Without Purpose, People Perish

Adam held an “away” day last week (Thursday 30th April) in order to discuss our vision and more importantly define our PURPOSE for the future.

We picked The Mere Golf Club Resort & Spa due to its personal affinity with our Founder and Director, Leon Milns, who has spent many years being a member there and more importantly, due to its amazing setting for us to enjoy.

Having been in operation for 9 years, we felt it was time to re-evaluate where the business was at and where we are planning on going. With the full Adam contingent in attendance, old and new, the business offered great insight; into not only what the business meant to individuals, but what personally drives Adam’s biggest asset, its people.

Here are the key takeaways from day:

Openness and Honesty– One of the key factors throughout the Adam Away Day was the team’s willingness to be completely honest about their experiences in life. The first workshop saw us discussing our ‘defining moment’ in life; this led to some incredibly insightful and rather emotional discussions within the group. The key to any successful culture is the people and therefore you need people buying into the company they work for; which is why honesty is so essential.

Location, location, location– One of the real highlights of the day was the setting of the away day, we picked The Mere in Cheshire as the location for the all day event, the stunning course surrounded by Cheshire Woodland was the perfect inspiration for creativity on the day, we were housed in the Riley Room, which contained sixty unique pieces of art work from esteemed local artist Harold Riley

Turn the PA system ON-One of the main points of an ‘away day’ was being AWAY from the office, it gave us time to simply be together without the phone ringing and looking at the business from the inside out. We’re a close team; we work in an open plan office, hot desk and take pride in our family feel. But one should never underestimate the value of time together outside the office cementing relationships. The day gave us a long overdue chance to identify what made Adam, Adam and also things we need to improve on, we got new ideas, different perspectives and suggestions to make the day as relevant and worthwhile as possible.

One of the most common reasons values fail to resonate throughout a business is because they are too abstract. Strategic vision and values must be translated into something tangible, they have to be specific, and otherwise they become meaningless. Values have to mean something to the team. With that in mind we decided to focus the day on deciding a new collective purpose, which ALL the team contributed to, rather than following a pre-determined one.

The point of this was instead of having a group of words which are plastered on the bottom of business cards, we came up with a genuine raison d’etre saying which we will keep close to us and use as a source of inspiration and drive, in any situation. Whether it’s a rainy Tuesday and the odds are stacked against you or you’re about to leave for a client meeting which could be make or break.

While we were re-defining what Adam actually was, we also examined in groups, what we do and why. This went hand in hand with our purpose, what do we actually do for people? ‘We recruit’ isn’t enough, we spent several hours discussing what Adam “actually” does its candidates and clients and ultimately came up with this purpose:

“Transforming lives, and enjoying the journey of shared success, every day.”

We genuinely believe in this purpose and what it means on an individual and collective basis and the impact that we will continue to have to all folks who we encounter on our journey ahead.