Scaling with Purpose Kit: The Challenges of Staying Purposeful at Scale

**SPEAKER_1** (0:03)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:17)
Welcome back to The Bliss Business Podcast series, Scaling with Purpose. This is our 10 to 15 minute podcast series where we explore how to embed purpose into every level of your organization. I'm Stephen Sakach here with Tullio, Siragusa, and Ash Maher. Hey, guys.

**Ash Maher** (0:33)
Hello.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:34)
How's it going?

**Stephen Sakach** (0:35)
Good. Good. So today we're talking about the challenges of staying purposeful at scale. How to keep your mission clear and intact as your organization grows. Because here's the truth, the bigger you get, the easier it is to drift. So how do you stay grounded in what matters the most? Let's get to it.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:56)
Well, thanks, Stephen. One of the paradoxes of success is that growth, while exciting, can dilute the very purpose that fueled it. New hires come in who weren't there at the beginning. New markets might require different messaging. Investors or stakeholders may push for speed and scale over soul. The founding energy starts to fade away, and we see that happen all the time. When things grow, it's like, all right, what was our purpose because everyone's chasing that growth.

**Ash Maher** (1:25)
Exactly. You know what? It's not always because people like stop caring, right? It's just that complex. The complexity increases as you get bigger, and you go from one team to many, and from one location to multiple location or multiple regions, and suddenly you've got different cultures and priorities competing for attention, and if purpose isn't actively maintained, it becomes passive and then eventually it becomes forgotten.

**Stephen Sakach** (1:58)
Yeah, and you can see the signs when it starts happening. So like the decision making gets really transactional. The internal alignment breaks down, brand messaging starts to sound generic. We've seen this all the time. And employees don't feel emotionally connected to the mission anymore. This is when purpose needs to go from being a passion to being more of a system. So we're going to talk about some strategies here. How to actively protect and evolve your purpose as your organization scale. So we've got three big strategies here to go through.

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:33)
Well, Stephen, you said one of them, which is super important, has to be built into your system. So, you know, but when you build into your system, not in the way that makes it feel like it's bureaucratic, okay? Codify your purpose into leadership, development, onboarding, decision making tools, even performance reviews. Give people a framework for living it, but not a script that they have to follow.

**Ash Maher** (2:57)
Okay. Give people a framework for living it, not a script. I love that, you know? When purpose becomes part of the operating system, not just the cultural deck, it scales more naturally. But you also have to leave space for people to express it in their own way. So, it's especially more important in diverse teams across locations and cultures.

**Stephen Sakach** (3:25)
Yeah. So, strategy two here, we've talked about this a little bit, you want to hire and promote for purpose alignment. As you grow, your strategy needs to evolve. Start by hiring people who genuinely resonate with your purpose. And then, just as importantly, promote leaders who model that alignment in their behavior. So, skills get things done, but values shape how things are done.

**Tullio Siragusa** (3:49)
Exactly. And if your purpose is to empower small business owners, but your leadership team is only focused on scaling enterprise accounts, like that's an example where there's a misalignment that can create cultural confusion, even a misalignment entirely.

**Ash Maher** (4:04)
And that's when things go off track, because people take cues from what's rewarded. If performance is valued over purpose, then purpose will fade. You know, I always say compensation drives a lot of behavior, or what we measure drives behavior. So if purpose is just part of something that's kind of there, but it's not part of the leadership DNA, it can get lost. Now, if it's part of the leadership DNA, then it multiplies and it has staying power.

**Tullio Siragusa** (4:37)
Well, you know, it's funny you say that too. I've seen where if you're not following purpose correctly, and you're using it just as a, hey, this is our purpose, but we're really holding you accountable to performance. I've seen resentment where that conversation about coming back to the purpose sounds like lip service. And actually, you know, I want to, I don't use the word that the P word pisses people off. It ticks people off, right? Because they're like, okay, I don't want to hear this because all you really do care about is performance, because that's what I'm being judged by. And that's what we're going to balance.