It's one of the six components of Shared Progress and a model for leaders. It allows people to be tight and connected to a strategy even during high uncertainty. It gives them direction and energizes effort.

It’s a communication, structure, and behavior approach that helps leaders effectively guide individuals toward a shared objective, particularly during disruption or accelerated change. It is based on research on the neuroscience of change and the impact of language on the brain.

The Mobilizing Purpose method can be used at any level of an organization and any stage of evolution and enables leaders to understand and use more effective communication techniques to establish healthy conditions that facilitate change and promote wellness in individuals.

This is achieved by using specific language structures and behavior that encourage healthier and more productive environments in the face of disruption or accelerated change. It's part of our Certified Enterprise Agility Leadership Program.

As you can see, facing exponential change, organizations need to rapidly mobilize their workforce's full potential. Yet top-down demands often backfire, breeding anxiety rather than alignment.

A Mobilizing Purpose offers a more empowering model by uniting people around inspirational shared mission. This ignites self-directed contribution even amidst disruption.

What separates a Mobilizing Purpose is its motivational charge. Compliance gives way to committed action through 4 key pillars:

• Supporting Frame: Leadership employs deliberate language, metaphors and values-based narratives. These clarify objectives and make the "why" behind priorities transparent even when specifics remain fluid. Research shows linguistic cues deeply influence motivation and mindsets.
  
• Emotions & Images: Descriptive storytelling transports listeners into a vivid vision of desired outcomes. This emotional pull often matters more than hard facts for sparking imaginations and connecting hearts. Studies confirm narrative transportation breeds buy-in.
  
• Impact: All communications incorporate a careful analysis of the influence on critical stakeholders – employees, customers, communities and so on. This breeds empathy and avoidance of unintended consequences. Consideration of impacts also reinforces the "why" behind objectives.
  
• Challenge: Goals balance stretch, optimism and support to achieve "eustress" — the positive stress that energizes peak performance. This dance between challenge and capacity boosts engagement and protects against distress.

With these 4 pillars, leaders can architect and evolve an inspirational path forward even amidst white water rapids of change. Compliance gives way to commitment. Controls become catalysts through a Mobilizing Purpose that transforms not just organizations but lives.

A Mobilizing purpose is also connected to a Minimum Healthy Step (MHS).

Purpose vs. Mobilizing Purpose

Most organizations have a purpose—yet that often remains an intellectual statement gathering dust in the hallways rather than igniting hearts. Defining "why we exist" is simple enough; turning purpose into fuel that mobilizes dedication despite disruption is far more elusive.

That distinction matters greatly amidst the turbulence of exponential change. Command and control breeds fatigue faster now. Only liberated responsibility delivers agility - when each person aligns passion behind shared progress.

A Mobilizing Purpose makes that possible by recognizing fundamental human needs for things like autonomy, mastery and meaning. Fixed objectives that ignore those won't sustain engagement over time. Nor will intellectual vision without emotional pull or connection to personal journeys.

Companies that cultivate a Mobilizing Purpose don't coerce change—they co-create it through dialogue that honors experience and diversity. They lead not through formal authority but the informal authority of story, service and empathy. Work becomes identity rather than mere employment.

The difference between companies that exhaust us and those that inspire us is simply this: Mobilizing Purpose builds cultures that run on commitment rather than compliance. That makes all the difference when facing exponential headwinds.

Mobilizing Purpose and TVC

A Mobilizing Purpose also directly ties to balancing value across customer, company and workforce per the TriValue Company (TVC) model. When purpose mobilizes by igniting autonomy, mastery and meaning it breeds engagement. Engagement boosts sensing ability and innovation vital for Customer Value. Inspired workers advance Company Value through expanded capabilities. Workforce Value continuously grows through opportunities for impact, development and expression.

In environments of exponential change, no group can maximize value through narrow pursuit of self-interest. Only shared interest and shared purpose breeds sustainable progress. Mobilizing Purpose makes that reciprocal interdependence an animating force rather than abstract idea. It actualizes the balanced value across all groups envisioned by the TriValue Company model.

For more detailed information about MIHS, check Enterprise Agility Fundamentals, Chapter 5, page 204.