I’ve known of Nick Asbury and his work for a long time, but somehow managed to miss his newsletter and writings from the past few years about ‘purpose’.

The problem with purpose post (originally an interview from ‘Pass It On’ by Lauren Crichton) is a great read to introduce the topic and how he frames the problem.

The easy part of my argument is that purpose is bogus when it’s treated as a superficial marketing exercise or ‘purpose washing’ to burnish the reputation of a business. Even most purpose advocates agree with that, and their response is that purpose is only effective when it’s authentic and business-deep.

The interview is stacked with points that had me nodding deeply, and feeling thankful that someone has articulated an itch that I’ve been unable to reach for some time.

This idea in particular – a quote and person that I hadn’t come across before – really resonated.

The reality of businesses and markets is that doing the right thing often comes at a cost—as captured in Bill Bernbach’s phrase, ‘A principle isn’t a principle until it costs you something’

Nick expands on the story behind this in another post, Bernbach to the future, and while it’s a perspective and story from ad-land (and copywriting), I can see enormous correlations between it and the worlds of digital transformation and product (and content design).

In short, companies exist to make money. Whether you’re creating ads for a company that says it cares about the environment, or building products in an environment that says it puts user needs first, the true purpose is ultimately to make money. Especially so for public companies.

The more challenging part of my argument is that purpose will always struggle to be authentic and business-deep because it’s fundamentally flawed as a concept. Certainly, in the case of public companies, it’s impossible to reconcile your duty to shareholders with the professed social agenda of company managers. In the end, it’s not your money you’re putting on the line, and you have no right to channel it into any other purpose than shareholder interest. To that extent, purpose will always be inauthentic when it comes to consequential calls.

None of this means companies should stop thinking about ethics and social responsibility. My argument is that they should think about these things even harder—by abandoning the comforting delusions of purpose and engaging with the tougher trade-offs that will always be involved.

From ‘The problem with purpose’ post, to the Bernbach post, I was led also to Nicks Patagonia, Paul Newman and another kind of purpose post which is equally full of sharp and succinct points on the purpose of purpose. In it, Nick highlights a particularly punchy paragraph from Yvon Chouinard’s open letter about Patagonia.

Another path was to take the company public. What a disaster that would have been. Even public companies with good intentions are under too much pressure to create short-term gain at the expense of long-term vitality and responsibility.

There’s more consideration in Nick’s writings than I’m highlighting here. I’m just picking the juicy parts that have had me boiling over a little without realising. Thankfully though, all nuance and insight in these posts and more are being collected into his upcoming book The Road to Hell: How purposeful business leads to bad marketing and a worse world – And how human creativity is the way out.

I wager it’s going to be a must read. Very much looking forward to its release, and more honest and pragmatic conversations about what we mean by purpose.