Clarify your company purpose in a way that builds excitement, alignment, and direction.

Purpose consulting is a highly specific and focused aspect of strategy consulting. The primary goal of purpose consulting is to clearly articulate and clarify a company’s purpose.

Not only does Ne-Lo’s approach define a company’s purpose, but it leads the way in how that purpose is then tangibly embedded through an organisation in the strategy, culture, and brand.

So what do purpose consultants do? Simply put, they facilitate the process of a company becoming one that doesn’t have a purpose to one that becomes truly purpose-driven.

We ask the big questions; what is your company’s shared belief? What is it that brings us all together? Why are we all here? Why are we still here? What do we aspire to do and be? What are the steps we’ll take to get there? And how do we agree to behave along the way?

As purpose consultants, Ne-Lo’s approach to purpose consulting is to provide a framework that gives structure and a common language to have a conversation across the organisation around what their purpose means to them. Not only does this framework give us something to work towards, but it simultaneously builds both a narrative and distinct functional layers that allow the purpose to be embedded in strategy, culture and brand.

It also allows us to have a structured way to engage all employees and other key stakeholders in the process. Having that employee intelligence during purpose consulting is critical for success.Ne-Lo’s approach to purpose consulting is not about creating purpose, but it is about clarifying purpose. It's about articulating what already exists within a business and clarifying it into a clear and compelling narrative.

When we talk about being ‘purpose-driven’, we’re referring to the distinction between having a purpose and allowing that purpose to strategically drive all efforts of that business in a tangible daily manner.

For example, having a purpose often encompasses various versions of a company’s vision, mission values, and ethos. These are then used in creatively designed posters, as motif words on a wall, and live within a manifesto that sits in a desk drawer. Ultimately, it’s not good enough to simply have a purpose; your company must be purpose-driven.

Conversely, when a company is purpose-driven, it has instilled its purpose in every level of its strategic decision-making process; it’s embedded within the emotional elements of a company’s brand and culture, from recruitment to onboarding, developmental opportunities, remuneration and offboarding. These are the things that start to take a company from having a purpose to being purpose driven.

To clarify your company purpose, we first take you through our Purpose Framework, which comprises of four distinct layers that interrelate. These layers include an inspirational shared belief layer, followed by a shared aspirational vision layer defined by what you aspire to do or be. Then comes a strategic mission layer, which identifies what the company will do to achieve that vision. Finally, we have the behavioural layer, which is how you, as a company, and those within the organisation will behave along the way.

This framework unveils a compelling narrative that defines your company purpose. These layers allow us to strategically use your company purpose across key drivers of your business, whether in branding or perhaps company culture. 

This process of clarifying your company purpose also allows us to engage your key stakeholders - this can include gathering employee intelligence, customer intelligence, competitor intelligence, and market intelligence. When this is done, the voice of your stakeholders is brought loudly, clearly, and strategically into the boardroom, where an executive team works with the data to create an aligned purpose framework.

When the purpose framework is complete, it is then designed into shareable assets which communicate the purpose across the organisation and, eventually, into brand, culture, and strategic decision-making.

At Ne-Lo, we believe that when your company is purpose-driven, it creates a roadmap and guidance to all future decision-making that aligns with your greater goals and objectives.

To connect your purpose with strategy, we use a structured purpose framework to achieve the foundational layers of functional purpose. These layers include an initial inspirational shared belief layer, followed by a shared aspirational vision layer defined by what you aspire to do or be. Then comes a strategic mission layer, which identifies what the company will do to achieve that vision. Finally, we have the behavioural layer, which is how you, as a company, and those within the organisation will behave along the way.

Through this purpose-driven process, we outline a narrative that goes from emotional to strategic and behavioural; it allows for a compelling, sharable narrative.

Ultimately, we bring the mission layer into the strategic space, knowing it is connected to the other framework layers. This includes codifying it into the criteria you use for strategic decision-making.

Ne-Lo’s role in that process is to ensure that the mission layer and its key components are weighted appropriately in the criteria for strategic decision-making so that the purpose framework is represented in the decisions the company makes strategically.