March 4, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode of Purpose Project, host Leslie Pagel kicks off season two by delving into the significance of purpose in the workplace. Joined by Cathy Ann Armour, CEO of the Better Business Bureau in Indianapolis, they explore how personal and professional purposes intersect. Cathy shares her journey, emphasizing the roles of self-awareness, intentional leadership, and the importance of aligning one's personal purpose with organizational goals. Through their candid discussion, Cathy highlights the essential qualities of trust, integrity, and the pursuit of meaningful work for both leaders and employees.
00:00 Introduction to Purpose Project Season Two
00:37 Meet Cathy Ann Armour: CEO of Better Business Bureau
01:27 Cathy's Personal and Professional Journey
02:22 The Role of Purpose in Leadership
06:05 Purpose in the Workplace: Aligning Personal and Organizational Goals
08:57 Building a Purpose-Driven Culture
17:58 Challenges and Insights in Purpose-Driven Leadership
41:34 Advice for Leaders on Connecting Teams to Purpose
45:36 Conclusion and Reflections on Purpose and Leadership
Purpose Project is a research study on the topic of life's purpose. You can follow along in the making of Purpose Project:
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Episode Transcript
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Leslie (00:04):
Welcome to Purpose Project.
I am your host, Leslie Pagel,and I am on a mission to make
the topic of purpose mainstream.
I am so excited to be kickingoff season two of Purpose
Project.
This season, we are exploringthe topic of purpose in the
workplace, how purpose shows upin different roles.
(00:24):
In different industries and indifferent types of
organizations.
Many of us spend a significantamount of time at work.
Why not fill that time withpurpose?
Today I am joined by Cathy AnnArmour.
Cathy is the CEO of the BetterBusiness Bureau in Indianapolis.
(00:44):
As a leader, Cathy has dedicatedher career.
To fostering trust, integrity,and impact in the business
community.
In this episode, she shares herperspective on what it means to
align business with purpose.
Let's take a listen.
Cathy, thank you for being onPurpose Project.
(01:07):
I am really looking forward tohaving a conversation with you
about how Purpose shows up inthe workplace.
Cathy (01:14):
Well, thank you for having me and congratulations on
season one.
I listened to Most of theepisodes so far, so I'm excited
to be on season two.
Yay! Thank you for your
Leslie (01:24):
support and for being here.
Yes, yes.
Before we dive into the topic ofpurpose in the workplace, tell
us a little bit about yourself.
Who is Cathy both, personallyand professionally?
Cathy (01:40):
It's fun to stop and take a little bit of breather and to
think about who is Cathy bothpersonally and professionally.
Because I think that who we areis busy.
And sometimes we don't evenreally stop to think about that.
And so I appreciate you askingme that question.
So, personally, I am a wife.
I'm a mom.
(02:00):
Um, I am a, I'm a child of God.
I mean, my faith dictates a lotof what I believe and how I act.
And, then I happen to have a jobas a CEO of the Better Business
Bureau serving central Indiana.
And so, That's who I amprofessionally.
Leslie (02:17):
Love that.
I want to dive into that role asCEO of Better Business Bureau.
But before we do that, onequestion that I ask everyone is,
do you have a life's purpose?
And if so, what is that?
Cathy (02:34):
I think I have two.
Because of my faith, you know,love God and love others is my
kind of personal How I try tolive and what my purpose is, but
I think even above that, Irealized very early on in my
life that I was a connector ofpeople that I could see how one
(02:55):
person I knew might relate orhelp another person I knew, or
one system I knew about mighthelp someone who was going
through a problem.
And so very early in life, I.
just defined myself by the wordconnector and connector of
(03:16):
people.
And then recently I took thestrength finders test, the
Gallup strength finders test,and found out that that is one
of my top strengths.
And I think it's interestingthat it's, it's been that way
all my life.
Wow.
And sometimes I felt like it wasa busy body kind of thing.
Like I was giving unsolicitedinformation and that's not
(03:38):
really what I meant to do.
I just like connecting peopletogether and connecting people
with different programs and,yeah, just seeing how all the
puzzles fit together.
Leslie (03:47):
Well, and I have to believe that as a connector, it
has helped you to get to thisrole of CEO as at Better
Business Bureau.
I mean, what a great leadershipattribute.
Cathy (04:00):
It's interesting because my, my, really my skill that got
me to Better Business Bureau orpretty much got me in all of my
jobs is because I'm anaccountant.
Okay.
And so, accounting is a skillthat you learn, but typically
accountants aren't known fortheir strong people skills,
their kind of, pocket protector,pen in their pocket protector
(04:24):
and, like to deal with numbersand have their calculator going
and, I wasn't the kind ofaccountant I wanted to be.
Um, I wanted to use thosenumbers and figure out From
those numbers, what could I dodifferently to change the
environment for the better?
Um, so I don't know.
(04:44):
I mean, definitely have beenconnected to a lot of good
people who have helped me get towhere I am today for sure.
Leslie (04:51):
Yeah.
When it seems like as anaccountant, that's right brain,
connector, left brain.
And so those two together seemto be a, uh, Interesting
dynamic.
Cathy (05:06):
I think the thing is I'm not a to the penny or to the
dollar accountant.
I'm more about rounding.
I'm more about rounding and,and, and getting to the point
where it's close enough that,you know, what needs to happen.
Um, so more managerialaccounting probably than just
(05:27):
strict debits and credits.
Although I'm very thankful thatat better business bureau, we
have a very detailed lady who.
Yeah.
Who likes to be to the penny.
Yes.
She was off on accountsreceivable this week and she
said, oh, I can't finalize thefinancial statements because I'm
off this amount.
And I said, it's immaterialclose the financial statements.
(05:49):
And she said, I appreciatethat's what you would do, but I
don't feel good about that.
And I said, you, you do.
You
Leslie (05:57):
So, oh, well, thank you for sharing your purpose with
us.
Yes.
I would love to.
this topic of purpose in theworkplace.
And I'm recognizing that you areboth a leader of your business
with the Better Business Bureau.
(06:19):
And also through that role,you've got this Bird's eye view
across businesses.
Yes.
So, if we could, I'd love to hiton both of those angles in your
perspective, but let's firststart with you as a leader.
How does purpose show up in theworkforce?
Cathy (06:38):
Well, I mean, I think it's so important.
I think that, um, Not only mypurpose, but my team's purpose.
I just held an orientation,right before I came here, for
two new people that started.
And I talked about, your purposehas to be aligned with the
mission of the organization.
And we are a non profitorganization, and our mission is
(07:01):
to advance Marketplace Trust.
Okay.
To be the leader in advancingMarketplace Trust.
If Marketplace Trust isn'timportant to you, you're
probably not really going towant to be able, you're not
going to use your purpose inlife for our purpose.
Okay.
So I think your purpose in lifehas to be aligned with what our
(07:22):
purpose is.
Uh huh.
Does that make sense?
It does make sense.
Yeah, so I, I always let themknow when I do this orientation
that, um, your purpose is yourpurpose, and if it doesn't match
with our purpose, Somewhereelse.
Yeah, not in a mean way, butlike in a life is short.
Yeah, you only have one life tolive Do what you're meant to do
(07:46):
and what your passion is
Leslie (07:48):
Absolutely, and what your
Cathy (07:49):
purpose is because there's only one of you so I I
mean to me it's the difference Ithink too in a decent culture
and a bad culture because Ibelieve that if you have people
that are aligned with theirpersonal purpose And with the
organization's purpose, thatthey're going to be healthier
(08:11):
and happier and that the wholeculture is going to be better.
Where if you have, you know,half of your team or a third of
your team or a quarter of yourteam are not in a line with your
purpose.
And don't see how their purposefits in with your purpose.
I'm using the word purpose anawful lot.
(08:32):
I apologize for that.
That's the show.
I love it.
Um, if they can't see how theirpurpose aligns with your
purpose, how would they behappy?
Right.
You know, how would they befulfilled?
And we spend the majority of ourwaking hours every week, you
know, tied to work, or drivingto work, or driving home from
work, or worrying about work, orPlanning for work.
(08:54):
So let's make it the best wecan.
Leslie (08:56):
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah, so I'm hearing very muchPurpose is a part of culture for
sure at Better Business Bureauand and because of that it's
very much a part of howemployees are engaged in their
work through the purpose of thebusiness and making the
(09:19):
connection between Uh, theindividual employee and, and the
purpose of the business.
Cathy (09:26):
For sure.
I mean, you know, we have aconsumer services hotline that
calls in, that accepts, our, ouroperator accepts calls from
consumers.
And, um, you know, they call inall day long and they've gotten
a letter in the mail.
You know, they've gotten a scamcall or something.
The person who is answering thatphone has to passionately care
(09:51):
about the person that they'retalking to, and they want to,
they have to believe in ourmission of advancing marketplace
trust so that they can say tothat person confidently and
patiently and calmly and, youknow, disappointing them at the
same time by saying, I'm sorry,but that's a scam.
Do not send 1, 000.
1, 000.
(10:11):
And, we see that in all areasthat we work, you know, of our
teams.
Um, if we have an accreditedbusiness service call call in,
so someone who is an accreditedbusiness calls in, and they're
having trouble, working on theirBBB business profile or whatever
their issue is.
If our customer service peoplefor those accredited businesses
(10:34):
don't really care aboutadvancing marketplace trust,
It's just going to be a whateverphone call, you know, and then
they're not going to really careabout that person's business.
But I'm so happy because thepeople that we have working for
us and doing that work, they'rereally concerned about the
consumers that are calling in orthe businesses that are calling
(10:58):
in are really concerned abouttheir business and want to try
to figure out how can they dothings better.
And so, you have to have peoplethat really care.
About advancing marketplacetrust and you can't, you can't
fake your purpose and what youenjoy.
You know, I, I often do say fakeit until you make it, but really
(11:19):
it's fake it until you make itor until you get sick of faking
it.
I like it.
You know, because, because youcan for a little while fake it,
but after that.
It's exhausting.
It is exhausting to fake it.
And so, yeah, that's what welook out for.
We look out for to make surethat those people are in the
right seat, they're doing theright thing, that they really
(11:41):
are enjoying it, that they'reconnecting what they're good
with, what their strengths are,what their purpose is, with our
purpose.
Yes.
And that's, that's the mostimportant thing to me.
I mean, I, it just really is.
Yeah.
Because I can't do every job.
But I can make sure that we havethe best people.
(12:02):
on the best seat, passionateabout their job.
And doing a good job.
I
Leslie (12:08):
love that, yeah.
So, I get the importance of theconnection for the people that
are interacting with yourmembers.
Um, you mentioned earlier, thewoman closing the books, that,
talk about how her role, And theconnection to purpose and the
importance of that for someonethat's not customer facing.
Cathy (12:30):
Yes.
Very good point.
So we happen to have, um, ourbusiness manager is just, she
has a servant's heart.
So she understands whatever sheis doing.
She is servicing those peoplewho are helping be the face of,
or the voice of.
our Better Business Bureau tothe consumers or to the
(12:53):
businesses.
And so her purpose is to serve,to be a cheerleader, um, to be
that person that when somebody'sdown she's, she'll say, I heard
you on that call, you soundedfantastic.
You know, we have an overhearsthe people that are having those
conversations with ourconsumers.
(13:13):
And, um, yeah, so we're justvery encouraging.
Making sure that everyone ifyou're behind the scenes that
you know that you have animportant role to to be a
cheerleader and that your roleis just important.
So I just described, um, kind ofour bus to our new people today
when we started and I said, soif we think of our bus as as a
(13:35):
school bus and we have, I'm, I'mthe driver of the bus for right
now for this.
For this season of my life, I'mthe driver of the bus.
And I look at our tires as kindof the revenue.
And so the tires could be flat.
They could be, um, they mighthave a lot of, um, they might be
worn.
They might not move very well.
(13:57):
Okay.
So the tires are our revenue.
So we want to have good, strong,filled tires.
Uh huh.
You know, ready to go out thereand make those calls.
And the core services team orthe administration team, the
teams that are kind of behindthe scenes helping make
everything happen, they're theframe of the bus.
And, they have to be strong andthey have to, want to create a
(14:20):
good exterior and a goodinterior.
We want to have comfy, comfyseats.
We want to have a nice shinyyellow bus.
We don't want to have holes andrust.
And so they have all this workto do.
And then our relevance is ourengine, and our relevance is
based on our content, our brand,and our relationships.
And that's our communicationsteam.
And they kind of get the enginerunning because of all of those
(14:42):
things that they're doing behindthe scenes, but it takes us all.
We have to have an engine that'srunning well.
We have to have a school busthat looks good and is good.
That is our framework and ourfoundation.
And then we have to have thewheels of our revenue team
running.
Who are able to go as fast asthey can getting accredited
businesses and keepingaccredited businesses and
(15:04):
servicing them and advancingmarketplace trust because more
and more businesses can betrusted.
And so I think that the purposeis we can't do it alone and we
have to see ourselves as part ofsomething bigger.
Exactly.
Leslie (15:20):
And the image of the bus is very vivid, and I'm imagining
your customers, your accreditedbusinesses climbing onto that
bus and you driving them alongto their success and, you know,
being a part of that.
Cathy (15:37):
Yes, and we only can do it, we're a non profit, so a lot
of people think because we haveBureau in our name.
that we're a government agencyand we're not.
The Better Business Bureau is amembership association,
organization, and we can only dothe good work that we can do
because we have accreditedbusinesses who do uphold our
standards of trust and commit tocontinue to uphold our standards
(15:58):
of trust.
And so they're paying amembership fee to us, um, and
they're agreeing to uphold thosestandards.
So, not only are they helpingus, not only are we trying to
help them, But they're alsohelping us because the money
that they're giving us, we'reable to do all the things that
we can do to make sure thatconsumers know who to trust.
(16:21):
So it's definitely a jointmission with both, us doing the
work inside, but them, ouraccredited businesses, being
trusted businesses.
That consumers, listen, everybusiness makes mistakes.
Every business is owned by anowner who has a passion for it,
(16:42):
and they have some goodemployees and some not so good
employees.
Some good employees can have baddays.
So, there's always problems thathappen in businesses.
We're not asking a business tobe perfect, but we're asking a
business to be trustworthy.
And to be responsive and to showintegrity.
Yeah.
Leslie (16:59):
Yeah.
Well, and trust is such animportant concept in business.
to sustain a business long term.
Cathy (17:09):
Trust is important everywhere.
Yeah.
Because don't you most oftenstart with trust in any, you
know, when you're building a newrelationship, you're Learning
can I trust that person and whatends a relationship quicker than
anything else is if you breakthat trust, right?
And so Yeah, the start withtrust is is just so important
(17:31):
It's kind of amazing to me thatpeople who believe so much in
trust, you know aren'taccredited businesses and it's
just because we haven't gottenour We haven't, we haven't
really gotten our message outthere about who we really are
and why trust is so important.
They know it's important becausethey're using it on their
website.
But they could also have a thirdparty person, you know, validate
(17:54):
that.
Leslie (17:55):
Absolutely.
Yes.
So, going back to purpose, it's,it sounds like it's ingrained in
the business.
Because of that, is it somethingthat you have to work on for the
business and work on meaningkeeping it alive?
(18:15):
Or does it, is it just soingrained that That there's not
attention or focus added to it.
Cathy (18:26):
That's a really good question and that's one of the
reasons why I have startedhaving an hour and a half
meeting with everyone who comeson board and to just really make
sure that they understand whatour purpose is.
And how they contribute to thatand why we meet with staff three
times a year and kind of go overall of those things.
(18:48):
But I think that we have apretty experienced staff.
Probably half of our team hasbeen with us for eight, nine,
ten years.
And then the other half havebeen there less.
But I think that you quicklybegin to understand what our
purpose is, because it, it'spretty ingrained in everything
(19:10):
that we do.
Yeah.
Leslie (19:12):
So when it's ingrained in everything that you do, other
than when new people come onboard, it's not like you need
to, have a quarterly newsletterabout company purpose or do
extra things because it's just apart of every day.
That's exactly right.
I mean,
Cathy (19:31):
I.
I think that in every, in everycommunication that we have with
our team, it's falling back tothat, what's our, you know, this
is a, we're tying it back to apurpose.
We're doing this because trustmatters to consumers.
We're doing this because trustmatters to our businesses.
We're doing this because ouraccredited businesses, are the
(19:55):
reason that we can do this workbecause they're giving us the
money.
And so our purpose is to servethem.
And so, I think it would beinteresting to know whether it's
because we are a nonprofit andwe have a mission that it's so
ingrained.
Um, because nonprofits have tohave a mission and they have to
defend that mission and makesure that they're spending their
(20:16):
money on that mission.
I think sometimes maybe for forprofit companies, it can be a
little harder to know what yourmission is and to be maybe blown
by the wind of, you know,something better might come
along, but maybe because BetterBusiness Bureau has been around
for 116 years and it's beenaround in our area for 112
(20:37):
years.
It's just so ingrained in us.
I don't know.
That's a really good questionand thinking about our
accredited businesses I do thinkthat there are a lot of
accredited businesses who arefor profit Who maybe are
relatively new who do not knowtheir purpose.
Okay, and I was
Leslie (20:55):
curious what you see across Businesses.
Yeah.
So what do you see?
Cathy (21:00):
Yeah, I think that a lot of times what we see is our
newer businesses Are in it tomake money Because they think
they can do it better than theboss they used to work for.
Okay That's a pretty commontheme about why businesses
(21:20):
start, right?
I've been an accountant all mylife.
I can have my own accountingfirm.
Okay.
Okay.
You know, I've cleaned housesnow for 10 years and I haven't
gotten a raise in the last 3 or4 so I'm going to go out and I'm
going to start my own cleaningbusiness.
And so I think that sometimesYou know, new businesses start
(21:43):
with a, just an ideology thatsays, I'm going to be able to
make more money.
Okay.
You know, um, and they don'treally start from the why.
Why do I want to have thisbusiness?
What's going to be different?
You know, what's my purpose,right?
What's my goal?
(22:03):
How do I, you know, What do Iwant my personal and
professional opinion?
They don't stop long enough.
Yeah, they probably in manycases I think they just say I'm
done working for someone else Ican make more money if I do this
on my own
Leslie (22:18):
so you were saying a lot of times what happens is people
have been doing a job forsomeone else and they decide to
go out on their own.
And that's, and that comesacross as I can make more money
doing it myself.
And I'm wondering though if ifthey're doing that job whether
it's for themselves or forsomeone else because it's
(22:41):
aligned with their purpose.
And in going out on their own,it's still purposeful for them,
but now it's got this addedlayer of generating more income.
Cathy (22:55):
Yeah, for sure.
I hope that that's what most ofthem do.
I think that if they are reallygood at something, they love
what they're doing, that itbrings them joy, they can see a
greater purpose in their lifebecause of that, then certainly
they can be either an employeeor they can be the employer.
(23:15):
I think what often times doesn'thappen is the conscious thought
of this is my purpose and I canfulfill it whether I am here
serving as an employee orwhether I'm an employer.
Also, I think becoming theemployer and starting your own
(23:37):
business and then havingemployees under you is a
completely different thing thanbeing An employee who is
serving.
Exactly.
Now you can still be a personwho serves and encourages
people, but you have tounderstand what gave you that
purpose in being the employeewas the service and then figure
(23:58):
out how to be the employer.
That is still doing the serving,right?
Because those jobs are verydifferent, sometimes we just
don't take time to think about,what's your personal and
professional purpose?
We don't think about it veryoften.
And certainly when we're makinga big life change, we should.
(24:20):
We should sit down and thinkabout what our purpose is and
start with our why andunderstand what we want to do
and make sure that it's, Trulysomething that's going to
fulfill us and I think onlyliving out your life on purpose
will fulfill you.
Leslie (24:37):
Agree, absolutely.
I do too.
So, so you're seeing acrossbusinesses, people are hopping
over and starting a businesswithout intention or conscious
of purpose in doing that.
Why should they?
Why should they lead withpurpose or be conscious of it?
(24:59):
What benefits are there forbusiness?
Cathy (25:03):
So to understand your purpose is the beginning of
understanding your why, right?
And once you understand yourpurpose and your why, Then you
can make a plan to begin withthe end in mind.
So then you say, you know, my,my long term purpose in life is,
my long term purpose in lifeprofessionally is to mentor as
(25:29):
many people as to be, fantastichumans in the workplace,
fantastic leaders in theworkplace, once I'm not a leader
in the workplace.
So, I'm always thinking aboutthat when I'm doing my work.
Leslie (25:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, is it fair to say that if westart with purpose, and bring
purpose into our businessconsciously, that the outcome of
that will be personalfulfillment.
For sure.
(26:06):
For
Cathy (26:06):
sure.
I mean, you know, I think thatone pitfall is Really taking the
time to understand what yourpurpose is.
Really figuring out, I guessI've said this before, but like
really just sitting with it fora while to figure out what is my
(26:27):
purpose?
Who am I?
What am I good at?
What are my strengths?
And being able to be self awareenough to understand yourself to
be able to say, that's not mystrength, but this is my
strength.
Even if that's not what you wantit to be.
Um, I think in my early years Istruggled a lot with, um, I was
(26:48):
a strong personality.
I had opinions.
And I had to really spend time,like, really understanding I can
use that for good or I can useit for evil.
And really understanding who Iwas and how to be as healthy as
I could be so that I could usethe strengths that I had.
(27:12):
way.
And I just, I think that it justtakes a little bit of self
reflection and sometimes wedon't slow down enough to do
that.
Yeah.
So I think, I think advice Iwould give anyone who's willing,
who, who's trying to figure outwhat their purpose is, is just a
lot of contemplation and a lotof soul searching about who they
(27:33):
are.
I, I am a huge proponent of allthings personality type to
understand yourself more.
Um, Enneagram, um, GallopStrength Finders, DISC, all
those things, you know, remindme how I was made, and what my
strengths are, and remind me touse those positively, and then
(27:59):
to connect that, and to allowthose things to be part of my
purpose.
Right.
To, to, um, not to fight who Iam.
But to believe in who I am andto use who I am to inform my
(28:20):
purpose consciously.
I'm just an old lady who's kindof still trying to figure it
out, but yeah.
Leslie (28:30):
Well, I love that you shared that because season one
was all about people withclarity in their purpose and
they're actively pursuing it.
And.
One of the conclusions that Idrew from those conversations is
exactly what you're talkingabout.
(28:52):
It is about, in order todiscover our life's purpose and
to live a life of purpose, wehave to have self understanding.
We have to look in the mirrorand we have to accept what we
see.
And as you were talking aboutthat, I found myself wondering,
(29:13):
is that same prerequisite neededfor business?
Cathy (29:20):
For business leaders?
Leslie (29:22):
For a business to exist, do you do the same thing on the
business of looking at themirror it's more of a collective
view in the mirror.
Cathy (29:32):
It sure is, and I, I really, I believe yes.
In order for an organization tobe healthy.
In order for it to treat itsemployees right, in order to,
you know, treat the world thatit's serving right, it has to
have a leadership team thatlooks in the mirror and says,
(29:56):
are we the right people to leadthe purpose of this
organization?
And do we even understand whatthe purpose of the organization
is?
Think another way for me tothink about it is, I think that
before I personally was matureenough or thoughtful enough to
(30:18):
kind of really understand who Iam, I wouldn't want to be
leading a business.
Because I would have maybe donemore bad than I would have, than
I, and I don't feel that I'm notsaying that I'm perfect, but I
do feel that I understand enoughabout myself now to help the
organization also understandabout itself and make sure that
(30:39):
the leaders of it are all kindof moving in the same direction,
which is what creates thepurpose of the business.
Right.
But I don't think that you cando that if you don't have Self
aware business owners orleaders, right?
So Yes, I think a business hasto understand its purpose, but
(31:01):
it also has to come from itsleaders
Leslie (31:04):
Exactly, and the leaders need to have that self awareness
Cathy (31:10):
I had a fantastic mentor.
So I worked for the samegentleman for.
25 years in a couple ofdifferent roles.
So I worked from him from thetime I was 25 until I was 50.
And so I feel like it's been soingrained in me that I can't
imagine.
(31:30):
what my life would look like orwhat my professional life would
look like if I didn't have that.
And there was a period of timein my life when I had a
situation where I didn't feellike the purpose was aligned to
the leader that I was workingfor.
And I couldn't do it.
(31:52):
And, um, so I think that, As abusiness, you can probably have
employees if you're not a leaderwho will look at yourself
authentically and look at thepurpose of the business
authentically.
But I think that like bringslike.
Yeah, and those who are moreself aware and drawn to the
(32:16):
purpose and drawn to Helpingeach other find their purpose
and encouraging each other tolive on purpose Rather than
holding on tightly to somethingthat maybe isn't You just you
attract what you what you are,right?
and so I'm not saying thatbusinesses can't succeed that
(32:37):
way because there are businessesout there who exceed that way,
but I know what I don't like,and what I don't like, when it
doesn't work, I'm willing to sayit's purpose, the business
purpose.
And the leader's purpose at thebusiness and their ability to
(32:57):
share that purpose and inspireme matters more to me than a
paycheck.
Love that.
You know?
Yeah.
And so I don't, I don't want todo that.
And I, now I have a fiduciaryresponsibility to be a person
who is careful with the peoplethat are working for me and make
(33:19):
sure that they understand thatwhile our purpose, the business
purpose is important, I'm Thatif they're not in alignment with
it and something or somethingbetter comes along for them,
their personal purpose is moreimportant than my business
purpose.
Um, and I, I, I just think thatwho would want to work in a
(33:45):
business that didn't have aclear communicated purpose.
Yeah.
Leslie (33:52):
Yeah, but I feel like so many people do stay stuck in
jobs that they're not happy inwith leaders that aren't leading
from purpose, but maybe fear or,or this kind of sense of
responsibility, it really iseach of our responsibility to,
(34:16):
to live the life that we want tolive.
Cathy (34:18):
It really is.
And you know what?
I'm not afraid to push someoneif we have four values at Better
Business Bureau and then we haveabout 18 values infused
behaviors.
And so our evaluations are basedon values infused behaviors.
And if those are the values ofour organization in order to hit
(34:40):
our business purpose, then weknow there's certain behaviors
and, um, and they're welldefined.
Leslie (34:48):
Give us an example.
Um,
Cathy (34:50):
so professionalism, um, team, interpersonal team, uh,
motivation, dependability, someof those things.
And so they're more soft skills.
But they tell a lot about theperson and, you know, a lot of
times you're judged on qualityof work or quantity of work.
(35:11):
Well, you can find someone to doquality work and you can find
someone to do quantity of work.
But we look more at the valuesinfused behaviors.
To understand, um, you know,how's your communication?
Do you treat peoplerespectfully?
Are you defensive in tone?
Um, you know, how's yourpunctuality?
(35:32):
Are you where you're supposed tobe when you're supposed to be
there?
Can your team count on you?
And so, we look at those and,and we're just not afraid to
address them.
Yeah.
You know, where I think, I thinkpeople are used to being
addressed.
People are used to saying, I'mdoing, I'm there and I'm doing
my work.
Well, that doesn't help thebusiness purpose any, and a
(35:54):
person who comes in inspired bytheir purpose to do the business
purpose and has the behaviorsthat are, that our, our values
ask them to have, then they're acompletely aligned person.
Right.
we call out behavior.
And I think oftentimes.
(36:15):
That's difficult for people todo.
Uh huh.
They're just, we've got to buttin a seat and let's move on.
And it takes too much work tohire someone and to train
someone, so why do we wantsomeone different?
Well, we're not doing them afavor by having them on our team
and not really letting themsucceed.
(36:37):
That's not their purpose inlife, right?
And it's not our purpose inbusiness to have people working
for us that are not reallyaligned with you know What we
need to fulfill our purpose.
Yeah, so I'm always looking forI'm always looking for the a
person who has Purpose that Ican see is going to fit in with
(36:59):
us and then figure out how toget them to the best and highest
Use for us.
Yeah, because I want them to befulfilled and to you know, live
their life on purpose
Leslie (37:09):
And as you're, as you're talking, I have an image in my
head of a scale and you as aleader sound very much like
you're balancing the purpose,the mission of the business and
the purpose of the individualsin the business.
Cathy (37:29):
For sure.
You know, a funny story.
I became the CEO of BetterBusiness Bureau in December of
2021.
And in January of 2022, weedited our employee handbook,
just, it hadn't been updated ina while.
And I wanted to put a letterfrom the CEO in there.
And so I wrote a letter aboutwhat was important to me in this
(37:54):
season of time when I wasleading the Better Business
Bureau.
And the very closing paragraphwas this.
So controversial.
It, it cracks me up that it wascontroversial.
But I said, if you ever findthat you, that working here is
not something that's bringingyou joy, and that you just don't
(38:18):
want to be here anymore, I begof you to go find where you
should be.
And honestly, that some of thepeople that have been around for
a while took it not the way Imeant it.
I did not mean go find anotherjob.
I sincerely meant, I want thebest for you.
I want you to live your life.
(38:39):
You only have one life.
I only have one life.
And I want to make sure that I'mable to live the best life that
I can.
Um, I want to live my life onpurpose.
And my purpose is making surethat people, you know, are
connected to as many things asthey need.
To make sure that they find outhow to live on purpose.
(39:01):
And so I don't want them to feellike, they have to stay in a job
because I've been there for 20years and nobody else knows how
to do my job.
Trust me, I can find somebodyelse to do your job and they
will be trained.
They'll do the job differentlythan you will.
It'll take them longer to learnwhat you knew.
But if you have something thatis, like, important to you, that
(39:24):
you want to do in life, Do it.
Don't stay there just because.
And it was, I found out after Iwrote it that, you know, it kind
of, not, I don't want to sayoffended people, but made them
feel like because they hadn'texperienced other things, maybe
(39:44):
I was asking them to go on.
That's not what I was doing.
I was saying don't let the factthat you've always been here or
that you're here now keep youhere if you have a greater
purpose.
Right.
Leslie (39:57):
Yeah, I love that.
I love it.
And it sounds like you, itsounds like you got feedback on
that and also dealt with that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cathy (40:08):
I mean, it was, it was just, I, this, the paragraph is
still in there.
And so when I do my orientationwith new employees, I talk
about, you know, I talk about,like, you're here for this time,
and that's fine.
We had a gentleman who, um, justa couple of years ago, uh, he
told us in a meeting that hereally wanted to go to law
(40:29):
school.
And I, he had been with us for acouple of years, and I said to
him, why don't you?
And he said, um, I don't know.
And I said, well, have youresearched it?
Yeah, it's a lot of money.
Have you thought about this?
Long story short, I wrote arecommendation letter, and he
went to law school.
He was a fantastic employee.
Really good employee, but youknow, I was so excited that I
(40:54):
got to connect him to what hereally wanted to do in life So
if you know if my team if anyoneon my team says I really want to
do this, I'd help them figure itout You know, yeah, you're a
connector.
Yes.
I'm a connector and I wantpeople to really
Leslie (41:12):
Make the most of their life.
That is coming through loud andclear.
Good.
So I imagine there are peoplelistening and let's take a
person who might be listeningthat is a leader that maybe uh,
is struggling with connectingtheir team to purpose.
(41:34):
Any advice for that type ofleader?
Cathy (41:38):
I think it sounds to me that if the leader is having
trouble connecting their personTheir people to that, to the, to
the business purpose.
Maybe they haven't defined theirpurpose or the business's
purpose.
Okay.
So, I mean, I have, I have someBibles of the business world and
(42:01):
I mean you've heard me, you'veheard me say start with Y many
times, um, and I mean I wouldencourage them to read, start
with Y.
I would encourage them to readSeven Habits of Highly Effective
People.
And figure out, do they knowtheir purpose?
Do they know their business'spurpose?
And then how can they start todo that?
(42:23):
Because I think once you knowyour purpose, I don't think it's
hard to share it.
Yeah.
Once you know your business'spurpose, I don't know that it's
hard to share.
I would think another resourcetoo would be, um, have you ever
read the book StoryBrand byDonald Miller?
Leslie (42:39):
No,
Cathy (42:39):
I haven't.
So, Donald Miller was a, awriter years ago and he's kind
of transitioned into being abusiness person now.
Um, but StoryBrand is about howto write a story of your
business where Your consumers,the people that you're serving
are the heroes, but you're theirguide.
And so it's, it's kind of a,it's based on a typical movie
(43:02):
plot, a typical story plot.
Um, but using that to help tellthe story of why you're in
business, um, and connect it toyour consumers.
So there's some really goodexercises in that book, too.
So, Story Brand by Donald Milleris a fantastic one to align your
team with.
Leslie (43:22):
Yeah.
Cathy (43:23):
After you're certain that you know your personal purpose.
Leslie (43:27):
Well, and the personal purpose, what I was thinking of
there is, You have to rolemodel, you have to be the role
model for the connection topurpose, the business purpose.
Right.
Cathy (43:41):
Yep.
I just recently took a survey.
Um, it was about, uh,businesses, there are blind
spots in businesses.
And one of the, one of thequestions was, do all of your
team members see themselvesconnected to the purpose of your
(44:02):
business through their jobdescription?
And I thought that was reallyimportant, really, a really good
thing to think about too,because job descriptions can be
very black and white.
But trying to figure out how toget your job description to
also, like you had just asked meabout our business manager, how
does she connect to the purpose?
(44:23):
And you know, helping her seethat her servanthood, the
ability, you know, the behindthe scenes work that she's
doing.
And the cheerleading that shedoes connects her to the purpose
of the whole organizationbecause she's a part of the
whole and she's supporting andserving the whole.
So I thought that was also areally good point that I need to
(44:43):
go in and look at those jobdescriptions and figure out how
can I make sure that people, Ithink they do see themselves,
but it's not on their jobdescription.
And I think that would be a goodthing to do also.
Love that.
Leslie (44:55):
Yeah.
Yes.
Anything left unsaid on thetopic of purpose in the
workplace?
No,
Cathy (45:02):
I, I, I appreciate you having me on board and I can't
wait to listen to what otherpeople have because I've been
fortunate to have a lot of jobswhere purpose was very clear
and, and therefore to get itingrained in me.
So, um, I'm interested to hearhow other people have grown to,
bring purpose into theirbusiness also.
Leslie (45:22):
I will be sure to share.
All right.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Cathy, for being onPurpose Project.
I am taking away.
a lot from our conversation andI appreciate you sharing.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for having
Cathy (45:34):
me.
It was a pleasure.
Leslie (45:36):
As I reflect on this conversation, I can't help, but
think about the deep connectionbetween purpose and leadership.
When we take the time to trulyunderstand our business, its
impact and its reason forexisting.
And we couple that with a deepunderstanding of who we are, our
(45:57):
strengths, our weaknesses, andour purpose.
And then we live that out eachand every day at work and
outside of work.
Isn't that what leadership isall about?
Cathy's insights remind us thatpurpose isn't just a concept.
It's a practice.
It's, it's a practice inleadership.
(46:20):
It's a practice that requiresself awareness, alignment, and
intention.
Thank you, Cathy, for being onPurpose Project and thanks to
all of you for tuning in.
Until next time, keep asking,how well do you know the purpose
of your work?
And are you living it out eachand every day?
(46:46):
Purpose Project is brought toyou for education and for
entertainment purposes.
This podcast is not intended toreplace the advice that you
would receive from a licensedtherapist or doctor or any other
qualified professional.
Welcome to Purpose Project.
I am your host, Leslie Pagel,and I am on a mission to make
the topic of purpose mainstream.
I am so excited to be kickingoff season two of Purpose
Project.
This season, we are exploringthe topic of purpose in the
workplace, how purpose shows upin different roles.
(00:24):
In different industries and indifferent types of
organizations.
Many of us spend a significantamount of time at work.
Why not fill that time withpurpose?
Today I am joined by Cathy AnnArmour.
Cathy is the CEO of the BetterBusiness Bureau in Indianapolis.
(00:44):
As a leader, Cathy has dedicatedher career.
To fostering trust, integrity,and impact in the business
community.
In this episode, she shares herperspective on what it means to
align business with purpose.
Let's take a listen.
Cathy, thank you for being onPurpose Project.
(01:07):
I am really looking forward tohaving a conversation with you
about how Purpose shows up inthe workplace.
Cathy (01:14):
Well, thank you for having me and congratulations on
season one.
I listened to Most of theepisodes so far, so I'm excited
to be on season two.
Yay! Thank you for your
Leslie (01:24):
support and for being here.
Yes, yes.
Before we dive into the topic ofpurpose in the workplace, tell
us a little bit about yourself.
Who is Cathy both, personallyand professionally?
Cathy (01:40):
It's fun to stop and take a little bit of breather and to
think about who is Cathy bothpersonally and professionally.
Because I think that who we areis busy.
And sometimes we don't evenreally stop to think about that.
And so I appreciate you askingme that question.
So, personally, I am a wife.
I'm a mom.
(02:00):
Um, I am a, I'm a child of God.
I mean, my faith dictates a lotof what I believe and how I act.
And, then I happen to have a jobas a CEO of the Better Business
Bureau serving central Indiana.
And so, That's who I amprofessionally.
Leslie (02:17):
Love that.
I want to dive into that role asCEO of Better Business Bureau.
But before we do that, onequestion that I ask everyone is,
do you have a life's purpose?
And if so, what is that?
Cathy (02:34):
I think I have two.
Because of my faith, you know,love God and love others is my
kind of personal How I try tolive and what my purpose is, but
I think even above that, Irealized very early on in my
life that I was a connector ofpeople that I could see how one
(02:55):
person I knew might relate orhelp another person I knew, or
one system I knew about mighthelp someone who was going
through a problem.
And so very early in life, I.
just defined myself by the wordconnector and connector of
(03:16):
people.
And then recently I took thestrength finders test, the
Gallup strength finders test,and found out that that is one
of my top strengths.
And I think it's interestingthat it's, it's been that way
all my life.
Wow.
And sometimes I felt like it wasa busy body kind of thing.
Like I was giving unsolicitedinformation and that's not
(03:38):
really what I meant to do.
I just like connecting peopletogether and connecting people
with different programs and,yeah, just seeing how all the
puzzles fit together.
Leslie (03:47):
Well, and I have to believe that as a connector, it
has helped you to get to thisrole of CEO as at Better
Business Bureau.
I mean, what a great leadershipattribute.
Cathy (04:00):
It's interesting because my, my, really my skill that got
me to Better Business Bureau orpretty much got me in all of my
jobs is because I'm anaccountant.
Okay.
And so, accounting is a skillthat you learn, but typically
accountants aren't known fortheir strong people skills,
their kind of, pocket protector,pen in their pocket protector
(04:24):
and, like to deal with numbersand have their calculator going
and, I wasn't the kind ofaccountant I wanted to be.
Um, I wanted to use thosenumbers and figure out From
those numbers, what could I dodifferently to change the
environment for the better?
Um, so I don't know.
(04:44):
I mean, definitely have beenconnected to a lot of good
people who have helped me get towhere I am today for sure.
Leslie (04:51):
Yeah.
When it seems like as anaccountant, that's right brain,
connector, left brain.
And so those two together seemto be a, uh, Interesting
dynamic.
Cathy (05:06):
I think the thing is I'm not a to the penny or to the
dollar accountant.
I'm more about rounding.
I'm more about rounding and,and, and getting to the point
where it's close enough that,you know, what needs to happen.
Um, so more managerialaccounting probably than just
(05:27):
strict debits and credits.
Although I'm very thankful thatat better business bureau, we
have a very detailed lady who.
Yeah.
Who likes to be to the penny.
Yes.
She was off on accountsreceivable this week and she
said, oh, I can't finalize thefinancial statements because I'm
off this amount.
And I said, it's immaterialclose the financial statements.
(05:49):
And she said, I appreciatethat's what you would do, but I
don't feel good about that.
And I said, you, you do.
You
Leslie (05:57):
So, oh, well, thank you for sharing your purpose with
us.
Yes.
I would love to.
this topic of purpose in theworkplace.
And I'm recognizing that you areboth a leader of your business
with the Better Business Bureau.
(06:19):
And also through that role,you've got this Bird's eye view
across businesses.
Yes.
So, if we could, I'd love to hiton both of those angles in your
perspective, but let's firststart with you as a leader.
How does purpose show up in theworkforce?
Cathy (06:38):
Well, I mean, I think it's so important.
I think that, um, Not only mypurpose, but my team's purpose.
I just held an orientation,right before I came here, for
two new people that started.
And I talked about, your purposehas to be aligned with the
mission of the organization.
And we are a non profitorganization, and our mission is
(07:01):
to advance Marketplace Trust.
Okay.
To be the leader in advancingMarketplace Trust.
If Marketplace Trust isn'timportant to you, you're
probably not really going towant to be able, you're not
going to use your purpose inlife for our purpose.
Okay.
So I think your purpose in lifehas to be aligned with what our
(07:22):
purpose is.
Uh huh.
Does that make sense?
It does make sense.
Yeah, so I, I always let themknow when I do this orientation
that, um, your purpose is yourpurpose, and if it doesn't match
with our purpose, Somewhereelse.
Yeah, not in a mean way, butlike in a life is short.
Yeah, you only have one life tolive Do what you're meant to do
(07:46):
and what your passion is
Leslie (07:48):
Absolutely, and what your
Cathy (07:49):
purpose is because there's only one of you so I I
mean to me it's the difference Ithink too in a decent culture
and a bad culture because Ibelieve that if you have people
that are aligned with theirpersonal purpose And with the
organization's purpose, thatthey're going to be healthier
(08:11):
and happier and that the wholeculture is going to be better.
Where if you have, you know,half of your team or a third of
your team or a quarter of yourteam are not in a line with your
purpose.
And don't see how their purposefits in with your purpose.
I'm using the word purpose anawful lot.
(08:32):
I apologize for that.
That's the show.
I love it.
Um, if they can't see how theirpurpose aligns with your
purpose, how would they behappy?
Right.
You know, how would they befulfilled?
And we spend the majority of ourwaking hours every week, you
know, tied to work, or drivingto work, or driving home from
work, or worrying about work, orPlanning for work.
(08:54):
So let's make it the best wecan.
Leslie (08:56):
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah, so I'm hearing very muchPurpose is a part of culture for
sure at Better Business Bureauand and because of that it's
very much a part of howemployees are engaged in their
work through the purpose of thebusiness and making the
(09:19):
connection between Uh, theindividual employee and, and the
purpose of the business.
Cathy (09:26):
For sure.
I mean, you know, we have aconsumer services hotline that
calls in, that accepts, our, ouroperator accepts calls from
consumers.
And, um, you know, they call inall day long and they've gotten
a letter in the mail.
You know, they've gotten a scamcall or something.
The person who is answering thatphone has to passionately care
(09:51):
about the person that they'retalking to, and they want to,
they have to believe in ourmission of advancing marketplace
trust so that they can say tothat person confidently and
patiently and calmly and, youknow, disappointing them at the
same time by saying, I'm sorry,but that's a scam.
Do not send 1, 000.
1, 000.
(10:11):
And, we see that in all areasthat we work, you know, of our
teams.
Um, if we have an accreditedbusiness service call call in,
so someone who is an accreditedbusiness calls in, and they're
having trouble, working on theirBBB business profile or whatever
their issue is.
If our customer service peoplefor those accredited businesses
(10:34):
don't really care aboutadvancing marketplace trust,
It's just going to be a whateverphone call, you know, and then
they're not going to really careabout that person's business.
But I'm so happy because thepeople that we have working for
us and doing that work, they'rereally concerned about the
consumers that are calling in orthe businesses that are calling
(10:58):
in are really concerned abouttheir business and want to try
to figure out how can they dothings better.
And so, you have to have peoplethat really care.
About advancing marketplacetrust and you can't, you can't
fake your purpose and what youenjoy.
You know, I, I often do say fakeit until you make it, but really
(11:19):
it's fake it until you make itor until you get sick of faking
it.
I like it.
You know, because, because youcan for a little while fake it,
but after that.
It's exhausting.
It is exhausting to fake it.
And so, yeah, that's what welook out for.
We look out for to make surethat those people are in the
right seat, they're doing theright thing, that they really
(11:41):
are enjoying it, that they'reconnecting what they're good
with, what their strengths are,what their purpose is, with our
purpose.
Yes.
And that's, that's the mostimportant thing to me.
I mean, I, it just really is.
Yeah.
Because I can't do every job.
But I can make sure that we havethe best people.
(12:02):
on the best seat, passionateabout their job.
And doing a good job.
I
Leslie (12:08):
love that, yeah.
So, I get the importance of theconnection for the people that
are interacting with yourmembers.
Um, you mentioned earlier, thewoman closing the books, that,
talk about how her role, And theconnection to purpose and the
importance of that for someonethat's not customer facing.
Cathy (12:30):
Yes.
Very good point.
So we happen to have, um, ourbusiness manager is just, she
has a servant's heart.
So she understands whatever sheis doing.
She is servicing those peoplewho are helping be the face of,
or the voice of.
our Better Business Bureau tothe consumers or to the
(12:53):
businesses.
And so her purpose is to serve,to be a cheerleader, um, to be
that person that when somebody'sdown she's, she'll say, I heard
you on that call, you soundedfantastic.
You know, we have an overhearsthe people that are having those
conversations with ourconsumers.
(13:13):
And, um, yeah, so we're justvery encouraging.
Making sure that everyone ifyou're behind the scenes that
you know that you have animportant role to to be a
cheerleader and that your roleis just important.
So I just described, um, kind ofour bus to our new people today
when we started and I said, soif we think of our bus as as a
(13:35):
school bus and we have, I'm, I'mthe driver of the bus for right
now for this.
For this season of my life, I'mthe driver of the bus.
And I look at our tires as kindof the revenue.
And so the tires could be flat.
They could be, um, they mighthave a lot of, um, they might be
worn.
They might not move very well.
(13:57):
Okay.
So the tires are our revenue.
So we want to have good, strong,filled tires.
Uh huh.
You know, ready to go out thereand make those calls.
And the core services team orthe administration team, the
teams that are kind of behindthe scenes helping make
everything happen, they're theframe of the bus.
And, they have to be strong andthey have to, want to create a
(14:20):
good exterior and a goodinterior.
We want to have comfy, comfyseats.
We want to have a nice shinyyellow bus.
We don't want to have holes andrust.
And so they have all this workto do.
And then our relevance is ourengine, and our relevance is
based on our content, our brand,and our relationships.
And that's our communicationsteam.
And they kind of get the enginerunning because of all of those
(14:42):
things that they're doing behindthe scenes, but it takes us all.
We have to have an engine that'srunning well.
We have to have a school busthat looks good and is good.
That is our framework and ourfoundation.
And then we have to have thewheels of our revenue team
running.
Who are able to go as fast asthey can getting accredited
businesses and keepingaccredited businesses and
(15:04):
servicing them and advancingmarketplace trust because more
and more businesses can betrusted.
And so I think that the purposeis we can't do it alone and we
have to see ourselves as part ofsomething bigger.
Exactly.
Leslie (15:20):
And the image of the bus is very vivid, and I'm imagining
your customers, your accreditedbusinesses climbing onto that
bus and you driving them alongto their success and, you know,
being a part of that.
Cathy (15:37):
Yes, and we only can do it, we're a non profit, so a lot
of people think because we haveBureau in our name.
that we're a government agencyand we're not.
The Better Business Bureau is amembership association,
organization, and we can only dothe good work that we can do
because we have accreditedbusinesses who do uphold our
standards of trust and commit tocontinue to uphold our standards
(15:58):
of trust.
And so they're paying amembership fee to us, um, and
they're agreeing to uphold thosestandards.
So, not only are they helpingus, not only are we trying to
help them, But they're alsohelping us because the money
that they're giving us, we'reable to do all the things that
we can do to make sure thatconsumers know who to trust.
(16:21):
So it's definitely a jointmission with both, us doing the
work inside, but them, ouraccredited businesses, being
trusted businesses.
That consumers, listen, everybusiness makes mistakes.
Every business is owned by anowner who has a passion for it,
(16:42):
and they have some goodemployees and some not so good
employees.
Some good employees can have baddays.
So, there's always problems thathappen in businesses.
We're not asking a business tobe perfect, but we're asking a
business to be trustworthy.
And to be responsive and to showintegrity.
Yeah.
Leslie (16:59):
Yeah.
Well, and trust is such animportant concept in business.
to sustain a business long term.
Cathy (17:09):
Trust is important everywhere.
Yeah.
Because don't you most oftenstart with trust in any, you
know, when you're building a newrelationship, you're Learning
can I trust that person and whatends a relationship quicker than
anything else is if you breakthat trust, right?
And so Yeah, the start withtrust is is just so important
(17:31):
It's kind of amazing to me thatpeople who believe so much in
trust, you know aren'taccredited businesses and it's
just because we haven't gottenour We haven't, we haven't
really gotten our message outthere about who we really are
and why trust is so important.
They know it's important becausethey're using it on their
website.
But they could also have a thirdparty person, you know, validate
(17:54):
that.
Leslie (17:55):
Absolutely.
Yes.
So, going back to purpose, it's,it sounds like it's ingrained in
the business.
Because of that, is it somethingthat you have to work on for the
business and work on meaningkeeping it alive?
(18:15):
Or does it, is it just soingrained that That there's not
attention or focus added to it.
Cathy (18:26):
That's a really good question and that's one of the
reasons why I have startedhaving an hour and a half
meeting with everyone who comeson board and to just really make
sure that they understand whatour purpose is.
And how they contribute to thatand why we meet with staff three
times a year and kind of go overall of those things.
(18:48):
But I think that we have apretty experienced staff.
Probably half of our team hasbeen with us for eight, nine,
ten years.
And then the other half havebeen there less.
But I think that you quicklybegin to understand what our
purpose is, because it, it'spretty ingrained in everything
(19:10):
that we do.
Yeah.
Leslie (19:12):
So when it's ingrained in everything that you do, other
than when new people come onboard, it's not like you need
to, have a quarterly newsletterabout company purpose or do
extra things because it's just apart of every day.
That's exactly right.
I mean,
Cathy (19:31):
I.
I think that in every, in everycommunication that we have with
our team, it's falling back tothat, what's our, you know, this
is a, we're tying it back to apurpose.
We're doing this because trustmatters to consumers.
We're doing this because trustmatters to our businesses.
We're doing this because ouraccredited businesses, are the
(19:55):
reason that we can do this workbecause they're giving us the
money.
And so our purpose is to servethem.
And so, I think it would beinteresting to know whether it's
because we are a nonprofit andwe have a mission that it's so
ingrained.
Um, because nonprofits have tohave a mission and they have to
defend that mission and makesure that they're spending their
(20:16):
money on that mission.
I think sometimes maybe for forprofit companies, it can be a
little harder to know what yourmission is and to be maybe blown
by the wind of, you know,something better might come
along, but maybe because BetterBusiness Bureau has been around
for 116 years and it's beenaround in our area for 112
(20:37):
years.
It's just so ingrained in us.
I don't know.
That's a really good questionand thinking about our
accredited businesses I do thinkthat there are a lot of
accredited businesses who arefor profit Who maybe are
relatively new who do not knowtheir purpose.
Okay, and I was
Leslie (20:55):
curious what you see across Businesses.
Yeah.
So what do you see?
Cathy (21:00):
Yeah, I think that a lot of times what we see is our
newer businesses Are in it tomake money Because they think
they can do it better than theboss they used to work for.
Okay That's a pretty commontheme about why businesses
(21:20):
start, right?
I've been an accountant all mylife.
I can have my own accountingfirm.
Okay.
Okay.
You know, I've cleaned housesnow for 10 years and I haven't
gotten a raise in the last 3 or4 so I'm going to go out and I'm
going to start my own cleaningbusiness.
And so I think that sometimesYou know, new businesses start
(21:43):
with a, just an ideology thatsays, I'm going to be able to
make more money.
Okay.
You know, um, and they don'treally start from the why.
Why do I want to have thisbusiness?
What's going to be different?
You know, what's my purpose,right?
What's my goal?
(22:03):
How do I, you know, What do Iwant my personal and
professional opinion?
They don't stop long enough.
Yeah, they probably in manycases I think they just say I'm
done working for someone else Ican make more money if I do this
on my own
Leslie (22:18):
so you were saying a lot of times what happens is people
have been doing a job forsomeone else and they decide to
go out on their own.
And that's, and that comesacross as I can make more money
doing it myself.
And I'm wondering though if ifthey're doing that job whether
it's for themselves or forsomeone else because it's
(22:41):
aligned with their purpose.
And in going out on their own,it's still purposeful for them,
but now it's got this addedlayer of generating more income.
Cathy (22:55):
Yeah, for sure.
I hope that that's what most ofthem do.
I think that if they are reallygood at something, they love
what they're doing, that itbrings them joy, they can see a
greater purpose in their lifebecause of that, then certainly
they can be either an employeeor they can be the employer.
(23:15):
I think what often times doesn'thappen is the conscious thought
of this is my purpose and I canfulfill it whether I am here
serving as an employee orwhether I'm an employer.
Also, I think becoming theemployer and starting your own
(23:37):
business and then havingemployees under you is a
completely different thing thanbeing An employee who is
serving.
Exactly.
Now you can still be a personwho serves and encourages
people, but you have tounderstand what gave you that
purpose in being the employeewas the service and then figure
(23:58):
out how to be the employer.
That is still doing the serving,right?
Because those jobs are verydifferent, sometimes we just
don't take time to think about,what's your personal and
professional purpose?
We don't think about it veryoften.
And certainly when we're makinga big life change, we should.
(24:20):
We should sit down and thinkabout what our purpose is and
start with our why andunderstand what we want to do
and make sure that it's, Trulysomething that's going to
fulfill us and I think onlyliving out your life on purpose
will fulfill you.
Leslie (24:37):
Agree, absolutely.
I do too.
So, so you're seeing acrossbusinesses, people are hopping
over and starting a businesswithout intention or conscious
of purpose in doing that.
Why should they?
Why should they lead withpurpose or be conscious of it?
(24:59):
What benefits are there forbusiness?
Cathy (25:03):
So to understand your purpose is the beginning of
understanding your why, right?
And once you understand yourpurpose and your why, Then you
can make a plan to begin withthe end in mind.
So then you say, you know, my,my long term purpose in life is,
my long term purpose in lifeprofessionally is to mentor as
(25:29):
many people as to be, fantastichumans in the workplace,
fantastic leaders in theworkplace, once I'm not a leader
in the workplace.
So, I'm always thinking aboutthat when I'm doing my work.
Leslie (25:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, is it fair to say that if westart with purpose, and bring
purpose into our businessconsciously, that the outcome of
that will be personalfulfillment.
For sure.
(26:06):
For
Cathy (26:06):
sure.
I mean, you know, I think thatone pitfall is Really taking the
time to understand what yourpurpose is.
Really figuring out, I guessI've said this before, but like
really just sitting with it fora while to figure out what is my
(26:27):
purpose?
Who am I?
What am I good at?
What are my strengths?
And being able to be self awareenough to understand yourself to
be able to say, that's not mystrength, but this is my
strength.
Even if that's not what you wantit to be.
Um, I think in my early years Istruggled a lot with, um, I was
(26:48):
a strong personality.
I had opinions.
And I had to really spend time,like, really understanding I can
use that for good or I can useit for evil.
And really understanding who Iwas and how to be as healthy as
I could be so that I could usethe strengths that I had.
(27:12):
way.
And I just, I think that it justtakes a little bit of self
reflection and sometimes wedon't slow down enough to do
that.
Yeah.
So I think, I think advice Iwould give anyone who's willing,
who, who's trying to figure outwhat their purpose is, is just a
lot of contemplation and a lotof soul searching about who they
(27:33):
are.
I, I am a huge proponent of allthings personality type to
understand yourself more.
Um, Enneagram, um, GallopStrength Finders, DISC, all
those things, you know, remindme how I was made, and what my
strengths are, and remind me touse those positively, and then
(27:59):
to connect that, and to allowthose things to be part of my
purpose.
Right.
To, to, um, not to fight who Iam.
But to believe in who I am andto use who I am to inform my
(28:20):
purpose consciously.
I'm just an old lady who's kindof still trying to figure it
out, but yeah.
Leslie (28:30):
Well, I love that you shared that because season one
was all about people withclarity in their purpose and
they're actively pursuing it.
And.
One of the conclusions that Idrew from those conversations is
exactly what you're talkingabout.
(28:52):
It is about, in order todiscover our life's purpose and
to live a life of purpose, wehave to have self understanding.
We have to look in the mirrorand we have to accept what we
see.
And as you were talking aboutthat, I found myself wondering,
(29:13):
is that same prerequisite neededfor business?
Cathy (29:20):
For business leaders?
Leslie (29:22):
For a business to exist, do you do the same thing on the
business of looking at themirror it's more of a collective
view in the mirror.
Cathy (29:32):
It sure is, and I, I really, I believe yes.
In order for an organization tobe healthy.
In order for it to treat itsemployees right, in order to,
you know, treat the world thatit's serving right, it has to
have a leadership team thatlooks in the mirror and says,
(29:56):
are we the right people to leadthe purpose of this
organization?
And do we even understand whatthe purpose of the organization
is?
Think another way for me tothink about it is, I think that
before I personally was matureenough or thoughtful enough to
(30:18):
kind of really understand who Iam, I wouldn't want to be
leading a business.
Because I would have maybe donemore bad than I would have, than
I, and I don't feel that I'm notsaying that I'm perfect, but I
do feel that I understand enoughabout myself now to help the
organization also understandabout itself and make sure that
(30:39):
the leaders of it are all kindof moving in the same direction,
which is what creates thepurpose of the business.
Right.
But I don't think that you cando that if you don't have Self
aware business owners orleaders, right?
So Yes, I think a business hasto understand its purpose, but
(31:01):
it also has to come from itsleaders
Leslie (31:04):
Exactly, and the leaders need to have that self awareness
Cathy (31:10):
I had a fantastic mentor.
So I worked for the samegentleman for.
25 years in a couple ofdifferent roles.
So I worked from him from thetime I was 25 until I was 50.
And so I feel like it's been soingrained in me that I can't
imagine.
(31:30):
what my life would look like orwhat my professional life would
look like if I didn't have that.
And there was a period of timein my life when I had a
situation where I didn't feellike the purpose was aligned to
the leader that I was workingfor.
And I couldn't do it.
(31:52):
And, um, so I think that, As abusiness, you can probably have
employees if you're not a leaderwho will look at yourself
authentically and look at thepurpose of the business
authentically.
But I think that like bringslike.
Yeah, and those who are moreself aware and drawn to the
(32:16):
purpose and drawn to Helpingeach other find their purpose
and encouraging each other tolive on purpose Rather than
holding on tightly to somethingthat maybe isn't You just you
attract what you what you are,right?
and so I'm not saying thatbusinesses can't succeed that
(32:37):
way because there are businessesout there who exceed that way,
but I know what I don't like,and what I don't like, when it
doesn't work, I'm willing to sayit's purpose, the business
purpose.
And the leader's purpose at thebusiness and their ability to
(32:57):
share that purpose and inspireme matters more to me than a
paycheck.
Love that.
You know?
Yeah.
And so I don't, I don't want todo that.
And I, now I have a fiduciaryresponsibility to be a person
who is careful with the peoplethat are working for me and make
(33:19):
sure that they understand thatwhile our purpose, the business
purpose is important, I'm Thatif they're not in alignment with
it and something or somethingbetter comes along for them,
their personal purpose is moreimportant than my business
purpose.
Um, and I, I, I just think thatwho would want to work in a
(33:45):
business that didn't have aclear communicated purpose.
Yeah.
Leslie (33:52):
Yeah, but I feel like so many people do stay stuck in
jobs that they're not happy inwith leaders that aren't leading
from purpose, but maybe fear or,or this kind of sense of
responsibility, it really iseach of our responsibility to,
(34:16):
to live the life that we want tolive.
Cathy (34:18):
It really is.
And you know what?
I'm not afraid to push someoneif we have four values at Better
Business Bureau and then we haveabout 18 values infused
behaviors.
And so our evaluations are basedon values infused behaviors.
And if those are the values ofour organization in order to hit
(34:40):
our business purpose, then weknow there's certain behaviors
and, um, and they're welldefined.
Leslie (34:48):
Give us an example.
Um,
Cathy (34:50):
so professionalism, um, team, interpersonal team, uh,
motivation, dependability, someof those things.
And so they're more soft skills.
But they tell a lot about theperson and, you know, a lot of
times you're judged on qualityof work or quantity of work.
(35:11):
Well, you can find someone to doquality work and you can find
someone to do quantity of work.
But we look more at the valuesinfused behaviors.
To understand, um, you know,how's your communication?
Do you treat peoplerespectfully?
Are you defensive in tone?
Um, you know, how's yourpunctuality?
(35:32):
Are you where you're supposed tobe when you're supposed to be
there?
Can your team count on you?
And so, we look at those and,and we're just not afraid to
address them.
Yeah.
You know, where I think, I thinkpeople are used to being
addressed.
People are used to saying, I'mdoing, I'm there and I'm doing
my work.
Well, that doesn't help thebusiness purpose any, and a
(35:54):
person who comes in inspired bytheir purpose to do the business
purpose and has the behaviorsthat are, that our, our values
ask them to have, then they're acompletely aligned person.
Right.
we call out behavior.
And I think oftentimes.
(36:15):
That's difficult for people todo.
Uh huh.
They're just, we've got to buttin a seat and let's move on.
And it takes too much work tohire someone and to train
someone, so why do we wantsomeone different?
Well, we're not doing them afavor by having them on our team
and not really letting themsucceed.
(36:37):
That's not their purpose inlife, right?
And it's not our purpose inbusiness to have people working
for us that are not reallyaligned with you know What we
need to fulfill our purpose.
Yeah, so I'm always looking forI'm always looking for the a
person who has Purpose that Ican see is going to fit in with
(36:59):
us and then figure out how toget them to the best and highest
Use for us.
Yeah, because I want them to befulfilled and to you know, live
their life on purpose
Leslie (37:09):
And as you're, as you're talking, I have an image in my
head of a scale and you as aleader sound very much like
you're balancing the purpose,the mission of the business and
the purpose of the individualsin the business.
Cathy (37:29):
For sure.
You know, a funny story.
I became the CEO of BetterBusiness Bureau in December of
2021.
And in January of 2022, weedited our employee handbook,
just, it hadn't been updated ina while.
And I wanted to put a letterfrom the CEO in there.
And so I wrote a letter aboutwhat was important to me in this
(37:54):
season of time when I wasleading the Better Business
Bureau.
And the very closing paragraphwas this.
So controversial.
It, it cracks me up that it wascontroversial.
But I said, if you ever findthat you, that working here is
not something that's bringingyou joy, and that you just don't
(38:18):
want to be here anymore, I begof you to go find where you
should be.
And honestly, that some of thepeople that have been around for
a while took it not the way Imeant it.
I did not mean go find anotherjob.
I sincerely meant, I want thebest for you.
I want you to live your life.
(38:39):
You only have one life.
I only have one life.
And I want to make sure that I'mable to live the best life that
I can.
Um, I want to live my life onpurpose.
And my purpose is making surethat people, you know, are
connected to as many things asthey need.
To make sure that they find outhow to live on purpose.
(39:01):
And so I don't want them to feellike, they have to stay in a job
because I've been there for 20years and nobody else knows how
to do my job.
Trust me, I can find somebodyelse to do your job and they
will be trained.
They'll do the job differentlythan you will.
It'll take them longer to learnwhat you knew.
But if you have something thatis, like, important to you, that
(39:24):
you want to do in life, Do it.
Don't stay there just because.
And it was, I found out after Iwrote it that, you know, it kind
of, not, I don't want to sayoffended people, but made them
feel like because they hadn'texperienced other things, maybe
(39:44):
I was asking them to go on.
That's not what I was doing.
I was saying don't let the factthat you've always been here or
that you're here now keep youhere if you have a greater
purpose.
Right.
Leslie (39:57):
Yeah, I love that.
I love it.
And it sounds like you, itsounds like you got feedback on
that and also dealt with that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cathy (40:08):
I mean, it was, it was just, I, this, the paragraph is
still in there.
And so when I do my orientationwith new employees, I talk
about, you know, I talk about,like, you're here for this time,
and that's fine.
We had a gentleman who, um, justa couple of years ago, uh, he
told us in a meeting that hereally wanted to go to law
(40:29):
school.
And I, he had been with us for acouple of years, and I said to
him, why don't you?
And he said, um, I don't know.
And I said, well, have youresearched it?
Yeah, it's a lot of money.
Have you thought about this?
Long story short, I wrote arecommendation letter, and he
went to law school.
He was a fantastic employee.
Really good employee, but youknow, I was so excited that I
(40:54):
got to connect him to what hereally wanted to do in life So
if you know if my team if anyoneon my team says I really want to
do this, I'd help them figure itout You know, yeah, you're a
connector.
Yes.
I'm a connector and I wantpeople to really
Leslie (41:12):
Make the most of their life.
That is coming through loud andclear.
Good.
So I imagine there are peoplelistening and let's take a
person who might be listeningthat is a leader that maybe uh,
is struggling with connectingtheir team to purpose.
(41:34):
Any advice for that type ofleader?
Cathy (41:38):
I think it sounds to me that if the leader is having
trouble connecting their personTheir people to that, to the, to
the business purpose.
Maybe they haven't defined theirpurpose or the business's
purpose.
Okay.
So, I mean, I have, I have someBibles of the business world and
(42:01):
I mean you've heard me, you'veheard me say start with Y many
times, um, and I mean I wouldencourage them to read, start
with Y.
I would encourage them to readSeven Habits of Highly Effective
People.
And figure out, do they knowtheir purpose?
Do they know their business'spurpose?
And then how can they start todo that?
(42:23):
Because I think once you knowyour purpose, I don't think it's
hard to share it.
Yeah.
Once you know your business'spurpose, I don't know that it's
hard to share.
I would think another resourcetoo would be, um, have you ever
read the book StoryBrand byDonald Miller?
Leslie (42:39):
No,
Cathy (42:39):
I haven't.
So, Donald Miller was a, awriter years ago and he's kind
of transitioned into being abusiness person now.
Um, but StoryBrand is about howto write a story of your
business where Your consumers,the people that you're serving
are the heroes, but you're theirguide.
And so it's, it's kind of a,it's based on a typical movie
(43:02):
plot, a typical story plot.
Um, but using that to help tellthe story of why you're in
business, um, and connect it toyour consumers.
So there's some really goodexercises in that book, too.
So, Story Brand by Donald Milleris a fantastic one to align your
team with.
Leslie (43:22):
Yeah.
Cathy (43:23):
After you're certain that you know your personal purpose.
Leslie (43:27):
Well, and the personal purpose, what I was thinking of
there is, You have to rolemodel, you have to be the role
model for the connection topurpose, the business purpose.
Right.
Cathy (43:41):
Yep.
I just recently took a survey.
Um, it was about, uh,businesses, there are blind
spots in businesses.
And one of the, one of thequestions was, do all of your
team members see themselvesconnected to the purpose of your
(44:02):
business through their jobdescription?
And I thought that was reallyimportant, really, a really good
thing to think about too,because job descriptions can be
very black and white.
But trying to figure out how toget your job description to
also, like you had just asked meabout our business manager, how
does she connect to the purpose?
(44:23):
And you know, helping her seethat her servanthood, the
ability, you know, the behindthe scenes work that she's
doing.
And the cheerleading that shedoes connects her to the purpose
of the whole organizationbecause she's a part of the
whole and she's supporting andserving the whole.
So I thought that was also areally good point that I need to
(44:43):
go in and look at those jobdescriptions and figure out how
can I make sure that people, Ithink they do see themselves,
but it's not on their jobdescription.
And I think that would be a goodthing to do also.
Love that.
Leslie (44:55):
Yeah.
Yes.
Anything left unsaid on thetopic of purpose in the
workplace?
No,
Cathy (45:02):
I, I, I appreciate you having me on board and I can't
wait to listen to what otherpeople have because I've been
fortunate to have a lot of jobswhere purpose was very clear
and, and therefore to get itingrained in me.
So, um, I'm interested to hearhow other people have grown to,
bring purpose into theirbusiness also.
Leslie (45:22):
I will be sure to share.
All right.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Cathy, for being onPurpose Project.
I am taking away.
a lot from our conversation andI appreciate you sharing.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for having
Cathy (45:34):
me.
It was a pleasure.
Leslie (45:36):
As I reflect on this conversation, I can't help, but
think about the deep connectionbetween purpose and leadership.
When we take the time to trulyunderstand our business, its
impact and its reason forexisting.
And we couple that with a deepunderstanding of who we are, our
(45:57):
strengths, our weaknesses, andour purpose.
And then we live that out eachand every day at work and
outside of work.
Isn't that what leadership isall about?
Cathy's insights remind us thatpurpose isn't just a concept.
It's a practice.
It's, it's a practice inleadership.
(46:20):
It's a practice that requiresself awareness, alignment, and
intention.
Thank you, Cathy, for being onPurpose Project and thanks to
all of you for tuning in.
Until next time, keep asking,how well do you know the purpose
of your work?
And are you living it out eachand every day?
(46:46):
Purpose Project is brought toyou for education and for
entertainment purposes.
This podcast is not intended toreplace the advice that you
would receive from a licensedtherapist or doctor or any other
qualified professional.
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