The Purpose Switch

"Changing the system's purpose changes it immensely, even if all of the elements and interconnections remain unchanged." —Steven Schuster

Here's what he means.

You've got a marketing team. Same five people, same tools, same stale donuts in that Tuesday meeting room.

But last quarter their purpose was "generate qualified leads."

This quarter? "Build long-term brand equity."

Watch what happens.

The copywriter stops writing "Click here now!" and starts crafting what she calls "narrative journeys." The analyst ditches conversion rates for something called "sentiment velocity."

The manager? She's suddenly asking questions that sound like they came from a philosophy textbook.

Same people. Same budget. Same coffee that tastes like regret.

Nothing changed.

Everything changed.

(This is why most reorgs are such spectacular failures, by the way. Leaders spend six months shuffling the org chart around like they're solving a Rubik's cube, but the underlying purpose stays exactly the same. Then they act genuinely shocked—shocked!—when nothing actually shifts.)

Thing is, we rarely name our system's real purpose out loud.

We just assume everyone knows what we're here for.

But here's the uncomfortable truth…

If you don't consciously choose your system's purpose, it chooses itself.

And it usually picks something hilariously terrible.

Like "make the loudest person happy" or "avoid getting blamed for anything."

What's your data pipeline really for?

Generating reports that nobody reads? Or catching problems before your clients even notice them?

Same code, same servers.

Completely different system.

Your customer service team—is their purpose "close tickets quickly" or "create customers who tell their friends about us"?

Watch how differently they handle that angry email depending on which purpose is driving the bus.

Makes you wonder what other purposes are hiding in plain sight.

(Spoiler alert: You probably don't want to know.)