Drawing on the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, Laura Segre, ESSEC GBBA student and winner of the CoBS 2025 Student CSR Article Competition at ESSEC Business School, explores the value gap and purpose gap and how to fix these as key ingredients to align corporate purpose and employee meaning.

“The Hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the Tortoise in time.” (Aesop). The message from the Tortoise and the Hare tale reminds us that slow and steady could win you the race. This may seem counter-intuitive today as change and innovation show no signs of slowing. While the hare drifted off to sleep after overtaking the tortoise, the steady progress of the tortoise was driven by a sense of purpose that proved more sustainable in the long run than the hare’s attempt to brag.

Now if we replace the hare and the tortoise with two companies having different organisational strategies, the tortoise representing authentic and practical purpose and the hare representing superficial purpose, the story unfolds the same way. A company driven by superficial purpose might prioritize financial performance over other success indicators for the organisation.

On the other hand, a company driven by authentic purpose focuses on long-term values such as contribution to society and people. Pixar director Brad Bird states in McKinsey’s Quarterly interview, “Money is just fuel for the rocket. What I really want to do is go somewhere.” In other words, profitability can catalyze meaningful impact. To achieve this, a strong sense of purpose must be implemented. This happens when the organisation aligns the personal purpose of employees and the desire for the organisation to create a meaningful impact on society and the environment.

Employee Value Gap  

Today, organisational purpose has become even more relevant in the workplace. This is because the new workforce, Gen Z and millennials, is highly purpose-driven. According to a survey conducted by Deloitte in 2024, 86% of Gen Z and 89% of millennials agree that having a sense of purpose is very or somewhat important to their overall job satisfaction and well-being.

Perhaps this is a consequence of growing up watching Pixar animations like A Bug’s Life, which explores the importance of believing in your ability to make a difference, no matter how small or insignificant you may feel. The pandemic also played a role in the search for personal purpose at work as it forced employees to reevaluate how their employers valued them; not just as workers but as people. A recent study revealed that 82% of employees agree on the importance of being valued as individuals, not just as employees, but only 45% feel that their employers perceive them this way (Gartner 2023). This gap is the first obstacle in aligning personal and organisational purposes. Organisations must ensure that employees feel valued as individuals and confident in their ability to contribute to the organisation’s success. This begins with revising outdated employee value propositions to offer a more “Human Deal”. This deal increases employee satisfaction with its 5 components: deeper connections, radical flexibility, personal growth, holistic well-being, and shared purpose (Gartner 2021).

Organisational Purpose Gap

Employees are not alone in their search for purpose; organisations are also looking for a driving force to guide their steps but often struggle to define it. Although it is generally agreed that work should deliver a sense of purpose, and not “mainly focus on making profits and be distracted by social goals.” (Rigby et al 2022), a purpose gap still exists.

The purpose gap refers to the disconnect between the value organisations place on purpose and the actual impact that purpose has in practice. A McKinsey survey of a sample of U.S companies concluded that 72% of respondents agreed that purpose should receive more weight than profit – however, less than half reported that their company’s stated purpose had a significant effect on driving the organisation (Gast et al 2020).

Closing this purpose gap offers an array of benefits for the organisation while improving financial performance. For example, academic studies have shown positive results regarding the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) propositions on equity returns (Van Der Grient, 2024). This is because a clearly defined purpose integrated into operations can lead to customer loyalty, greater natural resources efficiency, and higher employee productivity. It is important to remember that authenticity is key when defining this purpose. Hypocrisy is perceived as worse than having no purpose.

Aligning Purpose with Competitive Advantage  

Defining an authentic purpose statement that can be reflected in tasks at every level of the organisation is not a simple feat. Being authentic requires long and often uncomfortable debates regarding the symbiotic relationship between organisational purpose, financial performance, and negative externalities. Therefore, to ensure authenticity, organisations should consider aligning their purpose with their competitive advantage. For example, a company might use its unique ability in operational efficiency to drive progress across ESG themes.

In industries such as commodity supply chains for cocoa, cotton, or sugar, it’s hard to address negative externalities related to ESG without coming off as hypocritical. Therefore, to find authentic purpose, companies need to pinpoint how they can leverage their competitive advantage to positively change practices within their industries. This is what Tony’s Chocolonely, a Dutch chocolate company, did to establish a purpose-driven and profitable supply chain that aims to eliminate child labour, encourage responsible land use, and ensure farmers are treated fairly. Commodity product supply chains are often fragmented; Tony’s leverages its ability to unify its supply chain through purpose. Leading by example, the chocolate giant demonstrates that ethical practice and profitability coexist (Pannekoek et al, 2023).

Another player in the cocoa industry, Hershey, has also asked itself uncomfortable questions regarding the cocoa industry and environmentalism. Hershey established the Cocoa for Good Strategy policy, which includes a 12-year, $500 million commitment to addressing social and environmental challenges such as deforestation and child labor. As a result, 86% of The Hershey Company’s employees affirm their genuine satisfaction with their organisation’s commitment to making a positive impact (Hastwell, 2025). These examples showcase organisations defining and applying authentic purpose to their competitive advantage in a way that resonates with their employees. 

Aligning Purpose with Performance Management

A critical aspect of aligning personal and organisational purposes is measurable implementation. In other words, what strategies can an organisation employ to ensure vision resonates with its stakeholders? The key to designing management practices that align personal and organisational purpose starts with emotional intelligence.

The five components of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. These components are crucial in recognizing and influencing emotions tied to purpose. Once again, this is a page straight from Pixar’s Inside Out, a movie that underpins the purpose of emotions in creating identity.

Emotionally intelligent leaders are more adept at implementing vision by translating organisational purpose into something all stakeholders can relate to. This implementation can be assessed through success indicators that measure how well the organisation’s purpose resonates with stakeholders. Hubert Joly, former CEO of Best Buy, lists a few examples of these indicators in his published article in Harvard Business Review. For employees, indicators such as turnover, diversity and inclusion metrics, employee ratings, and best employer status can reveal how employees resonate with organisational values.

Furthermore, modern performance management is shifting beyond measuring employee outcomes to incorporating context and empathy. Organisations address motivational challenges by implementing management controls, which include results controls (setting and rewarding performance targets) and people controls (hiring individuals who align with organisational values). To hire the right people, companies might consider incorporating a culture-fit measurement system in hiring.

Research by Wei Can at Harvard Business School found that employees selected based on culture fit perform significantly better than those hired without this criteria. However, for this strategy to be effective, an organisation’s stated values must be represented in the working environment where the candidate is applying. When true, culture-fit hiring results in improved employee engagement and overall organisational success (Wei Can, 2023).

Team Tortoise: Align purpose and move forward 

The Tortoise and the Hare fable taught us that real success happens when there is a strong sense of purpose rather than speed and bragging rights. Organisations have the opportunity to create meaningful impact by defining an authentic purpose that resonates with all stakeholders. To do this, they must address the value gap that exists for employees by integrating a more “Human Deal” in their employee value proposition. Similarly, the purpose gap, where an organisation’s stated purpose lacks significant impact, needs to be addressed. Doing this will facilitate the alignment between organisational purpose and employee purpose, which will ultimately enhance financial performance.

Management practices such as results controls and people controls provide solutions to the misalignment of personal and organisational purposes. This is where emotionally intelligent leaders can translate purpose to employees and culture-fit measurement systems can be used when hiring.

Companies that take the risk of moving financial performance down the list of priorities will find that they will eventually overtake their competition like the tortoise did the hare. Deloitte is a strong example of this as it embeds a strong ESG-related purpose into its actions in three ways: actions the company takes, actions it inspires its people to take, and actions it takes with clients and other stakeholders.

For example, in 2022, 91% of the energy Deloitte purchased was renewable. Deloitte has inspired actors in its global supply chain to commit to procurement sustainability and improvements in their carbon footprint. Finally, by including stakeholders in the discussion, Deloitte works with Indigenous peoples in Australia, Asia, and Canada to develop nature-based climate solutions. As a result, 91% of Deloitte’s employees say they feel good about how their organisation gives back (Hastwell, 2025).

Ultimately, the choice between being the hare or the tortoise is clear. While short-term wins may seem tempting, organisations should focus on authenticity, purpose, and long-term vision. This will time their steps to reach the finish line and set the pace for others to follow.

Useful Links:

• Link up with Laura Segre on LinkedIn
• Read a related article: The Purpose Ecosystem – when private actors and stakeholders help companies reach the SDGs
• Download the latest Harvard-CoBS magazine Companies & Purpose
• Discover ESSEC Business School and the ESSEC Global BBA.

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