Developing a Social Purpose in Your Organization | Carolyn Butler-Madden | Episode 224

Scott McCarthy [00:00:00]:
On episode 224 of the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast, we speak to expert Carolyn Butler Madden, and she’s gonna tell you how you can develop a social purpose for your organization and how that is going to make it skyrocket. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. It’s all but social purpose today. Are you ready for this? Alright. Let’s do it. Welcome 1. Welcome all to the Peak Performance Leadership podcast, a weekly podcast series dedicated to helping you hit peak performance across the 3 domains of leadership. Those being leading yourself, leading your team, and leading your organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:00:49]:
This podcast couples my 20 years of military experience as a senior Canadian army officer with world class guests bringing you the most complete podcast on leadership going. And for more, feel free to check out our website at moving forward leadership.com. And with Thad. Let’s get to the show. Yes. Welcome 1. Welcome all. It is your chief leadership officer, Scott McCarthy, and it’s so great to have you here for yet another episode of the Peak Performance Leadership podcast.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:27]:
Today, we are going down a route that we’ve never been on the show, and that is talking about social purpose. And if you don’t know what social purpose is, it’s basically taking some kind of purpose that helps society get better and putting that behind. Basically, the reason to enter for your company, your business, your organization. We’re starting to see social purpose more and more in the world and organizations getting behind it, but yet it still goes with some criticism and backlash because there are some people out there who say businesses can’t get into basically politics. That’s what it’s viewed as. Now I understand where they’re coming from, but at the same time, as the world is changing, as the workforce is changing, as the people who we lead change, so must our organizations. And that’s what we are talking about today. In fact, I brought on expert Carolyn Butler of men to discuss just this topic.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:44]:
And we go into what it is and how it relates to, organization, what the admin trust bomber is, and why businesses need social for purpose in the 1st place, why trust is so crucial in business, and how to develop an organizational identity amongst many other topics. Carolyn is inspired by future where business is a force for good and brands drive Proffitt through purpose, and you’re gonna hear this theme over and over again. In fact, she brings out a number of examples to help you with understanding what that is. Carolyn is a author. She’s got a number of books. Her first one, Path to Purpose, was Australia’s 1st on Cause Marketing, and she’s got a 30 year international marketing career with which includes 18 years of being an agency owner. So she understands marketing, leadership as being a former business owner as well as the need for social purpose in your organization. Now I’m sure you’re listening to the show and maybe you’re like, oh, Scott, I’m a middle leader.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:02]:
Guess what? We got you covered. Oh, Scott. I’m a brand new leader. We got you covered. Oh, Scott. I’m a small business owner. Guess what? We got you covered. This topic is not for big corporate businesses only, but for everyone that leads.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:24]:
So that’s it for today. So why don’t you Sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation all about developing a social purpose in your organization with Carolyn Butler Carolyn, welcome to the show. So good to have you here today.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:04:55]:
Oh, thank you for having me, Scott. I’m really pleased to be here.

Scott McCarthy [00:05:00]:
So we’re kinda diving into your book, For Love and For Money, which is kinda, you know, revolve around that social responsibility for organizations out there, may mainly businesses, to really grab a cause and, You know, go after it type thing. So before we really get into nuts and bolts of it, though, can you just explain to a listener out there, you know, When we talk about social responsibility, what is it that we’re talking about for them so they have a baseline understanding?

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:05:28]:
Yeah. Sure. And and instead of calling it social responsibility, I call it social purpose because I think there’s a big difference. Social responsibility or corporate social responsibility is all about giving back. Right? It’s like, you know, biz it was a recognition by business that, you know, there was a cost of doing business and there was negative impact, so it’s balancing the book books whereas

Scott McCarthy [00:05:53]:
Yeah. My MBA coming out of me here.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:05:56]:
Yeah. And but but but social purpose is about serving, serving, to create meaningful positive change in society through your business, through and beyond your business, your products and services. So it’s it’s a little bit different and there’s a a really beautiful framing that, that someone gave it, which is in corporate social responsibility is less bad. And in the world we live in today, That just doesn’t cut it. What we need are responsible social corporations, and that’s where social purpose comes in.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:36]:
So can you go a little bit deeper? You know, that social the corporation that you just said there at the last at the end? Like, What do

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:06:43]:
you mean by that? Social corporations.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:46]:
Yeah. Yeah. There we go.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:06:47]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. Happy to. So what I mean by that is Business if you think if you think about business over the last 40, 50 years, you know, business is there to create profit. And when business creates profit, everything else will flow from it. You’ll be able to employ people. We’ll be able to look after them, Look after communities, give back, do all this stuff, and, you know, that that was the basic theory of trickle down economics And Milton Friedman’s shareholder capitalism model.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:07:21]:
Right? Which we’ve all followed. But, You know, take a look around and look where it’s got us. There’s nothing wrong with capitalism. Capitalism is Incredible. But shareholder capitalism, this focus purely on profit is the Single, the sole responsibility of business, has led us to to a place where, you know, the negative impacts are so visible for us all to see, not just in climate change, not just in environment and biodiversity, but in the increasing, inequality between nations and also between people within nations, the the wealth gap, and all the issues that come from that, and a whole stack of issues beyond that as well. So When I talk about responsible social corporations, what I mean there is this idea that business should serve society’s needs. In fact, you know, the economy should serve a society’s needs. We’re not there.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:08:30]:
We shouldn’t be there to serve the economy just for the economy’s sake. The economy should be serving society’s needs. Business needs to serve society’s needs. Business needs to be profitable. It has to be profitable if it’s going to serve society’s needs in any meaningful way. But, this idea of business just being about profit, we’ve just gotta leave it behind. You know? There is a very, very clear expectation from people. There’s a ton of research to support this that right now, Societal change is now a core expectation of business.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:09:13]:
Business is still catching up with society’s expectations, and that’s being driven by, employees. It’s being driven by consumers, And it’s being driven by investors, both private investors and institutional investors. So responsible social corporations or business with a social purpose means that business needs to serve all of its stakeholders. It cannot just be focused on profit. It’s got to serve the needs of its own people, its employees, its customers, the communities it operates in, And the environment, and, of course, their investors as well.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:55]:
Now one could argue that The reason that businesses exist in the 1st place is to help people and help society. You know? The the the tenant of business. Find a hole. Fill the hole with the product, good service, whatever. And life’s life is supposed to be good. But you’re arguing that, you know, even more, even beyond that from you know, with your book and everything you just said.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:10:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And and, you know, I feel like if you, if you go back to pre Milton Friedman days, you know, biz business initially, as you say, Scott, it was there to serve, it was there to serve needs in society. And I’ll use, the example of Unilever. So Unilever, one of the world’s biggest packaged goods companies, they are a purposeful business. They have a really strong purpose, which is a social purpose. And they’ve been on this path for a good 12 years.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:11:05]:
Okay? So their purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace. Think about that for a moment. Okay? They’re a packaged goods company. They produce a ton of plastic. Think of all their household products. So so they’ve got products like, you know, Dove and Ben and Jerry’s and Axe saw links depending on which part of the world you’re in, and Omo, you know, just the big, big brands in the supermarkets. Okay? And yet their purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace. So the very issues that they contribute to, They’re actually looking to, to to to solve, to to to regenerate, if you like.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:11:55]:
And, if you go back to the founder of Unilever, sir William Lever. Unilever started with Sunlight Soap way back. I don’t even I don’t can’t remember the date it it started. But it started with a purpose, and that was about, helping, people with their hygiene. Okay. So that’s a very clear purpose, and that’s filling a need. But where business has just Gone over the last 40, 50 years is this single focus on single-minded focus on profit, which has led many leaders to make decisions that, you know, are very questionable ethically. And, you know, they’ve had So supposedly, a license to do that because that’s what everyone believes business should be about or that’s Been what everyone thinks business should be about.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:12:57]:
And then, of course, they balance the books by corporate social responsibility. But now the market is speaking, and now, you know, people are saying, no. If you look at the Do you know the Edelman Trust Barometer?

Scott McCarthy [00:13:13]:
Actually, no. I don’t. Plea please educate me.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:13:17]:
So Edelman are a global, communications PR and communications firm, And they have been researching trust for the last 20 years. So they are, You could call them experts on trust. Right? They’ve they’ve got a lot of credible data on trust and, trust Within our major institutions, so government, business, NGOs, and media. And, the last few years, there’s been a huge decline in trust across all of those institutions. And When COVID hit, it varied a little bit around the world, but generally, there was a spike In trust. So, you know, with with the initial response to COVID in different in some parts of the world, there was more trust. So here in Australia, for example, It went up. But now it’s gone right down again.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:14:20]:
Every institution falls below the trust line, so falls into distrusted territory, except business. And then it drills down deeper into business. And it’s not just business generally, like the big corporates. It’s my employer. So trust is local. Okay? And people are looking so basically, people have lost trust in governments. They have realized that governments alone can no longer solve the big problems that society has, And they’re looking to business, to lead the solutions and lead the change. And It it reflects a recognition that business has the capability.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:15:09]:
It’s got the means. It’s got the scale. It’s It’s got the resources. It’s got the, you know, ability to create innovative solutions. So there’s a recognition in the market that business can lead this change, and, you know, it has to collaborate with all the other institutions in order to do that. So The focus is now on business to do that, and we’re seeing right around the world businesses like Unilever and, you know, many other businesses who are Recognising not just their responsibility to change, but the opportunity within that. So those that are leading the change are attracting, you know, passionate and fiercely loyal employees Who, because they’re because they’re inspired by the change the organisation wants to make, Like, they’re bringing their best game to business. Right? Like, because they feel like they’re doing something meaningful.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:16:12]:
And then, you know, and then you’ve got that their loyalty as well, so so they stay longer. You’ve got customers Who love you know, it goes to to the title in my book, love. They love what that brand stands for or what they’re doing, and they tell their friends about it, and they tell their family about it. And, increasingly, they’re prepared to pay more for brands that are doing good And enabling them as their consumers or customers to do good as well. And they’re less likely to switch away from those brands, You know, when someone comes along and just drops a price, for example. So price is not the thing that that drives the market in that case. And, and investors. You know, ESG, environmental social governance, is becoming a critical issue for investment companies.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:17:02]:
And it’s no longer enough to just look at the the profitability of a business. They want to look at they’re looking at risk In business. Right? And ESG is something that actually helps, them navigate that risk. So, so yeah. Basically, that those are the stakeholders who are going, no. Business has to step up, and we will reward those businesses and brands that do it, and we want to be part of the movement to change that they create.

Scott McCarthy [00:17:36]:
Wow. There’s so many great nuggets in there. So hard to reflect. Actually, So a while ago, I actually mentioned that businesses do need to, you know, look for a different purpose other than profits and go after that because of the reasons that you said. The generation entering the workforce don’t, you know, I shouldn’t say don’t care about money per se, but they’re what they’re more passionate about is finding that purpose and, you know, looking to make the change. And that was the the the reason the rationale behind my statement. And I’ll give you a few examples of, you know, personal things of that you along the lines of what you talked about. You know? We are willing to pay more for other brands or we’re willing to do things.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:21]:
Right? So as we discussed before I record, I’m a Canadian. And my wife and I will seek Canadian products first, you know, depending on the situation. We you know, we’re more likely buying something Canadian. There’s 2 product settings side by side identical, and one was made in Canada and the other one was not. And the Canadian one is a bit more we are more likely to buy the Canadian one because we’re supporting local. That’s important to us. So there’s that. Right? And but it goes in line with what you’re talking about, the purpose behind the organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:54]:
Now on the negative side of that, a while ago, I don’t know if it happened in Australia, but you probably heard about the whole, The Volkswagen diesel gate scandal some some years ago. Well, guess who owned a diesel gate car? My wife did. Not me.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:19:11]:
Yeah. Right.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:12]:
But, it was obvious through that whole ordeal to me, They were trying advice doing the right thing. They were trying to minimize the financial impact to the corporation. That’s what they were doing. So when you looked at Yep. When you look at all the the buyback, The package that I got, I was extremely upset with it, from from, the Canadian perspective. I I thought the American one was relatively fair, but the Canadian one, I was extremely upset. And the reason, I was upset with. I I thought the, there was there was multiple aspects to that buyback and and quickly.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:57]:
So we got black book value of the vehicle just prior to the announcement, which to me was fair. Like, that makes sense. Okay. Cool. The problem I had was that, they paid a, a restitution fee to the owners, I e, sorry for being our accomplices in our crime. However, that’s how I say it. Right? They they they

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:20:21]:
say it’s

Scott McCarthy [00:20:21]:
a restitution payment. Right? However, what they did was the The newer cars got more. IE, there were less of them sold, and the older cars got less because there were more of them sold. But if you think about the purpose of that payment, it was to say, sorry for making you a accomplice in your crime. I’m the one with the oldest vehicle driving it the longest, yet you’re giving me the least amount of money.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:20:51]:
Yeah. That doesn’t make any sense at all, does it?

Scott McCarthy [00:20:54]:
It’s completely inverse, but if you if you Logically, think about it. And if you go ahead and look up the numbers, because I actually did look up production numbers and sales figures, there were more 20 we had a 2015 Dinamo. I can’t remember now. 2010. We had a 2010. Yeah. Because my wife bought a brand new 2010. So we had a 2010, which was 1st year for that model when they did this scandal, and it was it was 2015 when they got busted.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:20]:
So if you look at the production numbers, It was generally 20 tens were higher because there was a new model blah blah blah. A lot of hype around it, and they petered off 2015. By the time the scandal broke, Obviously, sales ceased on the vehicle. Yeah. You think do you think I’ll ever step into a Volkswagen dealership again?

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:21:39]:
Exactly. And and what does it go back to, Scott? It’s trust. Yeah. And trust trust is the currency of business today. It’s always been the the currency of business, but but never more so than today when there is so much mistrust going on. You know, the more trusted a business is, you will see the correlation on the more on how how successful They are. And it’s it’s really interesting to see play out. So we, literally, it’s been in the news in the last 2 days here in Australia, The energy crisis.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:22:15]:
Right? And the, you know, the media are telling us it it’s about to hit Consumer prices because of the energy wholesale market. And there is an energy, Don’t know if they’re a reseller or anyway, they’re an energy provider. And they have literally done their risk assessment, and they are telling their customers, you better leave us. Like, this is unheard of. Right? But they have realized that the prices are gonna spiral so much that the backlash on their brand is going to be, just, you know, a death wish for them. So I have no idea what they think what they’re gonna do their business, but I’ve never heard of anything like it. And and I guess they realize that they just cannot afford To let their customers cope it and deal with trust backlash. So, you know

Scott McCarthy [00:23:21]:
Yeah. It’s That’s super interesting. I’ve never heard of that neither. Well, kahunas, to say such a thing. But maybe but, you know, along the thread of trust, maybe what they’re after is, you know, maybe they are working on the transition plan in the background that we don’t Yeah. That you’re not aware of. And what they’re probably hoping is if we keep if we build the you know, keep our trust our our our customers’ trust now, they may not be our customer, but they still trust our brand. And then when we come back, you know, version 2.0 or whatever and say, hey.

Scott McCarthy [00:23:54]:
This is what we’re doing now. Maybe they’ll come back to us or at least a significant, a portion of them. Interesting.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:24:00]:
I reckon I reckon you’re absolutely right. And and that’s it. It’s trust. And every business, small, medium, or large, has to think, has to ask the question, how am I building trust with my employees? How am I building because it starts from the inside out. Right? How am I building trust with my customers? How am I building trust with my partners and collaborators and my investors? And how strong is that trust? Because it is the currency for success. And the more we’re living in we’re living in volatile times, and the more, You know, things happen like this, an energy crisis. The more we start to see who these organizations really are And what matters for them to them. And, you know, it goes to something I talk about a lot is your organizational identity.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:24:59]:
It’s who you are. Everyone talks about purposes, your why, but your why, Your why becomes even deeper when you start thinking about who, you know, who you are, what your organizational identity is, how You know, what matters to you? What is your world view? And how do you respond at moments like v, you know, VW Dieselgate? How do you respond at moments like an energy crisis? How do you respond when when you have bushfires and floods and and stuff like that? And, ultimately, what are you doing to serve society’s needs? Because there is huge needs that need to be solved. So what are you doing? Or are you just sitting on your hands and selling as much bleep as you can to make as much money as possible?

Scott McCarthy [00:25:52]:
No. Yeah. Absolutely agree with you. Now for the leaders out there that are listening, oh, Wow. That makes a lot of sense. We don’t really have social purpose. We are definitely that business that’s in it for the money. You know, we’re here to make money.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:14]:
Sure. We got a great product. We got a great service, but, you know, we don’t have a social purpose right now. How how can they go about establishing, you know, developing one, figuring out what What it should be because as you’ve kind of, highlighted through the book, there’s usually a bit of a tie between What the business offers and what their purpose is. Right? For example, you got you talk about Patagonia a lot. Patagonia is a very massive out outdoorsy retailer, but they’re very, you know, involved in, you know, saving the planet, greener Greener technology, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So there’s that connection there. So for the leaders out there, you know, how can they go about trying to figure this out and then going to implement, you know, that change where they’re actually gonna go and, you know, take a social purpose and go after it.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:27:09]:
Yeah. That’s that’s a great question. And as you’ve highlighted, Scott, the the closer That your social purpose is to what you already do. The more meaningful it’s going to be, the more credible it’s going to be, and the more impact you’ll be able to create. So Patagonia, as you mentioned, you know, they’re an apparel outdoor apparel company. Right? And their purpose is, is to it’s all around the environment. It’s to save our home planet, in simple terms. And everything they do is about that.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:27:50]:
It’s yes. They sell things, but they look at selling the best. You know? The the they use the kind of material that has the least impact on the environment. They look at different ways. They went into food. An apparel company launched Patagonia Provisions, a food company, because they asked the question, If we’re serious about saving our home planet, we need to show that food production can be done sustainably and profitably. So, you know, now you can get, that. Unilever, who I mentioned before, big, big, big packaged goods company, their purpose is is to make sustainable living commonplace.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:28:26]:
So they they’ve they’ve marked it out right in the center of the greatest damage that they do. And, you know, they have driven massive innovation, through that purpose and by having brands with purpose as well. So how do you go about it? I’ll I’ll share with you, a simple, simple framework that I use as part of the starting point of doing it when I work with my clients. But before I share that framework, There is an exercise that I think is really important and I talked about before starting with who, and and that is it. It’s really starting to think about your identity and who you are. And when I say you, I mean, you as the business, You as the people within the business, as the leaders of the business, you as in the your best customers of the business, you as in your, investors in the business. So thinking about the best of you, Actually thinking about so if you’re a large organ or a medium or large sized organization, start thinking about the people who represent the very best of you as employees, as leaders, as customers, as investors. Think about who they are.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:29:51]:
Think about what their needs are that the business serves, but then go beyond that and start thinking about their desires, their deeper desires as people, right, as as human beings. And then think about their narrative, their worldview, their beliefs, and what is that shared narrative of the company, Not around your products and services, but around things that really matter to them that your products and services might be able to impact. Okay. So Patagonia’s shared narrative, people who love the natural environment. They’re your, You know, your surfers, your your hikers, the people who love to get out into the great outdoors And enjoy it. And their shared narrative is a love of their natural environment. Okay? And Once you know that, that’s when you can go into a purpose that is probably far deeper than what you would normally do. So there’s that bit.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:30:58]:
And then the simple framework I talked about is if you imagine a Venn diagram, Three circles. The 1st circle is, what you do. Okay? And you just populate that with all the things you do, your products, your services, all that stuff. The 2nd circle is what the world needs. Okay. And you populate that. And, obviously, the closer you get to the intersection between what you do and the world needs is where you start to see opportunity forming and your sweet spot. And, normally, you can start to get into your purpose territory there.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:31:38]:
The 3rd overlapping circle is, what cause you can serve. And those 3 overlapping circles and the intersection between there is where you can start identifying what your social purpose is.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:00]:
Yeah. That makes absolute sense, especially, I think. And if you think about what we’ve been talking about, you know, when you talk about, you know, the first 2 circles, you know, that is business right there. What you got and what the world needs. Boom. That’s business. But then when you take that 3rd circle and drop it on top, like, okay. This is now, you know, business 2 point o.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:21]:
Welcome to the new world. Welcome to the new world. Right? So

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:32:25]:
And that’s it. It’s a paradigm shift, isn’t it? There’s a huge paradigm shift that’s happening right now. 2 point

Scott McCarthy [00:32:31]:
o. No. For sure. Absolutely. And and it it’s all kinds of different scales. So we talked to, like, some massive companies. You know, we mentioned Patagonia. You mentioned Unilever, but you also had examples of, like, super small businesses.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:44]:
I really like the one about Dave’s Killer Bread. I thought it was amazing. Well, I was like, And I’ll let you share it, the story and and and the purpose behind it. But it shows that Even the smallest business for the small, you know, and the small business owners out there who listen to this show, you can do you can have a social purpose as well. So I’ll I’ll allow you to talk about Dave Dave and his bread.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:33:09]:
Absolutely. And and look for small to medium businesses as well, Because you you’re more agile, you can get there quicker, and you can build up credibility quicker because purpose is nothing without the actions, that serve it. Right? That that that that the purpose inspired. So Dave’s Killebread, I’m glad you asked me that one. I love that story. So there was so Dave Dahl is, lived in the Midwest of the US, was brought up there. And, long story short, he he went off the rails as a teenager. He got in to a bad, in with a bad crowd.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:33:50]:
His Parents ran a bakery in Portland, Oregon, and, he got in with a bad crowd and, you know, started drinking, Started taking drugs, led to, you know, armed robbery. He ended up in the prison system Several times. Four times. And then on the 4th time, he had a long stint in prison, And he went through a program. And, that program, I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it included Design thinking. And also as as part of his rehabilitation, he discovered that he, He had depression or he was bipolar. I can’t remember. But he he got on to medication.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:34:34]:
Anyway, when he came out of prison, his brother decided to give him a 2nd chance in the family business in the bakery. Truth be told, it was probably, not 2nd chance. It was probably more like the 4th or 5th chance or something like that. But he brought him back into the family business, and Dave started working eventually on an innovation product. And he started applying his design thinking principles to this innovation product. And he created this incredibly, beautiful, organic bread, which they launched at Portland Market. And, this bread took off. Right? Apparently, it’s a huge thing To, to have a stall at Portland market, and it absolutely took off.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:35:21]:
And people came to the stall and He told his story, and he told the story of his 2nd chance. Anyway, long story short, this bread just Completely took off. They rebranded it as Dave’s Killer Bread to reflect the killer taste of the bread, But also a recognition that it was you know, it came about as a result of Dave’s story. And they printed a short form version of the story on the loaf packaging. And, yeah, it just completely took off. And what they recognized was that Dave was lucky enough to have a family who gave him a second chance, and yet there were many people in the prison system who don’t have that 2nd chance. And, you know, the likelihood of repeat offending for them is huge. Huge recidivism rates in the US, and so they decided that, they would make make their employees, opened the door to having, people who had a criminal record.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:36:26]:
And their view was, we’re gonna take the best person regardless of their background. And so they had at least a third of their employees were people with a criminal background. And I don’t know if it’s still the case, but you could go to their website And, actually, click on their employees and read their story and read what happened to them. And as Dave told me, I interviewed him and he he said, you know, when when when you get someone from that background, they are so grateful. And they are so determined to make good on their chance that they’ll give you everything. Right? So this business grew. It became the number 1 organic bread in the US. And, and the other part of it is they created the Second Chance Foundation, where they actually, educated other businesses on how they could support 2nd chance employment as well.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:37:22]:
So their purpose is all around 2nd chance employment. And the business was eventually sold to Flower Foods for 275,000,000 US dollars. And that is a brand with a really clear purpose. And, you know, that is strong that strongly, powerfully differentiates them from every other bakery product that’s there.

Scott McCarthy [00:37:53]:
That’s a such a great example. Absolutely love that story. It’s, Yeah.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:37:58]:
Me too.

Scott McCarthy [00:37:58]:
It’s phenomenal. The last thing I kinda like to dive into is you know, we hit the big companies. We hit the we hit the small companies. We talked about leaders establishing social purpose within the organizations. But there’s also a lot of middle managers who listen to the show. And, you know, you know, the life of the middle manner manager, Middle. You’re stuck in the middle. And and and you and they may see this need, and they see the shift incoming.

Scott McCarthy [00:38:28]:
You know, what’s your recommendations to them, and how can they start pushing these ideas upwards in order to get their business, their company, or organization looking at this going, yes. We need to take this seriously. We need to do something about it.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:38:45]:
That’s a that’s a brilliant question, because I think it’s a question that so many people face. I think there are a lot of people in that mid level Who their narrative really gravitates towards this, and they see the opportunity and they want to do something about it. But how? How? You know, where do I go? And I think I think what you have to do is you have to start talking about it. So I’ll go back to that start with who and that organizational identity. There is a pretty good chance that within your organization, there are other people who feel the same way you do. Maybe they don’t have as much information about it, but they’ve got that same desire, to want to create change. So I think it’s about seeking them out, you know, within your direct network, but also beyond. Have conversations.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:39:44]:
And then particularly, if you can engage with someone at leadership level, I think it’s really important to do that and To open up conversations. And I think there are ways you can do that as well. Apart from my book, and obviously, I’m gonna plug my book, but there there are actually a whole stack of books that have come out on this subject at the same time. And whilst we share different stories and different lenses. It is really consistent. And my suggestion is get your hands on one of these books or Or several of them. And if you can find someone who’s open to your message, share it with them and, and open up A dialogue. So, you know, my book is for love and money, but there’s, Good is the New Call, the Principles of of Purpose, by Abdel Aziz and Bobby Jones.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:40:40]:
There is Net Positive by Paul Polman and Andrew Winston, which is The big corp that’s the Unilever story, and that’s amazing. And there is I’m reading it at the moment, another book from the US Lead with We by Simon Mannering. And there are a few other books, but, You know, if if you can get one of those books into someone’s hand, someone who has influence, who can who can, You know, create this change, or invite someone to come and speak. I I do a lot of speaking, you know, remotely and and live with clients. But there are other people like me around the world as well who do that. And just, You know, look at, look at the resources around share podcast interviews. You know, this podcast interview is is a good starting point potentially. So yeah.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:41:39]:
But I guess my my best advice is start the conversation. I had, one example of a medium sized organization who were bought by a big organization, who started their purpose journey because of a marketing executive. When I talk about exec, I’m talking about the most junior, rung of the the level, you know, the most junior, role in the marketing team. She started doing something, And it led to them actually adopting a business purpose, and they are now looked at within this big parent company As a business that is leading the way. It started with a junior.

Scott McCarthy [00:42:28]:
Oh, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. That’s a great example. Carolyn, this has been a fantastic conversation. I I thoroughly enjoyed it. Before we wrap up, I do got a couple last questions for you. The first being a question asked all the guests here on the peak performance leadership podcast, and that is, according to you, Carolyn, what makes a great leader?

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:42:53]:
I think I think the greatest leaders look to unleash the superpowers of their own people. And, I’d I’ve I spoke to someone recently. I interviewed the CEO of Unilever Australia and New Zealand, and she actually said my my number one job is to unleash the superpowers of my people. And to me, it’s like, yeah, that. Because your superpowers actually allow you to serve that purpose, so to unlock the superpowers, but also to show the vision of what you can achieve.

Scott McCarthy [00:43:37]:
That’s awesome. I I I love it. And finally, how can people find you? How can they follow you? Shameless plug time. It’s all that you know.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:43:46]:
Thank you. Look. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m the only Carolyn Butler Madden on LinkedIn, So very easy to find, and I’m pretty active there. But you can also go to my website, the cause effect dotcom.au, and you’ll be able to, get in contact with me directly there.

Scott McCarthy [00:44:07]:
Perfect. And for you to listener, it’s easy as always. Just go to lead the boss forward slash 224, 224, 224, and links are in the show notes. Carolyn, again, thanks for coming out and taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us today.

Carolyn Butler-Madden [00:44:21]:
Thank you so much for having me, Scott. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Scott McCarthy [00:44:28]:
And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the peak performance leadership podcast. But you know what you could do to truly support the podcast? And no. That’s not leaving a rating and review. It’s simply helping a friend, and that is helping a friend by sharing this episode with them if you think this would resonate with them and help them elevate their performance level, whether that’s within themselves, their teams, or their organization. So do that. Help me.

Scott McCarthy [00:45:00]:
Help a friend. Win win all around, and, hey. You look like a great friend, at the same time. So just hit that little share button on your app, and then Feel free to fire this episode to anyone that you feel would benefit from it. Finally, there’s always more. There’s Always more lessons around being the highest performing leader that you can possibly be, whether that’s for yourself, your team, or your organization. So why don’t you subscribe? Subscribe to the show via moving forward leadership.comforward/subscribe. Until next time, Reed.

Scott McCarthy [00:45:40]:
Don’t boss, and thanks for coming out. Take care now.