Know Your Why

Imagine a world where people wake up inspired to go to work.  The words of Simon Sinek.  The purposeful, inspirational Simon Sinek.
But imagine that world.  A world where your employees are more often than not really looking forward to the business day, they are looking forward to interacting with their colleagues and leader, and they are also really excited about interacting with clients.  Can you imagine it?  Would it be amazing? Really, amazing?

Seriously, I am of the ilk that it would be seriously amazing, even as I am of the ilk that we should all seek to make out businesses and workplace one such place – and I am convinced that one of the ways that you can do that is to know your why, live the why, and inspire with the why.
Know your why.  Why are you in business?  What is so distinctive and responsive about your business that it draws clients and potential employees to your door step every single day?  For you know there are some organizations that people just ogle to work with and are the preferred service provider of clients , right?  The why of your business, the reason you exist, the gap in society you started your operations to plug, is the why of your business.  But the thing is, that why needs to be compelling.  It needs to have depth, it needs to be distinctive – and that responsiveness is that gets you followers, be they clients, employees or stakeholders.
There is a quirky, luxury, retailer that I ensure that I visit every time I am in London.  Fortnum and Mason, in St.James’s . I especially visit, only visit, their Food Hall for when I am in that Food Hall I am literally like a child in sweet shop or an adult on vacation on a private island in the Seychelles.  Yes, I am always that excited and satiated.  For what follows is an amazing array of delicious, mouth watering groceries presented in a manner that is aesthetically pleasing.  The Food Hall is packed with gourmet pleasures.  From smoked fish and marmalades to die for, to Cornish clotted cream biscuits to Ceylon tea in ancient looking tea tins.  It’s enthralling!  And, judging by the number of people that shop there (for the Food Hall is always bustling) I am not the only one.  The foodie’s delight, the Fortnum and Mason brand is synonymous with gourmet delights.
And therein lies their why.  They, at least their Food Hall, exist to satisfy the foodie.  The gourmet foodie, specifically.  High quality, delicious, almost exceptional food items to satisfy the insatiable palette.  A contradiction in terms, I know, but that is exactly what they do.
Add to that customer centric staff, and in-store aesthetics and you are inspiring.  Inspiring to shop, inspiring to eat, inspiring to always come back when you think of quirky, delicious gourmet food items.  I need to know my why like they know their why.
And no, they didn’t pay me to write this – they just know their why and for who so well that clients voluntarily rave about them…..now wouldn’t that be a dream for any business?
In the words of Antoine De Saint: if you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders.  Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.  Know your why.  Be the inspiration
Ruka Sanusi is a management and business adviser with over 20 years of international consulting experience in the UK and twenty African countries.  Ruka’s career to date has been built around her abilities to both provide specialist advice on matters of business strategy and business operations, and organizing resources and facilities to implement recommendations.  She has strategic and operational ability.
An MBA (cum laude), Ruka also business coaches women entrepreneurs in the small and growing business sector.  Ruka is the founder of Alldens Lane, a movement which provides female entrepreneurs in the small and growing business sector with business direction, balanced support and thought provoking business performance and growth analytics, from which they can grow and transform their businesses – and their lives.