Expert Interview: Mahan Tavakoli
In this Expert Interview, AdvancingWellness CEO Mari Ryan is joined by corporate consultant Mahan Tavaloki to explore the topic of purpose at work.
Mari Ryan: Welcome to the Workplace Wellbeing Essentials Series. I'm Mari Ryan. I'm the CEO and founder of Advancing Wellness. It is my pleasure to welcome you today to this expert interview where we explore topics that impact employee wellbeing. My guest today is Mahan Tavakoli.
Mahan is a leadership coach, he is an author and a podcast host. He has spent much of his career with the Dale Carnegie training organization where he started in sales, moved on to training and eventually managed the operation in the greater Washington, D.C. region. While at Dale Carnegie, he served as chief strategist and he led an aggressive international expansion to over 90 countries in the world. Today, Mahan consults with organizations of all sizes to help them align the entire organization towards achieving their purpose. Mahan is a co-author of the newly released book Winning the Talent War for the 2020s, and I'm also a co-author on this book, so I'm delighted to have you here as my co-author. Welcome Mahan.
Mahan Tavakoli: Thank you, Mari. I am delighted to be with you. In addition to being a co-author of a great book, which is critical right now for organizations because winning the war for talent will be essential in the coming decade.
Mari Ryan: Oh, absolutely. Yes. Our timing couldn't have been better. So let's talk today about purpose. Why do organizations exist? Is it to make profits? Is profit the only purpose for which organizations exist and is that their real reason for being? You may remember back in 2019 BlackRock investment CEO Larry Fink in his annual letter, called on companies to look beyond the short term view and the profit view and to take a longer term view of value creation by having a reason to be or a purpose. Today, what we're going to talk about is we're going to explore this topic of purpose and the reasons an organization’s purpose is so important. Mahan, I'm curious from your perspective, when you're working with organizations, when you are describing this, what does it mean to be a purpose-driven organization?
Mahan Tavakoli: Mari, purpose has been in the conversation for the past half a dozen years, especially whether it's the business roundtable, they also talk about the fact that we need to move beyond just shareholder returns or there is a strong, conscious capitalism movement, talking about caring about different stakeholders. So, purpose has become really important to organizations.
Now, one of the things I talk about is the fact that most, if not all organizations have purpose statements and talk about purpose. Aligning with purpose is totally different than just saying purpose is important.
Mari Ryan: When you say alignment, tell us that difference. How is … you see it, on the wall, you see it in their taglines or wherever. But how is it really different than saying that this is what our purpose is and truly living that or embodying that as a value within the organization?
Mahan Tavakoli: An overarching purpose for the organization is something that you can run into any of the team members and they are not necessarily able to recite it verbatim, but they live it through their daily existence. I had the pleasure of traveling to Denver and at a car rental, the shuttle bus comes. There was this guy at the car rental bus that would jump off, help us with our skis and put them on really quickly, really fast, really energetic. A big smile on his face and on the bus ride to where we pick up the car I asked him, I got to talking to him and he said, you know what? I love making people feel happy, and I know we talk about everyone that's coming to Denver with these big skis. They're coming for their vacation. So we want them to enjoy themselves and I want to bring a smile to their faces.
So this was an example of what is a car rental company where the employee could just be showing up for a paycheck. It wasn't a purpose statement on the wall saying we want our car rental clients or patrons to be satisfied. It was something through the behavior of the agents that checked us in and the behavior of the people even helping us to the bus. So purpose needs to be embodied by everyone in the organization and not just be a statement on the wall.
Mari Ryan: So you've given a great example of how purpose can translate for an organization into, in this case, customer experience. Why is it important for an organization to have this kind of purpose? What does it really serve?
Mahan Tavakoli: A lot of different organizations have done studies, including PWC where 83 percent of employees say they're even willing to take lower paying jobs if they get a sense of purpose and sense of meaning from doing what they are doing. So for a whole host of reasons, most especially since the pandemic, we're looking for more meaning and more purpose in what we do beyond just the paycheck – although the paycheck is important – beyond the paycheck. So employees are both more engaged and more likely to work for organizations that connect with their sense of purpose. When we talk about winning the war for talent, purpose becomes a driver for attracting and retaining the top talent, which has the option of going elsewhere.
Mari Ryan: Let's talk about that a little bit more in terms of our book. So Winning the War for Talent in the 2020s, the idea that purpose can help attract talent. Assumably, people are looking for work that has meaning that this is going to be meaningful work. I can relate to what's what this organization is doing. I'm not just showing up for a paycheck. How does it also tie beyond that? Are there other ways that it ties beyond that to help organizations compete, and does tie it to engagement in the workplace? How does it get really embedded in an organization in a way that they really can win that war on talent?
Mahan Tavakoli: There is a sense of pride that is associated with the right organizational purpose and purpose can be used as a strategic differentiator. I love the example of CVS and what they did in 2014. They decided to forgo over two billion dollars in tobacco sales revenues in order to become more aligned with the purpose of helping advance health. Before that, they could also say that their purpose was advancing health, but the strategic priority wasn't there. Therefore, the executives, the employees at CVS couldn't take pride in the fact that they are contributing to the organization that is helping advance health. But through that strategic initiative, through forgoing over two billion dollars in revenues, they were able to align better with their purpose and that engages, motivates the right people to contribute more to that organization. So there is an alignment rather than a disconnect between the words of the purpose and the actions of the organization strategically and the behaviors of the employees and team members aligned with that purpose.
Mari Ryan: I think that's a really good example. Thank you for refreshing our memory on that because that was a few years ago. I had forgotten about that. And it really takes some strong leadership to be able to make that kind of decision, to be able to forgo revenue of such substance and yet to really hold true to those values into the purpose. I'm curious from your perspective because I know you work a lot with leaders. What does it mean to lead with purpose?
Mahan Tavakoli: The first element of it, Mari, is as well as you know, is alignment of behaviors and actions with those words. One of the challenges a lot of us have is that we have blind spots and the higher up we move in organizations, typically the bigger our blind spots become because people are in many instances mindful of what they say to us, and our success reinforces the fact that we have done well, therefore, we are convinced of the way we've approached things in the past.
As our blind spots grow, in many instances our behaviors aren't aligned with the words. So one of the things that is important for leaders to recognize when talking about purpose is asking and finding out am I aligned in my behaviors with the purpose that I'm communicating? Typically the best way to find that out is not just through self-reflection, although that's important, it's through external feedback, whether from guides or coaches or from other people, trusted advisers that can help shape those blind spots. So I think the most critical aspect of leading with purpose is the ability to reduce our blind spots so our behaviors indicate the purpose, even if there is no purpose statement out there, through the priorities, through the behaviors, people can tell what our leadership purpose is all about.
Mari Ryan: Wow, that's really rich. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's so important for people to think about what we're not necessarily seeing what our blind spots are, but also being open and willing to take that feedback and to act on that and to be surrounded by those trusted advisers from whom you can take that kind of feedback and help you see what those inconsistencies are. So really, really rich. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that.
When we think about purpose, we were talking about employees having meaning in their work and how they connect to this overall purpose of the organization. In the model that we use for wellbeing we have sort of those individual elements that impact our wellbeing because obviously we bring our own wellbeing to the workplace and then the organization supports or diminishes our wellbeing once we're there. So purpose is at the center of that model and that can be that individual motivator for me as a human being and keeps me engaged with life. I’m curious, how do you see purpose contributing to wellbeing at both that individual and that organizational level? What's that relationship of purpose and wellbeing?
Mahan Tavakoli: Purpose is critical to wellbeing, and now for a whole host of reasons, Mari, it is more up to the organizations to help people connect with that purpose. If you reflect on it, the different trends over the past 20-plus years, people associate less with community organizations, are associating less with religious institutions and organizations, so are looking more to get a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning from their work. Which is why it's important for organizations to keep that in mind because for all of us, whether you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs or just motivators of human behavior, we do want to have a sense of meaning and purpose and feel like we have an impact beyond to the broader world society at large. So that energizes individuals, that gives people a sense of meaning in their lives, and now it's even more important for organizations to incorporate that into the organization because we get so little of it outside of the work environment.
Mari Ryan: Yeah, really good points. Yes. So I directly see that connection with wellbeing and the important aspect of how it supports our wellbeing, both in our lives and in the work that we do. That's great. Thank you for sharing that.
Mahan, if our audience wants to learn more about you and the great work that you're doing with leaders in organizations, where can they find out more information?
Mahan Tavakoli: Two things, Mari, I do a … you mentioned a podcast. I host a podcast called Partnering Leadership on Tuesdays, I have conversations with Purpose Driven Change Makers in the greater Washington, D.C. region and then on Thursdays with global thought leaders, most of the conversations connected to leadership, purpose, and how to get that into the organization, and mahantavakoli.com, no need to know how to spell it. I know you put it up on the screen and it's pretty easy to Google.
Mari Ryan: All right. Well, thank you so much. And just a reminder, the new book, Winning the War for Talent in the 2020s, it is available on Amazon, and Mahan and I are both contributing authors to that wonderful new book. It's always great to spend time with you. Thanks so much for being here today, Mahan.
Mahan Tavakoli: Absolutely, Mari. I'm really excited because I know your thought leadership on wellbeing is essential for our individual health, our individual purpose- driven action, and for the health of the organization. I am thankful for all you have done in order to advance that conversation for individuals and organizations.
Mari Ryan: Well, thank you so much. As always, it's great to spend time with you, Mahan. Thanks.
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