Reinventing purpose of a century old organization


 

Why did the new CEO of UPS Carol Tome had to reinvent the purpose of a 115 year old company: Delivering what matters is the purpose. That's what we do and who we are - why we exist? Response from ChatGPT (Draft):

ChatGPT

Carol Tomé became the CEO of UPS in June 2020. When she took on this role, the world was undergoing significant shifts, particularly due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. While UPS's core purpose, delivering packages, had remained consistent over the years, the broader implications and expectations around what that delivery meant had changed.

Here are some reasons why Carol Tomé might have felt the need to reinvent or reaffirm the purpose of UPS:

  1. Changing Landscape: The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the essential nature of delivery services, both for essential goods and for keeping the economy moving as more people shopped online. The phrase "Delivering what matters" encapsulates this heightened importance.

  2. Stakeholder Expectations: Modern companies are increasingly evaluated not just by their profits, but by their broader impact on society – including how they treat their employees, their environmental footprint, and their contributions to communities. Rearticulating a purpose can help align a company with these broader stakeholder expectations.

  3. Employee Morale and Motivation: A clearly stated and meaningful purpose can help motivate employees, giving them a clear sense of why their work matters. This can be especially important in challenging times, such as during a pandemic, when the job can be both more stressful and more critical.

  4. Competitive Differentiation: As the delivery and logistics space becomes more crowded, with entrants like Amazon building out their own delivery networks, it's important for UPS to differentiate itself. A compelling purpose can be one way to do that, by showing customers and partners what makes UPS unique.

  5. Cultural Transformation: CEOs often use the articulation or rearticulation of a company's purpose as a tool in driving cultural transformation. By emphasizing certain values or goals, a CEO can signal the kind of culture they want to cultivate and the behaviors they want to see from employees.

  6. Future Growth and Diversification: As UPS looks to the future, it might be considering new services or markets. A broad, aspirational purpose like "Delivering what matters" can be flexible enough to encompass not just traditional package delivery, but also new ventures and services the company might consider in the future.

In essence, while UPS’s core operation of package delivery remained the same, the context in which it operated, the expectations of its stakeholders, and the broader implications of its services had evolved. By reinventing or reaffirming its purpose, Carol Tomé was positioning UPS to be more relevant, resilient, and responsive in a changing world.

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