Ranjay Gulati > Quotes

“BlackRock CEO Larry Fink argued that “purpose is not the sole pursuit of profits but the animating force for achieving them. Profits are in no way inconsistent with purpose—in fact, profits and purpose are inextricably linked.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“If you care about people, you elevate their own self-worth, you coach up their strengths and that makes them more powerful than they already are.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“the organizational purpose will only feel compelling to you “if you feel that it’s connected to you. Otherwise, it feels like you’re doing it for somebody else.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“To earn trust you have to give trust,” cofounder and co-CEO Dave Gilboa says. “Trust is a two-way street.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“In the end, embedding purpose through a more personalized culture means changing how you perceive employees. You must truly empathize with them, seeing them not as a means to an end but as people seeking self-actualization and transcendence.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“If you begin conceptualizing organizational reforms from a place of deep purpose, your reforms will run deep. Fidelity”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“the best way to activate deep purpose is to increase the care you show to individual employees.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“Purpose creates a unifying vision for all of a company’s stakeholders, including its employees, customers, partners, and shareholders. It drives ethical behavior and creates an essential check on actions that go against the best interests of stakeholders. Finally, it’s a powerful driver of culture, providing a framework for consistent decision-making throughout an organization, which ultimately helps sustain long-term financial returns for the company’s shareholders.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“Purpose transforms the entire basis for cooperation inside the workplace, turning the enterprise from a nexus of contracts between self-interested individuals into a nexus of commitments.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“put profits before safety, did not think through the consequences of their actions, or did not speak out loudly enough when they knew something was wrong.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“the culture that allows you to pursue your sense of purpose.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“Autonomy linked to and enabled by the purpose injected palpable energy into Mahindra and enhanced its performance.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“In staking out moral ground, your purpose statement should express an implicit or explicit critique of the world, even at the risk of polarizing members of the public. Leaders sometimes become uneasy at mention of morality, but we should remember that morality and markets have never been as diametrically opposed as they might seem.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“other words, they must build bridges across the chasms separating different functions, business units, or teams internally, and they must motivate people to walk across those bridges.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“Leaders sought to gather ten thousand employee stories, and they offered employees two extra vacation days if the company reached that goal. The response was overwhelming. KPMG logged forty-two thousand employee stories, including many that flowed in after leaders had announced that the initiative had succeeded and everyone would receive their extra time off.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“Some deep purpose companies measure purpose indirectly by monitoring what we might call the forerunners of purpose: they track antecedents, actions, or conditions that induce or enable purpose. Alternatively, they measure perceptions of those antecedents. At Mahindra, for instance, leaders collect survey data from employees, asking them to respond to items such as “Sufficient efforts have been made in the organization/sector to bring about awareness and understanding regarding Rise.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“A group of Spanish academics has unveiled a methodology for measuring purpose directly that tracks three constituent factors: the extent to which employees understand, identify with, and contribute to the purpose.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“Directional: Deep purpose serves as a “North Star” and helps you channel innovation. Relational: Deep purpose helps you sustain credibility and trust with ecosystem partners and establish long-term relationships. Reputational: Deep purpose helps you build affinity, loyalty, and trust with customers. Motivational: Deep purpose elevates work, allowing you to motivate and inspire employees.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

“First, they give lower-level employees and managers more autonomy, flattening their hierarchies. Second, they nurture collaboration across functions, business units, geographies, and other traditional silos. These organizational moves fuel trust in the workforce and commitment to the purpose. At the same time, purpose itself enables trust to flourish, facilitating the departure from traditional bureaucratic structures.”
― Ranjay Gulati, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies