Mementum

What’s the point of your project? Of your company? Of getting out of bed today?

If your company were to disappear, would anyone notice? Would someone get upset? What is the one thing at the very core that makes what you’re doing worth the blood, sweat, and passion you’re putting into it?

And I don’t think it can be about money. Money doesn’t make most people get up in the morning. Contributing to the greater good, somehow making something better today than it was yesterday; that’s why most people get up.

And I think the more direct that link is the better. You can’t bullshit your employees or customers or partners for very long, using some vague, mumbled connection to improving peoples’ lives or whatever higher purpose you’ve chosen.

People want to do good, and I think people work best when they know how and why and to what extent they’re doing it. As a leader, I think it’s your job to understand the Point, and then rally everyone else around it.

Update: Hugh adds two more kinds of people you might be leading.