How an Accounting Firm Convinced Its Employees They Could Change the World – Harvard Business Review
It’s a fabled story about a janitor’s exchange with President Kennedy during the early days of NASA: “What do you do?” the president supposedly asked the man with a broom during a visit to Cape Canaveral. “Well, Mr. President, I’m helping to put a man on the moon.”
This meeting may not have actually taken place. But there’s a good reason it’s one of the most commonly-repeated management anecdotes: it illustrates the idea that a workforce motivated by a strong sense of higher purpose is essential to engagement. This articles discusses surveys that show how employees will forego other benefits to work for an organization with an inspiring purpose.