Designing a Business from Purpose
August 3, 2022 | On the Awake & On Purpose Podcast
Katie Burkhart appeared on the Awake & On Purpose podcast for a conversation with host Jennifer Spor. She talked about designing a business based on the value it delivers.
Listen to the episode below.
read the transcript
excuse any typos as we tried to capture the conversation as it happened.
Jennifer: Welcome to the Awake and on Purpose podcast where, each week, I share insight, inspiration and advice for quantum leaping into new levels of expansion in your purpose and mission as a visionary, leader, and way-shower. You'll also hear from other new paradigm leaders who share their inspirational stories and wisdom. If you're passionate about embodying your highest destiny and leading others through this great awakening into the next golden age, this show is for you.
Jennifer: Hey, everyone! I’m excited to welcome as a guest to the show today, Katie Burkhart! She is the mastermind behind MatterLogic—the smart system for running a purpose-driven business—and has quickly become one of the go-to experts in the space. She's a serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker, minimalist designer, jargon slayer, and sharp communicator. She synthesizes connections that enable humans to make the most of the time they invest in their work. Katie, I'm excited to have this conversation! Welcome.
Katie: Thank you so much, Jennifer. I'm really excited to be here, and I can't wait to dive in and get to know more about you and talk more about purpose and work.
Jennifer: Thanks, me too. I'm excited about our conversation. I love just to kind of kick off things with just hearing more about what inspired you to actually get into this work.
Katie: You know, it's funny; I can't say that I set out... I was talking to somebody the other day. I have a real love for Grey's Anatomy, even though I know it's sort of like empty calories, but I love it anyway. And one of my favorite characters is Christina Yang. And I was talking about my work and my purpose. And I was like, “Man, some days I think it would be so nice if it was so phenomenally clear.” She knows she wants to be the best cardiothoracic surgeon there is. The path to get there is clear, and she's knocking it down one brick at a time.
In my case, I started working when I was still in high school, and my first job was as a lifeguard. And while that would sound, potentially, really inspiring—cause you're trying to keep people and little children from drowning—unfortunately, most of my time was spent looking at a largely empty pool.
And even on the days where there were people there, the pool had done a really great job of putting in preventative safety measures. So, it would’ve been an odd instance for something to go wrong—not that you weren’t paying attention. But the result was that I spent most of my time kind of sitting and waiting for time to tick by for hours, and hours, and hours at a shot. And what I took away from that was, that’s not how I wanted to spend my life. I really wanted to make sure whatever job or work I got into was going to be really exciting, was going to have me engaged, and was ultimately going to be useful—whatever that was. And that’s how I ended up getting into this without really knowing what it was.
I'm formally trained in design and storytelling. And once I started working with nonprofit leaders, and business founders, and business owners, as well as other leaders, it was like, “Oh, people are really here trying to go out and do something valuable and useful in the world, but they have challenges figuring out how to articulate that value, how to get everybody on the same page, and then how to keep everybody on the same page.” Really getting the important things done. So, it was really backing into a model that I didn't have words for but made perfect sense to me. And then once I gave it words, really working to define it quite clearly.
Jennifer: I'd love for you to share more with us about MatterLogic and just your overall process for kind of bringing people from where they are to where they're looking to be.
Katie: Absolutely. So MatterLogic is a different way of both thinking about and running a business. So, what we want people to do is work backwards. So instead of starting with a task, or an opportunity, or a team member, what we want you to do is start with what actually matters. What value are you delivering? What are we trying to achieve? And then work backwards to deliberately determine “Here are the actions, the resources, and the people that it’s going to take to actually get us to this end point.” Which is why one of my favorite questions when I'm working with clients is, “So, what's the point?”
And what's really cool about MatterLogic is we're not just asking that about why your organization exists in the first place, although that's incredibly important. We want you to ask that all the way down to every meeting you schedule because what we want to know is, “Is this a really good use of your time? Is this really going to have you putting your time towards the things that matter?”
Jennifer: In regard to the work that you do, purpose-driven is referenced and… Do you ever come across clients who, it turns out, aren't aligned in regard to that term? And how do you help them identify whether or not they're in alignment, what they really want, and what's driving them?
Katie: So, typically, we're working with organizations versus individuals. And at the organization level, in most cases, they're calling us—whether they know it or not—because they're not aligned. They've picked up on a symptom. Either it's, “We can't--we're struggling to talk about who we are and what we do,” or “We're finding that some of our goals—like, this team seems to be doing one thing while that team's doing another thing—and it's starting to cause internal friction,” or “We're not sure what to do with that. We're just not sure. We’ve been here 20 years, and we're asking the hard question of ‘so what?’ Is this really what we need to be doing?” And that's typically one of the places where we'll get a call. And the first piece that we always start with is listening.
And it's the piece that I think... So many incredibly inspired, passionate, motivated people—myself included—don't realize just how much listening is required to understand the people that you're here to serve. Right? So, as a purpose-driven business, you exist to deliver value to someone. And that means you need to understand what is it that you're—what value are you delivering to them. How are you improving their life? Which is the simplest question that you can ask. We typically ask more to get at that from multiple different angles, but really getting to that as fundamentally as possible. Keep asking why until it's like, “Oh, it's about saving you time. It's about being able to spend time with your family. It's about helping you to do this thing. That's going to allow you to do X, Y, or Z.”
But understanding that in their language is always step number one. Because in so many cases, the root cause for the misalignment is there's a gap between what we think the value is—the perceived value—and the actual value being delivered. If we're not on the same page about the value, we can't be on the same page about everything else.
Then we can get into, okay, we know the value. We can articulate it. We're all on the same page. How do we then work through our organization, our business, and figure out, “Okay, what in our processes, our systems, the way we've chosen to align our team, and how we run our meetings is not helping us to deliver this value or is maybe in the way?” And we like to use the phrase, “What are you going to stop, start, evolve, or add?” There's a piece of things that are going to get removed. Strategy is not just about adding more new things. It's also about taking things off that aren't working. And then looking at, “Okay, we have some things that we could evolve.” We could change how we're doing it to put us in a more aligned—a more effective position.
Jennifer: Do you find, in your work with organizations, that there are people that don't align with the roles that they're in and with the values?
Katie: Absolutely. And it's something that we—or I specifically—take on the mantle, talking to CEOs and executive directors. I say, look, we're going to go through a pretty big process, and I think you'll find that a lot of people will find it very motivating. A lot of people will be really excited. A lot of people will be re-energized into what they do with your organization. You will also have a group of people that are energized, but are in the wrong place. And are you prepared to help them make the transition to where they need to be within your organization so that their purpose is connecting to your purpose? And there's good synergy there, in what's going on, and they're able to build the skills and get the fulfillment out of their job that they're looking for. And third group...are you prepared for those people, where once we go through all of this, you realize that your purpose is X—while we're here to do this and we need these skills to make it happen—unfortunately, this is not the best home for you. How can I help you find the best home for you so that this is a really good fit and you're somewhere where you can do your best work, which is the ultimate goal?
Jennifer: And it really is a huge mindset shift too. Isn't it in your work with people? Because, I mean, we live in a society that, up to this point, has largely conditioned us to believe that success is compartmentalized and looks a certain way. Right? And I believe that this is how so many people end up in roles that they're not aligned with, because they're not looking within themselves to have a clear sense of self. They're just thinking about outside of themselves. What have they been taught to believe that they need to achieve success? Would you agree with that?
Katie: I would. And the other piece that I think is really important to consider is now that you're seeing a greater interest in, “Oh, I probably should cover purpose. I should get meaning out of my day. What I'm doing should matter.” We've also come up with kind of a stereotypical definition of what that looks like.
And in most cases, it's very save the world, superhero level. And usually when I speak, one of the questions that I'll get asked is somebody in the room who's like, “If I'm not motivated to save the world, does that mean I don't have a purpose?” And the answer is no, absolutely not. Taking the time to understand...personal purpose, on some levels, has many more shades of gray and is more likely to flex over time than organizational purpose.
Taking the time to be, as you say, self-aware of yourself, of who you are, of what you get fulfillment out of. Where are your skills? Where do you not have skills? What skills are you excited to learn more about and build on? What does that look like for you? I think the more clearly you can determine if you're in a good place for you or not, and really what organization wants somebody who really doesn't wanna be there? I don't—I always ask my teams, “Are you excited to be here? Do you still want to be there—"
Jennifer: Yes.
Katie: Is there something I can do to help you do this better, to help you do your best work?” Because that's what we're looking for. And if not, let me help you get you somewhere where you can do that, whatever that thing is. But having that self-awareness is really important and figuring out a way to have that self-awareness that people don't feel like they're digging deep for something that isn't motivating to them. I like to tell people, “I am not in the work I'm in because I really want to save the whales. I'm in it because I want to be useful. And I want to help people make the most of their time, whatever that means for them.”
Jennifer: Yeah. And that's what it means for you. And I believe success and purpose are uniquely defined based upon the person's individual journey, but that living and congruency to that is really key to that fulfillment. Right?
So, in every way that you're living, and definitely wherever you're working—whether it's for someone else or as an entrepreneur—a lot has obviously changed over the last couple of years. And I work a lot with purpose as well, but in a bit of a different angle, I guess. I think you would refer to it as maybe more on the soft side of things, but something I often talk about a lot is the importance of having a clear sense of self in terms of navigating through these times. Right?
So, whether that's, as you said, saving the whales or just having the desire to be useful in some capacity really getting to a place where someone feels clear on what that is, I believe, so important.
I'd love to hear more from you about how the last couple of years have changed in terms of the dynamic of your work. And do you see more companies interested in this?
Katie: So, I would say absolutely. We went through what I like to call the Great Pause, where we had this kind of—I don't want to say unprecedented but certainly not something that's happened any time in my lifetime—where everybody kind of stopped at the same time. I don't literally mean that we all just sat around and did nothing. There was a lot going on. People's lives were drastically different, but they were so disengaged from life as they had previously defined it at the same time. We could all sit and ask some of the same questions at the same time. And one of the biggest ones was “Was what I was doing before worth it or not?” And I think what we're seeing is people going, “I'm not so sure,” which has changed into the Great Resignation or whatever you'd like to call it.
I really see it as a realignment of a lot of people saying, “This isn't where I want to be. I need to be over here. How do I shift this to put my life under different parameters?” And one where, to your point, sort of the older established definitions of success, like beating myself up to climb the corporate ladder, is no longer what people are looking at as success. That is what I call sort of the three wheels. Having the time and freedom is number one. People are really seeing time as the most valuable thing that they have. And then being able to master skills. Every person I interview for my team over the last two years, “I want to learn new things” is universal among all of them. Because we're looking to do what we do better or to learn something completely different and grow as individuals. And then the last piece of, how do I know that I'm going to make a difference, whatever that means. That there's going to be some legacy piece attached. And where you're seeing that at an individual level, you're starting to see corporations ask the same questions.
Now, unfortunately, there are a vast number that are doing that superficially because they're hoping that they can use that to generate more sales. They didn't really shift how they're doing business. But as someone who's doing this work...I'm working with some awesome clients who have absolutely said, “No, we're shifting, we're making the whole shift. We're doing it. We're committed. We're doubling down. Let's really work through how we do this the right way.” And I think it's an amazing opportunity for newer businesses, newer organizations, smaller and mid-sized organizations who have more ability to make a full transformation versus some of the absolute Titans where, even if they wanted to, it will be a long time because change just comes slower—to really dive into this and take it on.
Jennifer: Now, you said you work mostly with organizations, right?
Katie: So, I work with... I technically consider everybody a business whether you're for profit, nonprofit, 501, C6 does not matter. It's just different tax structure. Yes.
Jennifer: Okay, great. Yeah. My next question, really, we'd love to know more about... What are say, the top three symptoms that someone can look for in their organization—whether they're a small business owner or they're overseeing a larger organization—that would indicate that they're out of alignment and that they need to revisit what their mission is and what their purpose is? And then what would be your top three pieces of advice to alleviate those symptoms or to move forward, to get further alignment?
Katie: So, the number one is always, “Do you really know and understand the value you deliver?” And I think the symptom there is typically like, “We're talking to prospects, but we're not quite getting buys. And we don't know why.” We're trying to explain what we do to people, and we're just finding that it's not resonating. They're not nodding along. They're not—something's disconnected.
Or we have multiple versions of the story. The sales team has their deck and then the CEO has his deck. And then—because somehow nobody has decided we're all doing the same thing—and that's usually a quick way to say, “Wait a minute.” If we can't at least articulate it clearly, then pretty much, you don't know what it is in almost all cases. And the quickest remedy to that one is to start by doing some more dynamic listening to the people you're supposed to serve.
The number one reason a startup fails is there's no product market fit. Somebody came up with an awesome something or other but didn't bother to determine if somebody actually needed that. And we just don't have time for that noise. Which leads me into symptom number two, which is that people are asking the question “So what?” Like, “Hey, we just offered 50 zoom meetings for our subscribers this year.” So what?
When you start to ask that question, what you're starting to get at is, “I'm putting a lot of effort in, and I'm not really sure why I'm putting the effort in.” And that typically means that they don't have a reason for what it is that they're doing, which typically means that you're out of alignment. People are doing things just because we always did them because we thought it sounded great. But there's probably not a good reason, or at least they don't know what it is. Which means you may know as the CEO, but they don't—which is a big alignment problem. They should be able to connect what they're doing to why they're doing it. And usually the shift there is, we usually look at this open door for, “Can we do a plan? Can we take a look at running through your Core strategy, making sure we understand the outcomes?” And then let's really take a look at this organization and see are these things helping you to deliver that value? Can we actually make a case for each of them and explain clearly, this is why we're offering this program? This is why we offer this product? This is why we did 50 webinars this year? And then be able to start looking at, are we measuring the right things to tell us if they're effective? It's a little bit of a bigger challenge, but that's where you start to see it come up.
And then the third piece that we often see as a symptom is, where do the new ideas come from? And do you only have a list of new stuff? It doesn't necessarily mean you're out of alignment, but it's definitely a flag for us that you will be shortly because you are just adding more and more and more stuff to the plate. All the old stuff is still there. And at a certain point, you cannot do all of the things. So you're going to end up with things that are pushing you out of alignment, whether you realized it or not.
And one of the flags for us is to say, “Where are the new ideas coming from?” For example, nonprofits have a tendency to end up with very enthusiastic board members who propose things because they like the idea. And that's about as far as the proposal’s coming from. The intention is good, but it may or may not be productive for the organization. So, thinking about “where did the idea come from and how did we choose to execute on it” can be a really key piece of whether you stay aligned or kind of just keep saying yes to everything. So, in purpose-driven business, no is the word you should use more often than not.
Jennifer: Absolutely. And it's so important to also have team members—right?—who aren't afraid to communicate and speak up if they don't think that an idea is aligned. That's another mindset that traditionally has been just so prominent in the corporate and various companies’ spaces is that employees feel that because of whatever role it is that they're in, that they have to kind of stay in this bubble. And they're not often given a whole lot of ownership over having input into the organization at all levels.
Katie: Absolutely. And I think you're starting to see that change. In our work, we...one of the key areas we focus on is two separate areas that work together is decision-making. How is decision making done? And really elevating that to a different level.
When I say elevate, I don't mean making it something only the CEO does. I actually mean making it a culture of decision-making. How do decisions get made everywhere, and how do you give people more autonomy to make the decisions they need to make, as well as the guidance they need to make a purpose-driven or purpose-aligned decision? And then having those feedback loops to make sure that you're getting...that initial listening isn't the only time you listen. We want you to be listening and responding, and listening and responding, and listening and responding forever. Because that's how you learn.
Jennifer: Yes. And a lot of employees enjoy having more of that ownership, right? Like having more of that input, I think, does a lot for morale as well.
Katie: Absolutely. People are looking for that ownership of their work. We want to know that I've got some, and I think we're seeing that really come to a head with remote working. And companies that are like, “We’re going to put spyware, and we're going to watch every key you click, and we're going to…" And people are being like, “Ah, I can't like that.” It wouldn't even cross my mind to do that, but there are still companies that just don't quite know how to be comfortable with trusting their team. That if we all know why we're here, we know what...the vision, we know where we're going, we understand the mission we're on, and we've put in really good outcomes that we're going to deliver on, then I can trust the awesome team I brought together to deliver on those things.
Jennifer: Absolutely. Katie, just in closing, what else are you feeling guided to bring forward?
Katie: Today? I would say the piece I like to leave with others is, every year—actually twice a year—I conduct something called a life review, where I actually take the time to list everything in my life that takes my time. And try to give myself space to really assess. Are these things I still want to take my time? Are they getting my time in the best way possible? Is there something else I need to do with them or, in most cases, do I need to take them off this list? Because I can't do everything, or at the very least, I can't do everything all at the same time. And what I did this year, because my birthday is at the end of March, is I decided to do it a little differently.
And so you're going to get a blank page and you can only write on the page what gets your “hell yes.” Yes, I want this in my life. And it's something where I don't want to shift my typical process because I think on a regular basis it's more useful. But once a year—once every other year, once every three years—really sitting down and forcing yourself to be like, “You have to deliberately say yes.” You have to say, “I want this” to write it on the page. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. But it really makes you deliberate about what you're saying yes to and what's getting your time.
Jennifer: I love that approach. I love, love that. I recommend life reviews as well, typically on a quarterly basis. I feel like right now, in our current climate, it's—there are just a lot of changes happening very rapidly and even something that we wanted a few months ago might shift in change by the next time we sit down to do that review.
So, I really love your process that you shared and that it has to be a “hell yes.” Right? Not just, “Well, I kinda like...I could deal with that.” But that again, I think, goes back to a lot of societal programming around compartmentalizing things, around what it means to achieve success and joy in whatever we're doing is really our birthright. Like not a “nice to have.”
Katie: Yes, yes. You get one life. Time is the most valuable. Please invest it well.
Jennifer: Make the most of your time here. Absolutely. Katie, if someone wants to reach out to you directly, where is the best place for them to connect?
Katie: So, one of the best places to find me is on LinkedIn. And I do actually accept all connections that come my way, and I will respond to your message if you want to chat about purpose or anything else.
The other great place to stay in contact with me—and if you liked anything about what I was sharing and our approach to running a purpose-driven business—is to get on the Weekly Logic where we—actually, I personally—send one point at a time, something that you can use to apply to your business today to help you run a more purpose-driven, more aligned business. It comes to your inbox every Monday morning, and you can find that at matterlogic.co/weekly.
Jennifer: I've so enjoyed having you today. And I really just want to thank you for the work that you're doing because I really believe that this is the future in the landscape for the workplace.
Katie: I could not agree more. Thank you so much for having me.
Jennifer: Thank you.