How do you make your own life better and make the world a better place?
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Well, we have a model for that!
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Think of a person or an organization as a wheel rolling through life. You want it to leave well-being for others in its wake and find well-being for yourself in the process.
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How does it work? How is it propelled? What’s it like to be part of it? Is it fun?
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First: why do you exist? What is your ‘Purpose’?
Much is written today about having a clear purpose. More than just a mission statement, although this is what you tend to see in organisations. It’s a ‘reason to be’ that requires imagination of a better world for at least some people.
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To make your purpose real, you have to create and then provide some thing or service to someone outside. you then make a ‘Contribution’ which manifests as that thing or service.
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When your product or service is delivered, it has an ‘Impact’. This is where the rubber meets the road. That impact is initially on the person you are doing it for. However, there are ripples from that impact, after effects, you could say.
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Impact is a neutral sentiment, but ‘Well-being’ is the feeling that you want. If well-being increases, then the world feels a better place for those in it. That well-being ripples out to the customer’s family, community and the world at large. If I buy a smart phone, I immediately feel good. But then the community feels it when people are better connected. And then the world is better when people in remote areas can communicate where they could not do so before. The well-being left behind in the world as the smart phone corporation ‘rolls them out’ is immeasurable, but real.
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How about yourself? Do you really feel all these things? Are you really clear about their purpose? Are you really making a contribution? And do you like your working conditions? How is your well-being? Maybe if you fully realized the good you are doing, you would find meaning in your work and be motivated to do more.
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If the answer to all these questions is a ‘yes’, then you will feel that you ‘Belong’. Think about it. That sense of belonging is the measure of how good that you or your organisation is to work with and for. It boils down to satisfying basic human needs: to have a reason to take part, to be able to contribute, to enjoy the journey with others and to find meaning in your work.
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We all need some ‘Why?’, ‘How?’ and ‘What?’ [Simon Sinek has them in this order]
<With belonging comes a greater sense of purpose, you get motivated and the wheel rolls on with with you making greater contributions.And so the wheel accelerates away, leaving more and more well-being in the world and in you.
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Notice some features:
The outer rim of the wheel is somehow inanimate, it’s just a machine. But the machine is driven by a human motor. It has a heart. The heart is stronger when you Belong.
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It’s what we call the ‘Impact-ology Wheel’.
