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Bringing purpose to life

The behaviours in the Framework – an overview

Taken together, the behaviours described in the Framework, summarise the development of certain ways of behaving which can be elicited through embracing the ideas set out in the top part of the Framework – that each person is a someone not a something and that the role of business is to deliver value by serving society.

Each behaviour is expressed as a minimum: a platform from which to grow, and an aspiration: an idea of where a person or an organisation could go if they really started trying to behave and live in this way. Each behaviour further builds ‘character’, enabling people to come together to achieve goals they could never achieve alone, and which also contribute to their personal growth and fulfilment.

The duality of our nature is present in each of the behaviours:

  • The individual level, which gives us only a partial view – that in pursuing our self-interest, we can ignore or even harm others
  • The more aspirational relational aspect – in which we work together for shared goals, creating something better for ourselves and for others

The minimum and aspirational parts of these descriptions reflect this duality.

The foundational mindset explored in the top part of our Framework underpins each of the behaviours and, as the thinking evolves, this mindset shapes the behaviours in practice:

The following image explores how this evolving thinking can influence habitual behaviour:

A copy of this can also be downloaded here as a pdf: Using the Blueprint Framework 

All these behaviours, inform each other, and, in general, if we work on one and try to improve it, it is likely that this will make it easier for us to develop the other behaviours too, even if that is not automatic and we do need to work at each one. This works because all these behaviours are oriented towards promoting human dignity and the common good.

For a business to become purpose-led in practice requires that these behaviours become commonplace. A twin focus on respect for human dignity and seeking the broader common good builds the capacity and capability to forge better relationships and sustain collective effort in service of a worthwhile purpose. In this way purpose and character are intertwined; they are incomplete without each other

The behaviours draw on the wisdom traditions, in particular Catholic Social Thinking (the names in brackets are drawn from these wisdom traditions), as well as Aristotle’s virtue ethics.

The following sections discuss each behaviour in turn.