The business world has spent decades treating purpose and performance as trade-offs.
Purpose is for the annual report. Performance is for the quarterly review. Choose one when they conflict.
That’s the wrong mental model.
Purpose and performance aren’t trade-offs. They compound.
The Tata Evidence
Tata Group gives 62% of its profits to nonprofit causes through its ownership structure. Sixty-two percent. This isn’t CSR window-dressing. It’s the structural foundation of the group.
And Tata built a $160 billion ecosystem spanning steel, software, automobiles, retail, hospitality, and more. Operating in 100+ countries. Employing nearly a million people.
Purpose didn’t weaken performance. Purpose attracted the kind of talent, the kind of decisions, and the kind of long-term thinking that made extraordinary performance possible.
The Multiplication Effect
I call it multiplication, not addition, deliberately. Purpose doesn’t just add a “feel good” layer on top of performance. It multiplies the quality of every decision in the system.
Talent: Purpose-driven companies attract people who want to build something meaningful, not just collect a paycheck. These people make better decisions, stay longer, and push harder.
Decisions: When purpose is clear, decisions become simpler. “Does this serve who we’re here for?” becomes a filter that eliminates 80% of bad ideas before they consume resources.
Trust: Customers, partners, and regulators trust purpose-driven companies more. That trust reduces friction in everything from negotiations to crisis management.
Purpose in the AI Era
This framework matters more now than ever. AI amplifies everything. It amplifies good decisions and bad ones. It amplifies helpful systems and harmful ones. It amplifies clear purpose and confused purpose equally.
The AI initiatives that succeed will be the ones with clear purpose. Not “we’re implementing AI because our competitors are” but “we’re using AI to solve this specific problem for this specific person because this specific outcome matters.”
How to Apply It
- Start every initiative with the “who does this serve?” question. If the answer is only “shareholders,” the initiative will underperform.
- Measure purpose outcomes alongside financial outcomes. Customer lives improved. Time saved. Problems solved. These aren’t soft metrics — they’re leading indicators of durable financial performance.
- Hire for purpose alignment, not just skill. Skills can be taught. Purpose alignment attracts people who make the system smarter over time.
- Build for the long term. Purpose-driven thinking naturally extends your time horizon. And in an AI era where technology cycles are measured in months, long-term thinking is the ultimate competitive advantage.
The Personal Version
This isn’t just a corporate framework. It applies to careers too.
The best career moves I’ve made weren’t the ones that maximized compensation or title. They were the ones that aligned with purpose. Jio — digitizing India. Tata — purpose-driven commerce at scale. Croma — bringing intelligent technology to every Indian household.
When purpose and performance align in your career, you stop chasing. You start building.
Purpose × Performance. Not purpose or performance. The multiplication is the point.
Choose to be wise.