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Why do organizations exist or what is the purpose of organizations? A utilitarian view might be that organizations exist to provide jobs and produce profits. Others contend that organizations exist because they are more productive and efficient than people working alone.[i] Though these reasons are generally true, they are not highly profound.
In their book Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras said:
Purpose gets at the deeper reasons for an organization’s existence beyond just making money, as illustrated by a 1960 speech by David Packard, wherein he said: “I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being.”[ii]
Collins and Porras build on David Packard’s comments:
Purpose (which should last at least 100 years) should not be confused with specific goals or business strategies (which should change many times in 100 years). Whereas you might achieve a goal or complete a strategy, you cannot fulfill a purpose; it is like a guiding star on the horizon—forever pursued, but never reached.[iii]
This perspective is clearly a more profound view of organizational purpose than simply producing jobs and profits. If we embrace the idea that organizational purpose should provide vision for at least one hundred years, then it seems clear that during this timeframe there will be numerous leadership teams. For the sake of organizational continuity, the transitions from one leadership team to the next should occur smoothly to facilitate continued growth of the organization. This is commonly called succession planning.
The pedestrian view of succession planning, however, seems to be about the retirement and legacy of senior leaders. Few seem to understand the bigger picture of what Collins and Porras refer to as the “core purpose”—the fundamental reason for the being or existence of an organization.[iv] But even fewer recognize that the core purposes of all organizations should be connected to the biblical metanarrative, in part because some do not believe in the biblical metanarrative. But if we accept a biblical view of reality, we can see in Scripture a metanarrative focused on Christ. And if such a metanarrative exists and is all encompassing, then organizations must find the reason for their existence in the context of the biblical metanarrative. That is, organizational purpose from a biblical view must be defined by each organization’s role in the biblical metanarrative.
One of the clues to guide organizations in this search for identity and purpose is the Creation Mandate.[v] The Creation Mandate states the reason why God made mankind, namely, to be His agents to rule His physical creation. Therefore individual and organizational purpose must be connected to the Creation Mandate.
The Creation Mandate specifically assigns to mankind the role of ruling God’s creation through multiplication of the human race and mastery of the physical universe.
Multiplication means that the human race is to grow. This implies that the role of ruling the physical universe requires many people. And given the reality of time-limited life of fallen mankind and the vastness of the universe, this intimates that man’s work of obeying the Creation Mandate must be multigenerational.
Mastery is about technological advancement, that is, the discovery of the tools that God has hidden in the universe to enable mankind to rule productively and efficiently.
The biblical metanarrative is the story of mankind’s attempts to obey the Creation Mandate. The central figure of the biblical metanarrative is Christ and His work to redeem fallen mankind. Only redeemed man can efficaciously fulfill the role of ruling God’s physical universe according to the Creation Mandate.
Given that the seminal figure in the metanarrative is Christ, every person and organization must discover their reason for existence in relationship to Christ. Consequently, discerning organizational purpose is a spiritual activity. Furthermore, given the naturally rebellious condition of mankind, only redeemed people working in their God-assigned organizations can profoundly obey God and discover their purpose. And the most productive way for people to work congruently with the biblical metanarrative is in the context of organizations.
If you define an organization as two or more people who have come together to accomplish a mission, then organizations include families, churches, businesses, and government. Most people, if not virtually all people, are connected to multiple organizations.
The challenge is to discover how the various organizations we are connected with fit into the metanarrative. Here are some thoughts.
Families: The purpose of families is to provide a context for reproducing, preparing, and training individuals to find and fulfill their respective assignments in multigenerational organizations.
Local churches: The purpose of local churches is to help families fulfill their roles in the metanarrative. To do this well, local churches must focus on training individuals to discern the will of God and to execute His will according to His ways. In other words, local churches must provide a Christ-centered discipleship approach to all of life so that individuals can learn to think and act biblically in every organizational context. Local churches that limit their work to evangelism rather than discipleship, which includes much more than evangelism, will never be effective in helping organizations and individuals discover their purposes.
Businesses: The purpose of a business is to find and fulfill the multigenerational God-ordained assignments in the metanarrative by empowering people to obey the Creation Mandate. For an organization to fulfill its role in the metanarrative, all the individuals in the organization must be well trained, through their families and local churches, to live according to a Christian worldview.
Government: The purpose of government is to set the context for all organizations to function justly according to a Christian worldview.
Since the metanarrative is multigenerational, this intimates that all organizations—families, local churches, businesses, and government—must function multigenerationally. This is very challenging for individuals who are by nature narcissistic and hedonistic. Therefore to function well multigenerationally requires biblically healthy families and local churches. Furthermore, government’s role of setting a context of sound biblical public policy is critical for supporting the family, local churches, and businesses. When government presumes to disconnect public policy from a Christian worldview, then the breakdown in Christian thinking will propagate through families, local churches, and businesses. This breakdown will cause organizations to disconnect their purposes from the metanarrative and consequently disrupt multigenerational vision. In such an environment, it will become increasingly difficult for individuals to think and act multigenerationally.
If indeed the intent of the Creator for mankind was, and is, to be His agents to project His rule and reign multigenerationally in the physical universe, then in a world under the curse of sin and death, succession planning is an imperative.
Individuals and organizations must therefore seek congruence with the metanarrative. Since the metanarrative is multigenerational, the only way to be congruent with the metanarrative is to function multigenerationally. This makes succession planning an imperative act of obedience to God, not simply a wise choice.
[i] Asif J. Mir, “Why Do Organizations Exist?” 21st Century Organizational Transformation, January 12, 2010, https://asifjmir.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/why-do-organizations-exist/, accessed October 26, 2015.
[ii] Jim Collins and Jerry I Porras, (2011-08-30). Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (Harper Business Essentials) (Kindle Locations 4888-4893). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Genesis 1:26–28.
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