Daniel Pink on capital ‘P’ and small ‘p’ purpose
When he first started writing about building resiliency in an organization, New York Times bestselling author Daniel Pink focused on the idea of purpose as the main factor.
“There’s evidence of that if you can connect what you’re doing to some big transcendent purpose, you do better,” he says. “But I think that the short version of it is that I now think that purpose is not one thing, but it’s two things.”
Working to combat societal ills like climate change can still be a great performance enhancer, but purpose can also be found in smaller, quieter, more personable ways.
“It’s not changing the world. It’s just making a contribution to one other person [at] that moment,” he says. “And we have a lot of good evidence that that’s a great performance enhancer too.”
In this clip, Pink explains the difference between capital “P” and small “p” purpose and how the latter can help CEOs reach the former.
Related Resources
Full presentation from Daniel Pink (Vistage members only)
About the Author: Anne Petrik
As Vice President of Research for Vistage, Anne Petrik is instrumental in the creation of original thought leadership designed to inform the decision-making of CEOs of small and midsize businesses. These perspectives — shared through repo
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