Does A Company's Purpose Change Over Time?

A company's purpose should be intersection between its values and the needs of a changing world. For more information about the Purpose Revolution and Dr. Izzo' work, go to drjohnizzo.com/the-purpose-re...
Hi I'm Dr. John Izzo, welcome to Izzo On Purpose, a weekly series of videos dedicated to helping you succeed in discovering and implementing your purpose in your company and in your life. Now today, I'd like to talk about a very interesting question: Does a company's purpose change or evolve over time? Now, there are many people who say that a company's purpose is static and enduring.Once you have a purpose it never changes, but I beg to differ and I'll go even further to say that if your company's purpose doesn't evolve and change you could be in big trouble. Now our values often don't change over time and if you look at many of the most successful companies across multiple generations, you'll find they often have a set of values that have served them very well over time but our purpose is the intersection between our values and what the world needs right now. So our purpose must always change and evolve. Let me give you two great examples- Facebook, I think you'll agree with me, is one of the most successful companies of our generation and for many years they had a very simple mission or a simple purpose, to create a more open and connected world and I think you'll agree with me, they were pretty successful at that. And in large part because of Facebook and a few others, you and I are connected right now at the touch of our fingers with hundreds if not thousands of people all over the world. But that's why it's so interesting that recently Mark Zuckerberg announced that they were changing their mission
statement, their purpose, their very reason to exist. And the reason they change this because Zuckerberg said, you know it's great that we've created a more open and connected world, but the world's got all kinds of real problems that we need to solve, global problems that are going to require us to come together in communities of purpose to solve those problems and talk about our differences. So the new purpose, the new mission of Facebook is to give people the power to build community and to come together to bring the world closer together to solve these problems and I think what I love about that is it's a recognition that as good as purpose was, it's not enough. The world has changed around them and is now demanding new things and a new purpose to excite Facebook and their customers and their employees. Now Walmart is another great example. Walmart, love 'em or hate 'em, had a very simple purpose for most of their existence: to save people money so that they could live better lives. It's really that simple, they believed that if they brought low cost to communities and people who didn't have low cost, that people would
be able to have more of the things they needed to have and the necessities of life to have a good life and again whether you love the company or don't like them, I've been in rural places and far-flung places all over the world who say look, Walmart changed our lives and brought low prices to us. But here's the thing, the world has changed since Walmart began. People care about a lot
more now than low prices. A full 40 percent of customers in the world care pretty deeply about whether the companies and products they buy from are sustainable and good for society and good for planet and that's why a number of years ago now quietly Walmart began an intense effort to create one of the
most sustainable companies in the world.