If you haven't heard of design firm IDEO, you've almost certainly come across their work. Born from a hybrid of the Stanford Business School and Design School, they've worked with many of the world's leading companies to design products that work better for their users. And they've taken that design up from the product level to the organization level and beyond.

Check out the video above for a brief overview of the IDEO Purpose Wheel, the tool they've created to help leaders like you get started with defining your organizational purpose.

For more details on how to use the tool, check out the IDEO Blog Post (opens in new window) on the topic, complete with examples from Patagonia and The North Face (it is interesting to see how similar companies, both successful, define their purposes).

If you're interested in going further down the IDEO path for this exercise, you can enroll in their "Power of Purpose" course for $199 (not an affiliate link ;-)

My recommendation: Read the blog post above and download the IDEO Purpose Wheel Worksheet (PDF), then spend some time thinking through various options and how they might apply to your law practice. Think of the prompts in the wheel as inspiration, not limitation; if you don't think they quite capture what you're trying to accomplish, then pick language that does. The point is to think through the exercise more than to come up with the perfect statement.

I'm going to give you a different framework to think through at the end of this course, and the Purpose Wheel exercise is usually a good primer for that.

Lesson 2: The IDEO Purpose Wheel

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