The purpose of purpose

By Mark House

Purpose (Noun) - 'the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists'

While there is general agreement that being 'Purpose-Led' is important there is perhaps less consensus about why this should be the case. This is not helped when all too often the purpose is so vague that it is impossible to follow in any meaningful way.

The RM Compare Team spend a lot of time framing and checking our purpose. But why bother?

Finding purpose is hard, but it matters

There is always a lot going on, even in a relatively small project like RM Compare. Day to day we are balancing the demands of multiple internal and external stakeholders as new opportunities and challenges arise. Sometimes the decisions we need to make are obvious, however in many cases this is not the case. This is where a clear purpose is vital. Carefully crafted it informs our vision, mission, strategy, objectives and ultimately the decisions we need to make. Crucially it empowers the team to prioritise with confidence and to stay aligned at all times.

The RM Compare purpose

RM itself has a clear vision, namely 'Enabling the improvement of educational outcomes around the world'. We love this as it helps to align our own efforts.

At the Team level here are our current purpose, vision and mission statements. Acting together you can think of them as a bit of a North Star, always pointing us in the right direction.

  • RM Compare Purpose: To prepare people for a future in a highly uncertain world by ensuring that everyone can learn successfully.
  • RM Compare Vision: To empower absolutely anyone to accurately assess anything whenever and wherever they want
  • RM Compare Mission: To drive transformative change by taking an altogether different approach to assessment

As an example, right now we are thinking a lot about the concept of RM Compare On-Demand because it fits so well with our North Star. This is complex and there is a lot to learn and many decisions to be made. Having a clear purpose helps us at every step.

We are always looking for partners who share a similar purpose. Get in touch if you think this might be you.