(Originally published in 2018)

This is triggered by a question Sairee Chahal, Founder of Sheroes, asked on Twitter. “How do you measure meaning in a startup?” This is just an attempt, based on my experience, fully acknowledging this may not be a flawless answer. I changed the word ‘startup’ to ‘organisation’ since my experience was leading a business unit that was part of a larger organisation.

If you are an organisation with a defined cause, let us say, ‘improving the incomes and lives of 1 million farmers or weavers’ or addressing a genuine market need, say, affordable housing or quality healthcare in tier-2 towns, the cause itself perhaps is motivating and in a sense defines the meaning. And the outputs delivered can be one measure. Not everyone is fortunate to be working in organisations that has such defined and motivating causes. What if the organisation is selling a sugary water that everyone recognises is harmful for health and its very reason for existence is always a doubt in the back of our minds? Or similar businesses? And outputs measured by market share?

From our experience, irrespective of whether we are in the former or latter, we found some way of finding meaning and some way to measure. To start with, we didn’t have the agenda of measurement. Measurement was by hindsight, when we noticed something good was happening. We essentially operated with some principles. To be honest, even these principles were articulated after sometime into the journey. It was like a documentation of what we did.

These are some of the principles we operated with:

1. See the organisation as a context for people development. Which means recognising and making people conscious that this is not just a professional journey, but making them see this as a personal journey as well. A personal journey will encompass a conscious effort in self-awareness and understanding, which in turn improves interpersonal relationships and ability to collaborate. People come with different skill sets and creative abilities. Without getting into any philosophical discussions, the purpose of everyone’s life is to have a decent quality of life and healthy relationships. The organisation simply gives a context to express their creative abilities, build relationships and find fulfillment. Broadly, organisation has the capability and responsibility to facilitate a journey to a better human being, irrespective of what business you are in.

2. Understand that there is not one world that exists, but 7.1 billion worlds. The view and interpretation of the world is in our heads. Therefore, it is important to have an ability to step out of our worldview and try to see it from someone else’s also.

3. Try continuously to broadly align the individual aspirations and goals with the larger organisation’s aspirations.

4. Apply the phrase ‘We don’t manage people, we just include people,’ which we heard much later, but in a sense, we were essentially doing this. A sense of psychological security is what people should feel within the organisation.

And some of the measurement we noticed:

1. During a period of 7 or 8 years, we had one of the lowest people attrition rates, even as the team grew from 20 to over 200.

2. Existing team members constantly recommended this unit as the place to work to others.

3. People from the larger organisation often expressed their interest to move into this team.

4. Acknowledgement from the larger organisation as this business unit as a reference point.

5. Quality of work consistently recognised by clients and in the industry with awards.

6. And of course, revenues.

Purpose, vision and mission have been often used in the context of the organisation. Beyond the rhetoric, I think it is the possibility of genuine human connections that defines the meaning of the organisation.

(This is from my experience of close to 11 years at GroupM/WPP. With due acknowledgements to my colleague and friend Vishal Jacob, who was an integral part of this journey)