(This blog has been highly requested since first published in September of 2017. Here it is, reprinted, edited a bit and still valid, perhaps now more than ever!)
Investment: Two minute read
There’s a consistent question I get asked over time, by most everyone with whom I’m in correspondence. You might think the question would be something akin to, “How do I create positive change?” or “How do we use values explicitly in daily decision making?” It’s not. The question is more personal. The question is consistently about my favorite complimentary close in correspondence, “BE well.”
My choice is not a thoughtless habit, a short hand for “sincerely” or “best wishes.” This phrase is my favorite for a host of reasons, and I offer “BE well” consciously each time. The question is, why? Why this phrase “BE well” in this way, and why so consistently?
Certainly, I wish health and wellness to folks, frankly to each person on earth. Now, more than ever. Wellness, good health is a blessing and critically important. My learning about this allusion to wellness, “BE well” is clearer since dealing with cancer. Now cancer free, strong, doing my work with leaders, this close is still an offer that goes beyond “just” wellness of body.
This closing phrase speaks to change and turning operational values into active verbs in decision making, and more. Without burdening you with grammar or platitudes, there is nuance here. The valediction is not “be well”, “be WELL” or “Be Well.” It is, BE well.
So, what’s the story? Why does “BE well” matter, and frankly, who cares?
Here’s why:
- For over 38 years, my team and I have worked with leaders in a myriad of industries to accomplish successful transformational change. Our work has worked. It doesn’t matter if our work is a restaurant start-up, or a turn around. It doesn’t matter if our focus is in manufacturing growth, leadership development, or drama reduction in the work place. The age of the company, its leadership, or staff has been irrelevant. (Yes, this is true even with a seeming abyss between boomers and millennials and Z.) Amazingly, the industry hasn’t really mattered, either. Our work works.
- What has mattered is the ability for any one of us to step into change, to be mindful of the uncomfortable necessity that each of us faces if we choose to evolve ourselves individually or collectively as a company.
For leaders in change, defining a sense of Purpose, what Simon Sinek calls “Why,” is step one of the change process. Finding the bigger reason for the business is key. Here’s an example: “We’re a manufacturing company. We make machines that support other businesses.”
My question is, what do the machines provide? Trust, confidence, safety, consistency? Sense of Purpose is to offer staff and customers alike the reality that, yes, we sell machines. However, what we really sell is trust, confidence, safety, and consistency.
The power of Purpose based positioning is both subtle and expansive. Instead of working to build a machine and doing what the boss tells me to do, I have a higher calling in and through the effective construction of my machine.
What outcomes can we count on from working “on Purpose?” Team retention, error free production goes up, costs go down. Sales go up. Selling becomes a compelling story instead of a pitch.
Full circle, with Purpose defined, we have a choice each day: be on purpose or not; use our values or not; be conscious or not. We want to inspire team members to BE on Purpose!
Do you see the connection to my complimentary close? On a daily basis, I do my best, to encourage folks, including myself, to BE on Purpose… to “BE (on Purpose) well” in every choice, in every action on a daily basis. “BE well” instead of rote, instead of unconscious. BE awake and BE mindful of all that’s in front of each of us minute by minute. I appreciate you.
BE well,
Rudy
PS; I’d love to hear from you and your experience of this personal insight!
