I wanted to believe that we live in an enlightened age. After all, this is a time when organizations are having discussions about the responsibilities they have to all their stakeholders (as opposed to solely their shareholders.) For me, there hasn't been a time like this in my career - a span that covers over three decades. Yes, truly there has been no other time like it.

Not so fast

I was having one of those great conversations with my father recently. Not a planned event. Just something that sort of unfolded as we sat and watched the sun go down.

He talked about his career and what he saw as a chemical engineer, a manager, a management consultant, and a college professor.

During one part of our conversation, he spoke of helping an organization adopt Total Quality Management. Every time I hear that term, it makes me think of businessmen in the 1960s with their grey suits and skinny ties and flat top crewcuts. Working diligently for the company. Because if you take care of the company, the company takes care of you.

Okay, to be accurate, Total Quality Management is a concept that didn't show up until the 1980s. I'm just saying that it conjured up that picture for me. It also represented to me what was different between his generation of work life and mine. He worked in an era where people actually held that belief that the company would take care of them.

By the time my career started to really get rolling, nobody believed that the company was going to take care of you. Pensions had been abandoned. And long-term strategic planning was giving way to a myopic focus on getting shareholders those quarterly returns. It was an age that glorified the corporate raiders and hostile takeovers.

That's why today's talk of an organization's purpose is in such sharp contrast to me. It seems we finally have turned the corner to creating a world where we can do well and do good at the same time. Without sacrificing the efficacy of either. Indeed, we live in a golden age. An era that is the envy of all those that came before.

Am I right?

Well, maybe not. I had heard my dad talk about Total Quality Management before. I had a vague idea of the concept. So I thought I should bone up on it just to support my golden age theory. 

Total Quality Management is a concept that really took off in the mid-1980s and has its foundations in the teachings of W. Edwards Deming. At its foundation is the goal to create a climate where employees continuously strive to improve their ability to deliver value while management strives to provide the tools, training, and more to create that climate.

Wait. What? Employees derive meaning from their work because they are encouraged to be part of the process to improve things for each other and the organization. And leaders are driven to stoke the fire of that passion by providing what they need to make it happen. That sounds a lot like they have a purpose. In fact, it sounds a lot like all the purpose stuff I've been preaching.

The more I recall the conversation with my father, the more I realize that maybe my view has been slightly askew. Maybe purpose is not something that has been waiting to emerge for eons. Maybe it is something that used to exist (during my dad's work life), was lost (sometime before I entered the workforce), and now is being rediscovered.

There are differences today. In my dad's day, the organization seemed to have more of the control. Today, we as individuals have significantly more say thanks to the speed of information which has created a new requirement of transparency for organizations.

Nonetheless, the whole experience made me realize that this is less an age of invention and more one of rediscovery. Maybe we are finally returning to an idea that got tossed aside because we believed there were easier and faster ways to succeed. Maybe this time, this iteration of the purpose-driven organization will become the new normal. Or maybe this is just part of the cycle - from greed to good back to greed. I'd like to believe it's not. We've seen what that spawns. In my career, it included such lowlights as the savings & loan scandal, the dot com bust, and the Great Recession. Maybe this time this age-old idea of serving others to succeed will stick. And stay. We can only hope.

Or, maybe we can actually do more than that. Maybe we can demand it from all those organizations we work for and do business with. Maybe it's on us. Maybe we can make it stick.

It's not that crazy to believe. After all, it's not some new idea.