In nearly every business class I have taken we go through the first few steps of making sure we are making the right decisions for our businesses. What is your vision? The vision is the big piece. It’s how you design your map to get there. Every business coach wants you to dream so big that you never get there, but what if it is our purpose that is most important?
I recently listened to a Brene Brown podcast with Linda Hill “Leading With Purpose in the Digital Age” Linda works with technology companies to dream big and solve problems, but in that industry they don’t know what the future looks like because they are building it as they go. So purpose is the most important feature of their plan.
I can’t help but think about the last few years and how none of us really know what the future will look like anymore. That is the biggest feeling in the room. Uncertainty. As we watch inflation impact our goods one by one and small businesses close week after week, we are also seeing uncertainty in our home life. So many of us have taken these past few years to reevaluate where we work, the city we live in, or how we want our family to look like. We are in a place of real consistent change and flexibility has been a strategic tool to keep going.
If we are truly innovating in our business, we don’t know where we are going to end up. Because the only thing you can count on in business is that anything can happen! You must be flexible.
Linda talks about the importance of our purpose over vision in terms of digital innovation. But for me purpose means a whole lot in small business too.
I’ve written about my strategy for creating a more articulated purpose for my business in the past. I spent a lot of time in 2018 and 2019 coming up with Church Alley Cafe’s mission and values. After looking at the values I have written for the business, I realized those were actually my purpose - my guiding light for everything I, Renee Blanchard, do whether it is Church Alley or going back to college to become a Registered Dietitian.
Nourish.
Empower.
Serve.
These three little words are actually my purpose and they have been since I thought I was going to work for the World Bank solving hunger and lack of access to healthcare in 1998. (please roll your eyes with me here). In between then and now I learned a lot about colonialism, racism, and white supremacy - including white saviors (it’s coming from inside the house). This made me double-check to see where my business practices were falling into the trap of these oppressions.
If you are a white person, you absolutely have places within your business that you need to clean up so that you are not acting from a place of racism. Looking back into why I was doing non-profit work and what I was specifically doing environmental work was extremely important in finding a greater purpose moving forward once I hit my 40s.
Spending time building Church Alley Cafe gave me the time and intention to look deep within myself. I know that any small business I build is an extension of myself. That’s just who I am. I create comfortable spaces so that people feel loved and seen and cared for. It took me a long time to realize this. That my business purpose was my own purpose and I needed to get clear on it. It wasn’t a vision, it was a purpose.
I also think this helps us let go of roadmaps that might seem like strategic growth, but are more about ego and identity. Leaning into our purpose helps us make decisions that is right for the business and ourselves. It’s easy to get our identity swept up in our decisions and if that doesn’t go as planned, we can start to make bad decisions.
While I think small business coaching is super helpful, a great reality check, and full of useful technical skills everyone needs, I now see how well meaning coaches put way too much emphasis on the vision. The pie in the sky PLACE you want to see your business be. When, for me, it’s really all about the purpose. This is how you find the flexibility to survive so many unexpected challenges.
Running a small business in a place where infrastructure and climate change impacts means having to constantly be nimble in solving problems. It also means we need to look at how we run brick and mortar shops. i’ve rebuilt my physical business multiple times and if i want to keep a brick and mortar in a location that is only seeing an increase in a changing climate, I need to look at the future of my business differently. Not as a solid vision of what my business looks like but as a living thing that has a purpose in the community.
