Businesses need more than just an economic anchor: Smartsheet CEO

Mark Mader, CEO of Smartsheet believes that it’s not enough these days for businesses to only be driven by the bottom line.

The McLaren Racing sponsor announced its Sponsor X initiative last week to shine a light on Indigenous charity DeadlyScience during the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend.

Mader explained the reasoning for the initiative stating, “Pursuing social progress anchors us in a greater purpose.”

He told Digital Nation Australia, “Today in work, you need to do more than simply having an economic anchor to what drives you. It's sort of fleeting. It's a ‘Hey, great, we made another penny of earnings. Hey, we hit another revenue milestone.’ That's not what people are interested in. We have that obligation, don't get me wrong, but how can you enhance that?”

For businesses to make a lasting impact, their focus needs to be on maximising people’s potential, he said.

“When you think about how we can take our 2700 employees and have more impact globally, it's about how to activate others,” said Mader.

“When we talk to our employees around purpose, and doing things to impact others, I think if you can get your team to believe that people recognise in giving you or your organisation credit for an unlock, that gives the lasting, amazing feeling.”

According to Corey Tutt, CEO of DeadlyScience the role of enterprise in supporting the not-for-profit sector should be based on fostering collaborative and meaningful relationships.

“It is the duty of these for-profit businesses to give back to the First Nations people in this country, for the future. Today should be spent on making tomorrow better. And whether people agree with me or not, I think that it's important that we move forward together,” said Tutt.

According to Nigel Mendonca, VP of Asia Pacific at Smartsheet, the business’ purpose needs to directly reflect the values of the organisation. And when you get this right, it can be a key talent attraction and retention strategy.

“When I've talked to [external candidates] about what's important to them about joining a company, they talk a lot about the values of the organisation. They’ve brought up what they've seen in the media this week about how we're helping DeadlyScience, and it's very clear that that's important, that's attractive to a prospective employee, to get on board with an organisation that has those values,” said Mendonca.

“If we have the ability to attract great people, that's going to end up helping us to achieve some of the commercial outcomes that we need to, which allows us to then put back into the communities as well. So, it’s a bit of a perpetual cycle.”