Robert E. Quinn discusses higher purpose on Everybody Matters Podcast

July 10, 2020


Center for Positive Organization (CPO) co-founder and core faculty member Robert E. Quinn discusses higher purpose on the Everybody Matters Podcast.

Quinn examines how setting and communicating a clear higher purpose to employees at all levels can create positive corporations. “When purpose is the arbiter of every decision, every single person’s empowered,” he says.

The Everybody Matters Podcast episode also features insights from Quinn’s talk on higher purpose in a socioeconomic context during the Organizational Higher Purpose conference.

“When we understand purpose, we move into a new realm that other people don’t live in. And then you and I engage in exponential learning,” Quinn says. “… It’s logical, emotional and conscience-driven, not culturally driven. When I’m purpose-driven, I bring conscience to culture. That’s a key phrase, you won’t hear it anywhere else. I bring conscience to culture. Inspiration breathes life into a system. Conscience brings inspiration, which breathes life into a system, and everything changes.”

Quinn is Margaret Elliott Tracy Collegiate Emeritus Professor in Business Administration; Emeritus Professor of Management and Organizations at the University of Michigan. He also is co-author of the new book The Economics of Higher Purpose: Eight Counterintuitive Steps for Creating a Purpose-Driven Organization.