Video Quick Take: Video Quick Take: Deloitte’s Kwasi Mitchell on Purpose
Todd Pruzan, HBR
Welcome to the HBR Video Quick Take. I’m Todd Pruzan, senior editor for research and special projects at Harvard Business Review. And today, I’m with Kwasi Mitchell, Chief Purpose Officer at Deloitte. We are talking today about his role at Deloitte, about his strategic approach to purpose, and about how to integrate and activate purpose in your own organization. Kwasi, thank you so much for being with us today.
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte
Thank you, Todd. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Todd Pruzan, HBR
Thanks. Kwasi, why does purpose matter in today’s business world?
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte
It matters for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, I think for anyone who is in the private sector, they see that there are more and more demands from investors to truly be focused on purpose and be activating substantially across all of their stakeholders rather than their shareholders only.
Also, there’s broad demands from society writ large that we have some existential issues such as climate change, diversity, equity, and inclusion that we fundamentally need to be focused on collectively. So having team members and a chief purpose officer such as myself in charge of making sure that organizations live up to their commitments is critical.
Todd Pruzan, HBR
Can you talk about what it means to be a purpose-driven enterprise and the importance of integration at all levels?
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte
Of course. And to us in the journey that we’ve been on is really, first and foremost, when you think about being a purpose-driven enterprise, it’s starting with understanding the tensions operating within the confines of an organization within the broader movements across society, what exists? Are there challenges with the clients that you serve? Are they frequently in the news because of specific movements that are taking place more broadly?
Are there concerns with respect to your internal policies? Are they up to date with leading practices on how you groom the next generation of talent? So when you think about that and you have an understanding of the tensions, you build outcomes that you would like to drive as a result of them, you measure your progress against those outcomes, and ultimately communicate that back to all of your stakeholders so that it’s clear that progress is being made or why not is what we’ve really been focusing on from our particular journey as being a purpose-driven enterprise.
Todd Pruzan, HBR
Great. So where should an organization start?
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte
For me, it’s really about understanding what are those two to three core issues that are fundamental to whom you are as an organization? We have a 175-year history of serving financial markets and providing trust and confidence in those particular markets from our journey as auditors, and also from those specific beginnings. Now as we’ve expanded and grown, we’ve really focused on tackling some of the most challenging problems that our clients face.
And so as we started on a purpose journey and things that we’ve centered upon, it’s really been in areas such as that, like trust and transparency within organizations and markets. It’s been really focused on helping the world recover from the pandemic, such that we’ve had large investments in health equity through our Health Equity Institute, and also being more thoughtful on creating the next generation of talent and providing access of people to family-sustaining careers. So those are some of the key items. But it’s really fundamentally important that there’s a focus on what can we — as an organization — uniquely provide a voice and an impact to in society writ large and with our customers?
Todd Pruzan, HBR
So how can you ensure that a focus on purpose achieves a long-term impact?
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte
In many respects, it goes back to always being thoughtful about what we measure and what we goal ourselves against. So, as we define purpose within Deloitte, it’s a number of distinct items that are critical to our particular journey that we describe as ”core commitments,” that is, diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s education workforce development. It is sustainability. And lastly, it’s trust. And that’s in institutions and also being thoughtful around technology writ large.
So that being said, we’ve been very clear that there are specific outcomes that we’re trying to drive over the upcoming years. We’ve built them into our specific objectives and how we measure and assess our progress as an organization, even tie that down to individuals so that there’s a clear cascade from our overarching goals, external commitments that we’ve made to the responsible parties who are supposed to be executing on them on a daily basis.
Todd Pruzan, HBR
Can you share any examples of how Deloitte is bringing its signature issues to life? How is Deloitte leaning in, and why?
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte
Yeah, there’s a few things that are in particular really, really key for us right now. As I mentioned just a moment ago, with respect to our Health Equity Institute, we were very, very focused as an organization, we want it to be a key solution for helping our economy, and also, more broadly, people recover post the pandemic. So the Health Equity Institute is really focused on, first and foremost, how we help to resolve issues such as vaccine deserts, how we extend that to the health of other front line workers and create equity across boardrooms throughout corporate America for things such as the social determinants of health that we fundamentally would like to resolve in the future. So that’s one specific area.
The other thing that we’ve been heavily, heavily focused on just given our size and scope of whom we are as an organization is training the next generation of workers and providing access to people who fundamentally have been locked out of distinct areas in the past. So we are one of the core founding members of the coalition that is dubbed OneTen that is focused on providing 1 million jobs to Black professionals within the next 10 years, and specifically those who have less than a four-year degree who historically may have been locked out of family-sustaining careers longer term. So those are two distinct areas really centered around how do we pull the world back together, have an impact coming out of the pandemic that I think we’ll continue to focus on in the future.
Todd Pruzan, HBR
Great examples and those are great programs. Thank you. How does Deloitte integrate purpose across its business and deliver purpose to clients? What advice would you give to other organizations in this arena?
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte
Involve your chief purpose officer, in many respects. So it is very, very common that as you see different people who are heading out on their purpose-driven journey, they’re thinking about other people who are thinking through similar challenges as themselves. So I’m heavily involved from the aspects of helping to determine which solutions we offer to our clients , thinking through and co-creating with our teams that are serving our clients, and having those discussions with our clients themselves so that they understand that there’s a person sitting across the table from them when it comes to really starting to make an impact that understands the journey that they’re on and that we can fundamentally collaborate on.
And most importantly, one of the reasons why I think it’s important to involve your chief purpose officer is that some of the challenges that we’re trying to address are so large that no individual organization can do it themselves. So that co-creation, figuring out the areas that we can impact things together in coalitions that we can assemble around these challenges is just fundamentally key.
Todd Pruzan, HBR
Fantastic. So in a year, what impact do you hope Deloitte’s purpose activity will have had on your people and your clients, your communities?
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte
Yeah. There’s really three things that I’d like to drive over the next year. One is a common language. Purpose means many different things to different people. So what do we fundamentally as an organization, how do we define it? How is it embedded in our lexicon? And how does any practitioner or person working within the organization translate what they do on a daily basis to the purpose that we’re driving as an organization?
The second thing is really around continuing to refine and measure those outcomes. I want to make sure that people know how they individually contribute and how they individually are going to be held accountable. So that is always a journey that we will be on, and I think it’s fundamental for trying to address some of these large challenges that flag from sustainability to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
And lastly, and I think that most importantly, is what are the coalitions that we’re involved in as an organization? How many times have I connected to other chief purpose officers and we’ve thought through how we can address some of these major issues and embed purpose within all the things that we do and bring that to the marketplace collectively? So those are three specific things that I’d like to do over the next year.
Todd Pruzan, HBR
That’s great. Thank you. Kwasi, thank you so much for a really inspiring discussion, for all of your insights today.
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte
Todd, thank you for the time.
Todd Pruzan, HBR
Thank you. And to learn more about why purpose matters in today’s business world, read Deloitte’s report on purpose.