bureau and and because of that it's very much a part of how employees are engaged in their work through the purpose of the business and making the connection between Uh, the individual employee and, and the purpose of the business.

Cathy: 9:26

For sure. I mean, you know, we have a consumer services hotline that calls in, that accepts, our, our operator accepts calls from consumers. And, um, you know, they call in all day long and they've gotten a letter in the mail. You know, they've gotten a scam call or something. The person who is answering that phone has to passionately care about the person that they're talking to, and they want to, they have to believe in our mission of advancing marketplace trust so that they can say to that person confidently and patiently and calmly and, you know, disappointing them at the same time by saying, I'm sorry, but that's a scam. Do not send 1, 000. 1, 000. And, we see that in all areas that we work, you know, of our teams. Um, if we have an accredited business service call call in, so someone who is an accredited business calls in, and they're having trouble, working on their BBB business profile or whatever their issue is. If our customer service people for those accredited businesses don't really care about advancing marketplace trust, It's just going to be a whatever phone call, you know, and then they're not going to really care about that person's business. But I'm so happy because the people that we have working for us and doing that work, they're really concerned about the consumers that are calling in or the businesses that are calling in are really concerned about their business and want to try to figure out how can they do things better. And so, you have to have people that really care. About advancing marketplace trust and you can't, you can't fake your purpose and what you enjoy. You know, I, I often do say fake it until you make it, but really it's fake it until you make it or until you get sick of faking it. I like it. You know, because, because you can for a little while fake it, but after that. It's exhausting. It is exhausting to fake it. And so, yeah, that's what we look out for. We look out for to make sure that those people are in the right seat, they're doing the right thing, that they really are enjoying it, that they're connecting what they're good with, what their strengths are, what their purpose is, with our purpose. Yes. And that's, that's the most important thing to me. I mean, I, it just really is. Yeah. Because I can't do every job. But I can make sure that we have the best people. on the best seat, passionate about their job. And doing a good job. I

Leslie: 12:08

love that, yeah. So, I get the importance of the connection for the people that are interacting with your members. Um, you mentioned earlier, the woman closing the books, that, talk about how her role, And the connection to purpose and the importance of that for someone that's not customer facing.

Cathy: 12:30

Yes. Very good point. So we happen to have, um, our business manager is just, she has a servant's heart. So she understands whatever she is doing. She is servicing those people who are helping be the face of, or the voice of. our Better Business Bureau to the consumers or to the businesses. And so her purpose is to serve, to be a cheerleader, um, to be that person that when somebody's down she's, she'll say, I heard you on that call, you sounded fantastic. You know, we have an overhears the people that are having those conversations with our consumers. And, um, yeah, so we're just very encouraging. Making sure that everyone if you're behind the scenes that you know that you have an important role to to be a cheerleader and that your role is just important. So I just described, um, kind of our bus to our new people today when we started and I said, so if we think of our bus as as a school bus and we have, I'm, I'm the driver of the bus for right now for this. For this season of my life, I'm the driver of the bus. And I look at our tires as kind of the revenue. And so the tires could be flat. They could be, um, they might have a lot of, um, they might be worn. They might not move very well. Okay. So the tires are our revenue. So we want to have good, strong, filled tires. Uh huh. You know, ready to go out there and make those calls. And the core services team or the administration team, the teams that are kind of behind the scenes helping make everything happen, they're the frame of the bus. And, they have to be strong and they have to, want to create a good exterior and a good interior. We want to have comfy, comfy seats. We want to have a nice shiny yellow bus. We don't want to have holes and rust. And so they have all this work to do. And then our relevance is our engine, and our relevance is based on our content, our brand, and our relationships. And that's our communications team. And they kind of get the engine running because of all of those things that they're doing behind the scenes, but it takes us all. We have to have an engine that's running well. We have to have a school bus that looks good and is good. That is our framework and our foundation. And then we have to have the wheels of our revenue team running. Who are able to go as fast as they can getting accredited businesses and keeping accredited businesses and servicing them and advancing marketplace trust because more and more businesses can be trusted. And so I think that the purpose is we can't do it alone and we have to see ourselves as part of something bigger. Exactly.

Leslie: 15:20

And the image of the bus is very vivid, and I'm imagining your customers, your accredited businesses climbing onto that bus and you driving them along to their success and, you know, being a part of that.

Cathy: 15:37

Yes, and we only can do it, we're a non profit, so a lot of people think because we have Bureau in our name. that we're a government agency and we're not. The Better Business Bureau is a membership association, organization, and we can only do the good work that we can do because we have accredited businesses who do uphold our standards of trust and commit to continue to uphold our standards of trust. And so they're paying a membership fee to us, um, and they're agreeing to uphold those standards. So, not only are they helping us, not only are we trying to help them, But they're also helping us because the money that they're giving us, we're able to do all the things that we can do to make sure that consumers know who to trust. So it's definitely a joint mission with both, us doing the work inside, but them, our accredited businesses, being trusted businesses. That consumers, listen, every business makes mistakes. Every business is owned by an owner who has a passion for it, and they have some good employees and some not so good employees. Some good employees can have bad days. So, there's always problems that happen in businesses. We're not asking a business to be perfect, but we're asking a business to be trustworthy. And to be responsive and to show integrity. Yeah.

Leslie: 16:59

Yeah. Well, and trust is such an important concept in business. to sustain a business long term.

Cathy: 17:09

Trust is important everywhere. Yeah. Because don't you most often start with trust in any, you know, when you're building a new relationship, you're Learning can I trust that person and what ends a relationship quicker than anything else is if you break that trust, right? And so Yeah, the start with trust is is just so important It's kind of amazing to me that people who believe so much in trust, you know aren't accredited businesses and it's just because we haven't gotten our We haven't, we haven't really gotten our message out there about who we really are and why trust is so important. They know it's important because they're using it on their website. But they could also have a third party person, you know, validate that.

Leslie: 17:55

Absolutely. Yes. So, going back to purpose, it's, it sounds like it's ingrained in the business. Because of that, is it something that you have to work on for the business and work on meaning keeping it alive? Or does it, is it just so ingrained that That there's not attention or focus added to it.

Cathy: 18:26

That's a really good question and that's one of the reasons why I have started having an hour and a half meeting with everyone who comes on board and to just really make sure that they understand what our purpose is. And how they contribute to that and why we meet with staff three times a year and kind of go over all of those things. But I think that we have a pretty experienced staff. Probably half of our team has been with us for eight, nine, ten years. And then the other half have been there less. But I think that you quickly begin to understand what our purpose is, because it, it's pretty ingrained in everything that we do. Yeah.

Leslie: 19:12

So when it's ingrained in everything that you do, other than when new people come on board, it's not like you need to, have a quarterly newsletter about company purpose or do extra things because it's just a part of every day. That's exactly right. I mean,

Cathy: 19:31

I. I think that in every, in every communication that we have with our team, it's falling back to that, what's our, you know, this is a, we're tying it back to a purpose. We're doing this because trust matters to consumers. We're doing this because trust matters to our businesses. We're doing this because our accredited businesses, are the reason that we can do this work because they're giving us the money. And so our purpose is to serve them. And so, I think it would be interesting to know whether it's because we are a nonprofit and we have a mission that it's so ingrained. Um, because nonprofits have to have a mission and they have to defend that mission and make sure that they're spending their money on that mission. I think sometimes maybe for for profit companies, it can be a little harder to know what your mission is and to be maybe blown by the wind of, you know, something better might come along, but maybe because Better Business Bureau has been around for 116 years and it's been around in our area for 112 years. It's just so ingrained in us. I don't know. That's a really good question and thinking about our accredited businesses I do think that there are a lot of accredited businesses who are for profit Who maybe are relatively new who do not know their purpose. Okay, and I was

Leslie: 20:55

curious what you see across Businesses. Yeah. So what do you see?

Cathy: 21:00

Yeah, I think that a lot of times what we see is our newer businesses Are in it to make money Because they think they can do it better than the boss they used to work for. Okay That's a pretty common theme about why businesses start, right? I've been an accountant all my life. I can have my own accounting firm. Okay. Okay. You know, I've cleaned houses now for 10 years and I haven't gotten a raise in the last 3 or 4 so I'm going to go out and I'm going to start my own cleaning business. And so I think that sometimes You know, new businesses start with a, just an ideology that says, I'm going to be able to make more money. Okay. You know, um, and they don't really start from the why. Why do I want to have this business? What's going to be different? You know, what's my purpose, right? What's my goal? How do I, you know, What do I want my personal and professional opinion? They don't stop long enough. Yeah, they probably in many cases I think they just say I'm done working for someone else I can make more money if I do this on my own

Leslie: 22:18

so you were saying a lot of times what happens is people have been doing a job for someone else and they decide to go out on their own. And that's, and that comes across as I can make more money doing it myself. And I'm wondering though if if they're doing that job whether it's for themselves or for someone else because it's aligned with their purpose. And in going out on their own, it's still purposeful for them, but now it's got this added layer of generating more income.

Cathy: 22:55

Yeah, for sure. I hope that that's what most of them do. I think that if they are really good at something, they love what they're doing, that it brings them joy, they can see a greater purpose in their life because of that, then certainly they can be either an employee or they can be the employer. I think what often times doesn't happen is the conscious thought of this is my purpose and I can fulfill it whether I am here serving as an employee or whether I'm an employer. Also, I think becoming the employer and starting your own business and then having employees under you is a completely different thing than being An employee who is serving. Exactly. Now you can still be a person who serves and encourages people, but you have to understand what gave you that purpose in being the employee was the service and then figure out how to be the employer. That is still doing the serving, right? Because those jobs are very different, sometimes we just don't take time to think about, what's your personal and professional purpose? We don't think about it very often. And certainly when we're making a big life change, we should. We should sit down and think about what our purpose is and start with our why and understand what we want to do and make sure that it's, Truly something that's going to fulfill us and I think only living out your life on purpose will fulfill you.

Leslie: 24:37

Agree, absolutely. I do too. So, so you're seeing across businesses, people are hopping over and starting a business without intention or conscious of purpose in doing that. Why should they? Why should they lead with purpose or be conscious of it? What benefits are there for business?

Cathy: 25:03

So to understand your purpose is the beginning of understanding your why, right? And once you understand your purpose and your why, Then you can make a plan to begin with the end in mind. So then you say, you know, my, my long term purpose in life is, my long term purpose in life professionally is to mentor as many people as to be, fantastic humans in the workplace, fantastic leaders in the workplace, once I'm not a leader in the workplace. So, I'm always thinking about that when I'm doing my work.

Leslie: 25:45

Yeah. Yeah. So, is it fair to say that if we start with purpose, and bring purpose into our business consciously, that the outcome of that will be personal fulfillment. For sure. For

Cathy: 26:06

sure. I mean, you know, I think that one pitfall is Really taking the time to understand what your purpose is. Really figuring out, I guess I've said this before, but like really just sitting with it for a while to figure out what is my purpose? Who am I? What am I good at? What are my strengths? And being able to be self aware enough to understand yourself to be able to say, that's not my strength, but this is my strength. Even if that's not what you want it to be. Um, I think in my early years I struggled a lot with, um, I was a strong personality. I had opinions. And I had to really spend time, like, really understanding I can use that for good or I can use it for evil. And really understanding who I was and how to be as healthy as I could be so that I could use the strengths that I had. way. And I just, I think that it just takes a little bit of self reflection and sometimes we don't slow down enough to do that. Yeah. So I think, I think advice I would give anyone who's willing, who, who's trying to figure out what their purpose is, is just a lot of contemplation and a lot of soul searching about who they are. I, I am a huge proponent of all things personality type to understand yourself more. Um, Enneagram, um, Gallop Strength Finders, DISC, all those things, you know, remind me how I was made, and what my strengths are, and remind me to use those positively, and then to connect that, and to allow those things to be part of my purpose. Right. To, to, um, not to fight who I am. But to believe in who I am and to use who I am to inform my purpose consciously. I'm just an old lady who's kind of still trying to figure it out, but yeah.

Leslie: 28:30

Well, I love that you shared that because season one was all about people with clarity in their purpose and they're actively pursuing it. And. One of the conclusions that I drew from those conversations is exactly what you're talking about. It is about, in order to discover our life's purpose and to live a life of purpose, we have to have self understanding. We have to look in the mirror and we have to accept what we see. And as you were talking about that, I found myself wondering, is that same prerequisite needed for business?

Cathy: 29:20

For business leaders?

Leslie: 29:22

For a business to exist, do you do the same thing on the business of looking at the mirror it's more of a collective view in the mirror.

Cathy: 29:32

It sure is, and I, I really, I believe yes. In order for an organization to be healthy. In order for it to treat its employees right, in order to, you know, treat the world that it's serving right, it has to have a leadership team that looks in the mirror and says, are we the right people to lead the purpose of this organization? And do we even understand what the purpose of the organization is? Think another way for me to think about it is, I think that before I personally was mature enough or thoughtful enough to kind of really understand who I am, I wouldn't want to be leading a business. Because I would have maybe done more bad than I would have, than I, and I don't feel that I'm not saying that I'm perfect, but I do feel that I understand enough about myself now to help the organization also understand about itself and make sure that the leaders of it are all kind of moving in the same direction, which is what creates the purpose of the business. Right. But I don't think that you can do that if you don't have Self aware business owners or leaders, right? So Yes, I think a business has to understand its purpose, but it also has to come from its leaders

Leslie: 31:04

Exactly, and the leaders need to have that self awareness

Cathy: 31:10

I had a fantastic mentor. So I worked for the same gentleman for. 25 years in a couple of different roles. So I worked from him from the time I was 25 until I was 50. And so I feel like it's been so ingrained in me that I can't imagine. what my life would look like or what my professional life would look like if I didn't have that. And there was a period of time in my life when I had a situation where I didn't feel like the purpose was aligned to the leader that I was working for. And I couldn't do it. And, um, so I think that, As a business, you can probably have employees if you're not a leader who will look at yourself authentically and look at the purpose of the business authentically. But I think that like brings like. Yeah, and those who are more self aware and drawn to the purpose and drawn to Helping each other find their purpose and encouraging each other to live on purpose Rather than holding on tightly to something that maybe isn't You just you attract what you what you are, right? and so I'm not saying that businesses can't succeed that way because there are businesses out there who exceed that way, but I know what I don't like, and what I don't like, when it doesn't work, I'm willing to say it's purpose, the business purpose. And the leader's purpose at the business and their ability to share that purpose and inspire me matters more to me than a paycheck. Love that. You know? Yeah. And so I don't, I don't want to do that. And I, now I have a fiduciary responsibility to be a person who is careful with the people that are working for me and make sure that they understand that while our purpose, the business purpose is important, I'm That if they're not in alignment with it and something or something better comes along for them, their personal purpose is more important than my business purpose. Um, and I, I, I just think that who would want to work in a business that didn't have a clear communicated purpose. Yeah.

Leslie: 33:52

Yeah, but I feel like so many people do stay stuck in jobs that they're not happy in with leaders that aren't leading from purpose, but maybe fear or, or this kind of sense of responsibility, it really is each of our responsibility to, to live the life that we want to live.

Cathy: 34:18

It really is. And you know what? I'm not afraid to push someone if we have four values at Better Business Bureau and then we have about 18 values infused behaviors. And so our evaluations are based on values infused behaviors. And if those are the values of our organization in order to hit our business purpose, then we know there's certain behaviors and, um, and they're well defined.

Leslie: 34:48

Give us an example. Um,

Cathy: 34:50

so professionalism, um, team, interpersonal team, uh, motivation, dependability, some of those things. And so they're more soft skills. But they tell a lot about the person and, you know, a lot of times you're judged on quality of work or quantity of work. Well, you can find someone to do quality work and you can find someone to do quantity of work. But we look more at the values infused behaviors. To understand, um, you know, how's your communication? Do you treat people respectfully? Are you defensive in tone? Um, you know, how's your punctuality? Are you where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there? Can your team count on you? And so, we look at those and, and we're just not afraid to address them. Yeah. You know, where I think, I think people are used to being addressed. People are used to saying, I'm doing, I'm there and I'm doing my work. Well, that doesn't help the business purpose any, and a person who comes in inspired by their purpose to do the business purpose and has the behaviors that are, that our, our values ask them to have, then they're a completely aligned person. Right. we call out behavior. And I think oftentimes. That's difficult for people to do. Uh huh. They're just, we've got to butt in a seat and let's move on. And it takes too much work to hire someone and to train someone, so why do we want someone different? Well, we're not doing them a favor by having them on our team and not really letting them succeed. That's not their purpose in life, right? And it's not our purpose in business to have people working for us that are not really aligned with you know What we need to fulfill our purpose. Yeah, so I'm always looking for I'm always looking for the a person who has Purpose that I can see is going to fit in with us and then figure out how to get them to the best and highest Use for us. Yeah, because I want them to be fulfilled and to you know, live their life on purpose

Leslie: 37:09

And as you're, as you're talking, I have an image in my head of a scale and you as a leader sound very much like you're balancing the purpose, the mission of the business and the purpose of the individuals in the business.

Cathy: 37:29

For sure. You know, a funny story. I became the CEO of Better Business Bureau in December of 2021. And in January of 2022, we edited our employee handbook, just, it hadn't been updated in a while. And I wanted to put a letter from the CEO in there. And so I wrote a letter about what was important to me in this season of time when I was leading the Better Business Bureau. And the very closing paragraph was this. So controversial. It, it cracks me up that it was controversial. But I said, if you ever find that you, that working here is not something that's bringing you joy, and that you just don't want to be here anymore, I beg of you to go find where you should be. And honestly, that some of the people that have been around for a while took it not the way I meant it. I did not mean go find another job. I sincerely meant, I want the best for you. I want you to live your life. You only have one life. I only have one life. And I want to make sure that I'm able to live the best life that I can. Um, I want to live my life on purpose. And my purpose is making sure that people, you know, are connected to as many things as they need. To make sure that they find out how to live on purpose. And so I don't want them to feel like, they have to stay in a job because I've been there for 20 years and nobody else knows how to do my job. Trust me, I can find somebody else to do your job and they will be trained. They'll do the job differently than you will. It'll take them longer to learn what you knew. But if you have something that is, like, important to you, that you want to do in life, Do it. Don't stay there just because. And it was, I found out after I wrote it that, you know, it kind of, not, I don't want to say offended people, but made them feel like because they hadn't experienced other things, maybe I was asking them to go on. That's not what I was doing. I was saying don't let the fact that you've always been here or that you're here now keep you here if you have a greater purpose. Right.

Leslie: 39:57

Yeah, I love that. I love it. And it sounds like you, it sounds like you got feedback on that and also dealt with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cathy: 40:08

I mean, it was, it was just, I, this, the paragraph is still in there. And so when I do my orientation with new employees, I talk about, you know, I talk about, like, you're here for this time, and that's fine. We had a gentleman who, um, just a couple of years ago, uh, he told us in a meeting that he really wanted to go to law school. And I, he had been with us for a couple of years, and I said to him, why don't you? And he said, um, I don't know. And I said, well, have you researched it? Yeah, it's a lot of money. Have you thought about this? Long story short, I wrote a recommendation letter, and he went to law school. He was a fantastic employee. Really good employee, but you know, I was so excited that I got to connect him to what he really wanted to do in life So if you know if my team if anyone on my team says I really want to do this, I'd help them figure it out You know, yeah, you're a connector. Yes. I'm a connector and I want people to really

Leslie: 41:12

Make the most of their life. That is coming through loud and clear. Good. So I imagine there are people listening and let's take a person who might be listening that is a leader that maybe uh, is struggling with connecting their team to purpose. Any advice for that type of leader?

Cathy: 41:38

I think it sounds to me that if the leader is having trouble connecting their person Their people to that, to the, to the business purpose. Maybe they haven't defined their purpose or the business's purpose. Okay. So, I mean, I have, I have some Bibles of the business world and I mean you've heard me, you've heard me say start with Y many times, um, and I mean I would encourage them to read, start with Y. I would encourage them to read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And figure out, do they know their purpose? Do they know their business's purpose? And then how can they start to do that? Because I think once you know your purpose, I don't think it's hard to share it. Yeah. Once you know your business's purpose, I don't know that it's hard to share. I would think another resource too would be, um, have you ever read the book StoryBrand by Donald Miller?

Leslie: 42:39

No,

Cathy: 42:39

I haven't. So, Donald Miller was a, a writer years ago and he's kind of transitioned into being a business person now. Um, but StoryBrand is about how to write a story of your business where Your consumers, the people that you're serving are the heroes, but you're their guide. And so it's, it's kind of a, it's based on a typical movie plot, a typical story plot. Um, but using that to help tell the story of why you're in business, um, and connect it to your consumers. So there's some really good exercises in that book, too. So, Story Brand by Donald Miller is a fantastic one to align your team with.

Leslie: 43:22

Yeah.

Cathy: 43:23

After you're certain that you know your personal purpose.

Leslie: 43:27

Well, and the personal purpose, what I was thinking of there is, You have to role model, you have to be the role model for the connection to purpose, the business purpose. Right.

Cathy: 43:41

Yep. I just recently took a survey. Um, it was about, uh, businesses, there are blind spots in businesses. And one of the, one of the questions was, do all of your team members see themselves connected to the purpose of your business through their job description? And I thought that was really important, really, a really good thing to think about too, because job descriptions can be very black and white. But trying to figure out how to get your job description to also, like you had just asked me about our business manager, how does she connect to the purpose? And you know, helping her see that her servanthood, the ability, you know, the behind the scenes work that she's doing. And the cheerleading that she does connects her to the purpose of the whole organization because she's a part of the whole and she's supporting and serving the whole. So I thought that was also a really good point that I need to go in and look at those job descriptions and figure out how can I make sure that people, I think they do see themselves, but it's not on their job description. And I think that would be a good thing to do also. Love that.

Leslie: 44:55

Yeah. Yes. Anything left unsaid on the topic of purpose in the workplace? No,

Cathy: 45:02

I, I, I appreciate you having me on board and I can't wait to listen to what other people have because I've been fortunate to have a lot of jobs where purpose was very clear and, and therefore to get it ingrained in me. So, um, I'm interested to hear how other people have grown to, bring purpose into their business also.

Leslie: 45:22

I will be sure to share. All right. Absolutely. Thank you, Cathy, for being on Purpose Project. I am taking away. a lot from our conversation and I appreciate you sharing. Well, thank you. Thank you for having

Cathy: 45:34

me. It was a pleasure.

Leslie: 45:36

As I reflect on this conversation, I can't help, but think about the deep connection between purpose and leadership. When we take the time to truly understand our business, its impact and its reason for existing. And we couple that with a deep understanding of who we are, our strengths, our weaknesses, and our purpose. And then we live that out each and every day at work and outside of work. Isn't that what leadership is all about? Cathy's insights remind us that purpose isn't just a concept. It's a practice. It's, it's a practice in leadership. It's a practice that requires self awareness, alignment, and intention. Thank you, Cathy, for being on Purpose Project and thanks to all of you for tuning in. Until next time, keep asking, how well do you know the purpose of your work? And are you living it out each and every day? Purpose Project is brought to you for education and for entertainment purposes. This podcast is not intended to replace the advice that you would receive from a licensed therapist or doctor or any other qualified professional.