Goal Core · Purpose · Module
Stakeholder rationale
Whom the purpose is for, and what each of them gets from it. Naming them makes the purpose answerable to someone rather than to no one.
The idea
How it works
A purpose that serves everyone equally serves no one in particular, and cannot help when two groups want different things. The work here is to name the groups the organisation has genuinely taken on, and to say what each is owed.
The interesting part is where the interests conflict. A purpose is most useful precisely at those points, and writing the conflicts down in advance is what makes it possible to decide them consistently rather than case by case.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
List who is actually affected
Employees, customers, owners, suppliers, the surrounding community, and anyone else the business materially touches.
- 02
Say what each one gets
One line per group, in concrete terms. “Value” is not an answer; “predictable payment within fourteen days” is.
- 03
Find where the interests collide
Two groups whose interests never conflict are probably the same group described twice.
- 04
Decide the ordering in advance
Not a ranking of importance, but a statement of which claim wins when they cannot both be met.
One level in
The components of stakeholder rationale
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
The stakeholder map
The named groups, with how much each is affected and how much influence each holds.
LearnValue statement per group
One line for each: what this group gets from the organisation existing.
LearnThe conflict register
The known tensions between groups, and the standing decision about how each is resolved.
Learn
The register is the useful artefact here. A stakeholder map without it is a diagram; with it, it is a decision aid.
The other modules in purpose
Reason for being
The articulation itself: one sentence saying why the organisation exists, written so that it would still hold if the product changed entirely.
LearnAlignment
How the purpose is actually used: which decisions are tested against it, at what points, and by whom. Without a mechanism, alignment is an intention.
LearnIntegrity
The distance between the purpose as stated and the purpose as enacted. Worth measuring deliberately, because the gap is invisible from the inside and obvious from the outside.
LearnCore values
The small set of commitments the organisation will not trade, even when trading them would be profitable — which is the only test that separates a value from a preference.
Learn