Corporate Purpose
Martin's position: purpose is real and valuable only when integrated with the other four cascade choices. Otherwise it is decoration, or worse, cover.
Purpose properly understood is a Winning Aspiration with moral content: who the company serves and why that matters. Its test is the same as every cascade box, does it shape Where to Play, demand a specific How to Win, require particular Must-Have Capabilities, and get reinforced by Enabling Management Systems?
The failure case he cites: WeWork, an elevated purpose ("elevate the world's consciousness") floating entirely free of the actual choices, which were a real-estate arbitrage. Purpose without Integration doesn't just fail to help; it corrodes trust when the gap becomes visible.
Diagnostic: trace the purpose downward. If removing it would change no decision, it is a poster. See also BHAGs Through Martins Lens, the same integration test applied to ambition instead of virtue.
Our synthesis of Roger Martin’s published work, sources credited. Read the originals: they’re excellent.
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