TPL Insights #305: Purpose Isn’t a Poster on the Wall: A Conversation with Roy Spence

By Rob Andrews

Every once in a while, you have a conversation that does not feel like an interview. It feels more like two people circling the same truth from different directions.

That is what happened during my last call with Roy Spence, Chairman and Co-Founder of GSD&M, co- founder of the Make It Movement, and a literal legend in the world of purpose-driven leadership.

We didn’t talk about frameworks at first. We talked about people. About parents. About kids. About plumbers. About leaders who never looked the part and leaders who looked the part but totally wrecked everything.

And somewhere in the middle of that wide-ranging, unpolished, deeply human conversation, we landed on the same uncomfortable conclusion.

We are spectacularly bad at seeing potential, even when it is standing right in front of us. That failure has consequences. Massive ones.

The Leadership Crisis No One Wants to Name

Here is the uncomfortable data most organizations prefer to skate past.

Gallup tells us 82 percent of the U.S. workforce is disengaged, and it is getting worse. Mercer estimates that only 3 to 5 percent of organizations globally do people well.

My own research, spanning 13 years, 54 organizations, and now three graduate programs, suggests that we are overlooking high potential senior leaders at scale.

Not because we are malicious. Not because we are stupid. But because we are operating with unexamined blind spots.

In my research, I have identified 11 common biases that quietly distort how leaders are identified, promoted, and developed. These are not nefarious. They are subconscious. But together, they create $9 trillion-dollar global performance problem.

Roy and I did not debate the numbers. We debated the cause. And we landed in the same place.

Find What You Are Encoded to Do

Roy shared something Jim Collins, who has been working on his next book for 12 years, has been studying deeply.

Every human being is encoded for something.

Not what society expects. Not what parents project. Not what looks impressive on LinkedIn. What you are wired to do.

Collins’ insight, and Roy’s lived experience, is that everyone hits a cliff at some point in life. And when they do, one of two things happens.

They rediscover what they are encoded to do and start climbing again. Or they do not, and they fall.

That idea landed hard for me, because it perfectly explains something I have seen for decades in executive search and leadership advisory work.

We keep promoting people based on polish, not encoding. And then we act surprised when organizations stall, cultures rot, and disengagement explodes.

The Best Leader I Ever Knew Would Be Overlooked Today

I told Roy a story I have told many times, but it never stops mattering. The best leader I ever worked for, was a produce department manager for ten years. No degree. No executive presence. No meteoric career arc.

But he built the Safeway Houston division from nothing to a commanding 23 percent market share. He gave us purpose before we called it purpose. He cared about customers and employees. “Take care of Mrs. Jones, and each other” he said. He cared about all of us who struggled to build a new division in the Houston Wild West of the 1970s, when no one from any of the established divisions wanted to come here. He sent me, an unlikely kid with no degree, to Dale Carnegie, Toastmasters, and Austin for a year of leadership development.

Don Gates made Division President in 1978 and went on to set records for top and bottom-line performance in five separate divisions before he retired in 2003. He also exported more senior leaders than all the other division heads combined. He was one of the most revered leaders I’ve ever encountered and had an incredibly positive influence on thousands of people.

Today?

He would probably be filtered out in the first resume screen.

That is not progress. That is institutional blindness.

Purpose Is the Operating System, Not the Slogan

In the highest performing organizations I have studied, purpose is not a poster on the wall. It is the operating system. It shapes decisions, behavior, investment, and accountability.

Roy sees the same thing from a different angle.

Through the Make It Movement, he is trying to reframe a question that is quietly damaging millions of lives. What do you want to be when you grow up? Instead, he asks something far more honest and far more useful. What would financial independence look like for you, doing something you are actually good at? Here is the data that stopped me cold:

98% of parents agree on one thing. They want their kids to become financially independent.

Not doctors. Not lawyers. Not executives. Independent. Capable. Whole.

And yet, we have stigmatized entire paths, skilled trades, technical roles, operational leadership, while flooding the market with credentials that do not translate into readiness or fulfillment.

That is a leadership failure. Full stop.

Where Total Performance Leadership and the Make It Movement Intersect

Roy talks about Aristotle. I talk about organizational health. We are saying the same thing in different languages.

Where your talents and the needs of the world intersect, that is purpose. Total Performance Leadership starts there. Before strategy. Before structure. Before metrics. Because when purpose is clear, engagement rises, accountability improves, and performance follows.

And when purpose is missing, you cannot KPI your way out of the hole.

Why Marketing, Leadership, and Education Must Work Together

One of Roy’s most powerful observations is this:

America does not have a workforce problem. We have a marketing problem.

We market prestige instead of contribution. Status instead of meaning. Credentials instead of capability.

AI will change advertising. It will not replace plumbers, electricians, engineers, operators, builders, and leaders who know who they are and why they matter.

This is why my current work sits at the intersection of business, leadership, and higher education. We are not preparing people, especially high potential leaders, for the real conditions they will face.

And until we address the biases baked into how we define leadership potential, we will keep promoting the wrong people and burning out the right ones.

The Only Question That Really Matters

Roy told a story about Sam Walton that says more about leadership than a thousand competency models. Walton asked one question in interviews. How much of your education did you pay for yourself?

Not pedigree. Not polish. Not confidence.

Ownership. Resilience. Skin in the game.

That is encoding.

My Hope and My Lane

What I want is impact. My lane is narrow but urgent.

Helping organizations see high potential leaders they are currently missing. Mitigating bias in leadership identification. Embedding purpose as a practical, measurable driver of performance.

Roy’s lane is broader, but it is aligned.

Inspiring people, young and old, to become great at what they are already good at.

Different tools. Same mission.

Bringing America Together on Purpose

We are not going to agree on politics. We might not agree on policy. But we can agree on this.

People want their lives to matter. Organizations want to perform. Purpose is the bridge.

And if we get this right, really right, we do not just improve engagement scores or EBITDA.

We change trajectories. We unlock human potential. We build organizations worth belonging to.

That is Total Performance Leadership. That is the Make It Movement. And that is work worth doing.

Warmest Regards,

Rob Andrews

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Instructor, Advisor, McCombs Center for Leadership, Exec. Ed.D. Cohort 2025

The University of Texas at Austin

Celebrating 29 years of Executive Search, Leadership Advisory and Culture Shaping Excellence

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