The Economics of Higher Purpose

Two distinguished scholars offer eight steps to help organizations discover and embrace an authentic higher purpose-something that will dramatically improve every aspect of any enterprise, including the bottom line.

Managers are taught that employees are self-interested and work resistant, so they create systems of control to combat these expectations. The result? These gloomy assumptions become self-fulfilling prophecies, workforces tend to underperform and resist control, and managers undermine their own effectiveness in a vicious cycle.

But when an authentic higher purpose permeates business strategy and decision-making, the cycle is broken. Employers and employees fully engage, become proactive contributors to purpose, and exceed expectations. Long-term economic benefits follow.

Robert E. Quinn and Anjan J. Thakor offer a new logic that builds on the assumptions of economics and opens a new path to clearly identifying an organization's higher purpose and integrating it with the organization's strategy. They offer a practical and counterintuitive eight-step approach to articulating higher purpose and show how to weave it into the fabric of the organization.