Traditional business planning fails because it focuses on intellectual exercises like metrics and behaviors. A more powerful approach grounds the plan in purpose-driven questions about service and mission, providing stronger motivation than numbers alone.

The 20th-century view of shareholder primacy is flawed. By focusing first on creating wins for all stakeholders—customers, employees, suppliers, and society—companies build a sustainable, beloved enterprise that paradoxically delivers superior returns to shareholders in the long run.

The industry's costly drug development failures are often attributed to clinical issues. However, the root cause is frequently organizational: siloed teams, misaligned incentives, and hierarchical leadership that stifle the knowledge sharing necessary for success.

To foster deep motivation, leaders must explicitly connect every employee's role, no matter how small, to the ultimate mission. Ger Brophy explains how showing a factory worker that the product they make is critical for a specific cancer treatment allows them to feel personal ownership of the patient impact.

The pharmaceutical industry is often misunderstood because it communicates through faceless corporate entities. It could learn from tech's "go direct" strategy, where leaders tell compelling stories. Highlighting the scientists and patient journeys behind breakthroughs could dramatically improve public perception and appreciation.

Purpose is stabilized by three supports: personal purpose (family, faith), organizational purpose (company mission), and role purpose (your specific contribution). Most employees feel wobbly because they fail to connect their individual role to the company's broader mission.

One-off volunteer days or CSR initiatives are superficial fixes that employees recognize as inauthentic. Purpose must be the core reason a company exists and be embedded in every decision, not treated as a separate, performative activity to boost public image.

A company’s true values aren't in its mission statement, but in its operational systems. Good intentions are meaningless without supporting structures. What an organization truly values is revealed by its compensation systems, promotion decisions, and which behaviors are publicly celebrated and honored.

A company's purpose statement serves as a 'GPS' in rough waters. Johnson & Johnson's patient-first credo guided its decision to pull all Tylenol during a poisoning scare. This decisive, purpose-led action ultimately strengthened trust, demonstrating how a clear 'why' enables effective crisis management.