Global education to train students on building careers centric to their individual Purpose vs a job that exists today. Today’s jobs are and will continue to significantly change while new jobs are being invented due to A.I. Individual Purpose will help equip future business leaders to pivot and transform.
When it comes to designing the future of work, one size fits none. Discovering success isn’t about a hybrid model or offering remote work options. Individuals and organizations are looking for more freedom. The freedom to choose the work model that makes the most sense. The freedom to choose their own values. And the freedom to pursue what matters most. We reached out to successful leaders and thought leaders across all industries to glean their insights and predictions about how to create a future that works.
As a part of our interview series called “How Employers and Employees are Reworking Work Together,” we had the pleasure to interview James M. Rink.
James M. Rink is Founder and CEO of Purpose of You, a personal development and coaching program that is designed to create a culture of Purpose for businesses and individuals. Post Covid, Rink helps Employees define their personal life’s Purpose and navigate them to their NEW integrated Work, Family and Personal Life of their dreams. CEOs love Rink’s strategy because it creates an alignment of Purpose between the employee and the Company’s Mission.
Thank you for making time to visit with us about the topic of our time. Our readers would like to get to know you a bit better. Can you please tell us about one or two life experiences that most shaped who you are today.
When I was a fourteen-year-old, my older brother, Kevin, died of Duchene Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). At the time, life expectancy of DMD was late teenage. DMD mostly affects boys and occurs in one in 3,500 to 5,000 newborns. If one boy in the family is diagnosed with DMD there is a 50% chance the brothers do too (MDA). As a child, it was explained to me that statistically I should have the disease and I do not.
When Kevin died, I was faced with hard questions, ‘Why am I alive; why am I here?’ This began my personal journey to understand my Purpose in life.
When I was twenty-seven, I started my first company as a Television Producer with a small production company. By thirty-two, I was frustrated and bored because I became a big fish in a small pond. I needed to get to an ocean of new opportunities, one with bigger Stars and budgets. I read the business book ‘Built to Last’ by James Collins and Jerry Porras about 17 visionary business leaders like Disney, Ford, and Nordstrom. All 17 leaders wrote Purpose Statements to help build and guide their businesses.
I wanted to write a Purpose Statement for my life and business. I could not find a resource to help. So, I reverse engineered the 17 Purpose Statements and discovered a pattern that has become the foundation and formula of ‘Purpose of You’.
For over 25 years, I have used ‘Purpose of You’ formula as a ‘behind the scenes’ framework to Produce TV shows for ABC, Taylor Swift, Country Music Association, and MTV.
Today, Purpose of You’s formula helps people and businesses write their Purpose statements.
Let’s zoom out. What do you predict will be the same about work, the workforce, and the workplace 10–15 years from now?
Business is about relationships. I predict this will be the same in 10–15 years. The human connection, collaboration and shared Purpose of work is powerful when you feel and believe it is affecting people for a greater good. Work, workforce, and workplace will all support people and their love of work, business and its relationships.
What do you predict will be different?
Most jobs that people will be doing in 10–15 years have not been invented yet due to the rise of A.I. and its changes to jobs.
The workforce will be more independent, self-managed with less managers of people’s time, ideas, and energy. More contract labors and less full-time employees. The future is bright for the entrepreneur, solopreneur and/or intrapreneur.
The workplace will be wherever the work or worker needs it to be. It is the dawn of freedom, flexibility, and fluidity.
What advice would you offer to employers who want to future-proof their organizations?
Data shows that Purpose businesses are 6x more profitable than their competition. My best advice is for Employers to double down on their company’s Purpose, Mission, and Values and to empower their individual employees to bring their individual Purpose to help build the company’s Purpose/Mission.
Purpose drives innovation, profits and long-term success.
What do you predict will be the biggest gaps between what employers are willing to offer and what employees expect as we move forward?
The biggest gap that needs to be addressed is employee disengagement.
Post Covid, over 100M U.S. workers are searching for a NEW integration of Work, Family and Personal life. 40M are resigning and 67M Quietly Quitting costing US Business $1 Trillion a year.
Employers need to reduce this expense however to do so they FIRST need to help fix the employee’s pain point of their aimless search which will reduce the disengagement.
And what strategies would you offer about how to reconcile those gaps?
People don’t quit companies they quit managers. Most managers have not been trained how to help today’s disengaged employees. Many managers are also searching for their own NEW integration of Work, Family and Personal life let alone trying to help their direct reports do so too.
During Covid, work got enmeshed with family and personal life. Understanding the enmeshment and how it is functional or not functional today takes an individual reset strategy. Helping people define their life’s Purpose gives them a True North guild to their dream integration of Work, Family and Personal life. This disentangles the enmeshment.
We simultaneously joined a global experiment together last year called “Working From Home.” How will this experience influence the future of work?
I have not reviewed ‘Working From Home’ experiment data to thoroughly comment however Gartner estimates that by the end of 2023, 48% of knowledge workers around the world will work either fully remotely (9%) or in a hybrid arrangement (39%). In the US, fully remote and hybrid workers are expected to account for 71% of the workforce in 2023.
Most businesses are adapting to NEW WFH systems. Some individuals thrive in WFH while others do not. Employers need to view their employees on an individual basis and what works best for the employee and the team.
We’ve all read the headlines about how the pandemic reshaped the workforce. What societal changes do you foresee as necessary to support a future of work that works for everyone?
In my opinion, the pandemic fueled three significant societal changes and they all need to be addressed to work for everyone.
- Integration of Work, Family and Personal life. Clearly, society has changed its balance of these 3 priorities. Employers must support Employees on this new integration.
- Serving humanity for a greater good for all mankind. Covid did not kill us, we are alive. When I was a fourteen-year-old and beat the odds of DMD and death, I had questions. Today’s post Covid survivors do too, ‘why am I alive; why am I here?’ Companies must help employees answer their questions and build a culture and alignment of Purpose within their businesses that serves a greater good of mankind.
- The pandemic intensified the global Narcissistic epidemic. Narcists prey on empathic people. People on Purpose are highly empathic. Employers must rid Narcists from the workplace.
What is your greatest source of optimism about the future of work?
People living their life’s Purpose at work is my greatest optimism. Entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and/or intrapreneurs using their individual Purpose to lead people and technology to improve humanity and make our planet a better place.
We are in the age of A.I. No matter how great technology is it does not have a soul, feeling or Purpose. People do. People with Purpose that will lead technology to serve a greater good for all mankind. That’s my hope.
Our collective mental health and wellbeing are now considered collateral as we consider the future of work. What innovative strategies do you see employers offering to help improve and optimize their employee’s mental health and wellbeing?
I have seen people’s transformation improving their mental health and wellbeing once they are connecting to their life’s Purpose. I believe discovering, defining, and living one’s life’s Purpose only improves their mental health and wellbeing because it forces someone to live the way they were designed to live. It’s renewable energy because it is what you were created to be.
Purpose gives life meaning and direction. To improve and optimize a person’s mental health and wellbeing they must live both internally within themselves and externally to others.
I see future innovations like a Fitbit for measuring personal Purpose engagement, empowering people to fully live their life’s Purpose just like getting their daily steps in.
It seems like there’s a new headline every day. ‘The Great Resignation’. ‘The Great Reconfiguration’. And now the ‘Great Reevaluation’. What are the most important messages leaders need to hear from these headlines? How do company cultures need to evolve?
Gallup reports that low employee engagement is costing the global economy $8.8T because 50% of the workforce is Quietly Quitting.
CEOs need to know the real cost of employee disengagement for their companies. There are two expenses, the price to rehire after a Resignation and those Quietly Quitting. Conservatively, combining those two expenses, for every 100 employees there is a $1.5M price tag.
Joe Galvin, Vistage Chief Research Officer, reports the first way to fix disengagement is to align employees behind a Purpose. I agree, companies need to evolve by following Walt Disney in the Great Depression.
Disney’s Purpose is ‘To Make People Happy’. During the Great Depression, Walt Disney led his staff to new opportunities by putting their Purpose to work. He created a happy workplace for his team. They produced “The Adventures of Mickey Mouse” which lifted the spirits of Americans through the dark 1930s and kept Disney’s business afloat. Disney also released the first full-length animated feature film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” grossing $8M in 1937–38 ($164M adjusted for inflation in 2023).
Let’s get more specific. What are your “Top 5 Trends To Track In the Future of Work?”
Top 5 Trends to Track
- Global Quietly Quitting and Resignation data. If companies don’t address the massive expense loss due to disengagement, it will only delay our global RESET and negatively impact workers mental health and wellbeing.
- International Narcistic Epidemic data. Narcissism is destroying our work, personal and family relationships. Narcissism is the enemy of Purpose businesses and people and it’s fueling toxic environments.
- World Mental Health and Wellbeing data. Stress, depression, and alcohol/drug addiction needs improving to help our employees, workplace, and communities.
- Profit data of small to large size Purpose centric companies outperforming non-purpose centric companies. Historically business on Purpose outperform their competition by 6X of profits. I look forward to seeing how companies that double down on their and their people’s Purpose and Values win post Covid.
- Global education to train students on building careers centric to their individual Purpose vs a job that exists today. Today’s jobs are and will continue to significantly change while new jobs are being invented due to A.I. Individual Purpose will help equip future business leaders to pivot and transform.
I keep quotes on my desk and on scraps of paper to stay inspired. What’s your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? And how has this quote shaped your perspective?
‘Do something so great they can’t deny you.’
We live in a world of excellence. Greatness always rises to the top. If you want to succeed in work and life, you must do something so great that no one can deny your greatness. Commit to ONLY doing great work.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He, she, or they might just see this if we tag them.
Jon Clifton, Gallup CEO.
It would be great to have a collaborative discussion with Jon to explore globally how Gallup can help people know what their life’s Purpose is and empower them to live it.
I believe everyone has a unique Purpose in life, it’s an individual’s great strength. Jon’s grandfather, Psychologist Don Clifton, was a pioneer using Psychology to help individuals know their unique strengths and help their strength to properly align it with a team. I love this philosophy as well as Gallup’s CliftonStrengths. Jon is following in his father’s and grandfather’s footstep using analytics-based insights on an international scale for individuals, businesses, and governments.
I see great opportunities between our two companies to further Don Clifton’s philosophy of leadership.
Our readers often like to continue the conversation with our featured interviewees. How can they best connect with you and stay current on what you’re discovering?
LinkedIn, #JamesMRink or [email protected]
Thank you for sharing your insights and predictions. We appreciate the gift of your time and wish you continued success and good health.