I recall a story of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). With this Blog, it doesn’t really matter whether it is true or not. It makes a great point about ‘purpose.’

JFK was walking through the construction floor of NASA, where the rocketship and related capsule, etc., were being built. He stopped as he passed a janitor dutifully cleaning the floor. He asked the man what he did for NASA. The janitor replied that, “I am helping put a man on the moon.”

Purpose.

Nothing explains better than this story of how successful businesses succeed when they have a clearly defined purpose that is operationalized at every level of the organization.

When I was a social worker in charge of a new in-home parenting support team of about 25 people. They didn’t have any offices or dedicated phones, landlines back then. It was a 24/7 operation. We could get a call at anytime to meet with a family with the goal to avoid having a child go into care while still keeping the child safe.

We had the usual policies and procedures at the time but the situations families found themselves in were often beyond the simplicity of a procedure. We needed guide rails to help the front-line workers to make decisions.

My simplified policy and procedure statement went something like this. “Keep the child safe. Stay within budget limitations and remain ethical. Please don’t tell me at some point in your work that you didn’t know you could do such and such a thing.”

Although the entire team was rarely together, they all pulled together as one. They enjoyed the freedom to make decisions in real-time. They felt confident they would be supported, even if things didn’t always work out.

When a referral came into the office we could accept or decline the referral. These calls were our lifeblood financially for the program as we were paid on an hourly rate. To avoid workers giving the secretaries a hard time when those late Friday referrals came in and folks were trying to wind-down for the weekend I held a program wide meeting.

“If we empowered the secretaries to accept all referrals unless otherwise notified, then the front line field workers had to be willing to take the referrals and help sort out who they would be assigned to.”

It was unanimous that all referrals should be accepted.

I can’t recall one referral that wasn’t easily assigned with a willingness by the front-line person to depart immediately to the home of the child where the child welfare worker was waiting for us.

Please give this a bit of a think. Think about your own personal ‘purpose.’ What is it? What is the one guiding northern star that lasts your lifetime?

Photo by Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash

I am curious about your thoughts. Please email me with your bit of a think.

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glenn.walmsley@icloud.com