What are some examples of companies who have found their common purpose and achieved greatness?
Apple Computer is a common-purpose company. You can feel it and see it in their products. FM Global, a mid-sized insurance company in Rhode Island, is another common-purpose company. Everyone at FM Global speaks the same language — in their case, the language of engineering — and people make decisions with very little supervision. The CEO sits at a random table in the cafeteria and eats lunch with whoever is at the table. People share ideas and information. Everyone understands what the company stands for. When I was in graduate school, I spent a lot of time at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. It was next to our campus. People were working on designing and building the space shuttle at the time. You could feel the energy in the air and sense that the people at NASA had a mission. When people have the spirit of common purpose, they’ll perform under highly adverse circumstances. Back then, at NASA, even when budgets were cut, people performed well. They knew they were doing
