Álvaro Lleó: "The great benefit of purpose is the links it is capable of generating".

Last Wednesday, April 19, more than seventy alumni attended the fourth session of the Alumni Meetings. On this occasion, the University presented Strategy 2025 to the Barcelona alumni community. 

The event, which took place at IESE Business School, began with a welcome from Fernanda de Parias (COM'91), deputy director of Alumni and campus in Madrid, who thanked the alumni and encouraged them to continue to be at contact with the University. The University's General Manager , Álvaro Balibrea (FILG'01 | EMBA'10), also traveled to Barcelona to present to the alumni the general lines and projects of the University's Strategy 2025.

Next, researcher and professor at School of Economics, Álvaro Lleó, briefly explained the Purpose Strength Project, project that investigates the implementation and assessment of purpose, how it is deployed and how it becomes a reality in organizations. Ricard Casas, director general manager of people and culture at ISS Facility Services, business collaborating with project, presented business ISS, which has more than 400,000 employees worldwide and offers cleaning, maintenance and gardening services, among many others. 

During the session the speakers discussed what is purpose, the reasons that motivate companies to integrate purpose in their organizations. "Companies are starting to be interested in how to live the purpose by attracting investment, the management of reputation, attracting talent and improving commitment," explained Álvaro Lleó. In this regard, Ricard commented that in order to have good results "the purpose has to come from the conviction of those who run the company". Casas also added that "the origin of the economic activity was the mutual financial aid , if you lose this concept you lose the essence of purpose" .

To learn a little more about how purpose is implemented or activated in an organization, Ricard Casas commented; "at ISS we have two purposes, the internal one is to have a positive impact on all our employees, and the external one is to help our customers to fulfill their purpose". To carry them out, he explained that they hold different workshops with their employees to help them discover how to contribute to the purpose of the clients. On the other hand, he also remarked that "you have to celebrate, thank and reward employees to transmit the objectives, missions and values of your organization and make them live it".
 

At the end of the dialogue, some of those present asked the speakers for examples of revolutionary measures to put employee at the center. In response to this, Ricard Casas indicated that "there is no need to invent anything new, we just have to do things right. Rather than innovating, we should go back to the origins". Doubts also arose about the convergence between purpose and strategy, to which Professor Álvaro Lleó commented that "the great benefit of purpose is the links it is capable of generating, in this way we share purpose, identity, meaningand mission statement. The purpose contributes meaning to the strategy".

At the end of the colloquium, the alumni and attendees to the event were able to enjoy a networking meeting to get to know each other.