Clash of purpose

Therese Rein has decided to sell the Australian arm of Ingeus - the business she has built up from herself and a part time assistant to a multi-million dollar company employing over 1400 people over the past twenty years

I hesitate to mention that Rein is married to Australian opposition leader Kevin Rudd because if you google "Therese Rein Ingeus", you will scroll a long way before finding a link that does not mention this fact. This despite the observation that Rein is a successful business person in her own right.

It's hard to find details about Rein on the internet because there is so much comment on her latest decision and the events leading up to it.

My angle in this story is the clash of purposes rather than the conflict of interests. Before making her decision, Rein passionately spoke of how her work was much more than a business but was her life support. She passionately believes in what she does – helping disadvantaged people find work – and no-one seems to suggest that she doesn't do it well.

But what happens when two people are tied together and their purposes clash? I am often asked this question in terms of leadership teams. What happens when the members of the team have different purposes (this is often expressed as 'agendas')?

This is a difficult question. I don't have an easy answer because there is no easy answer. However, somewhere, I believe the answer lies in the higher purpose that ties the people together. In the case of Rudd and Rein, him becoming Prime Minister does not directly affect her business. But her remaining in her (at least Australian) business does affect Rudd's ability to do his job if he becomes PM. What is the higher purpose? Only the people involved can answer that. In politics, it is often the politician who wins out and the politician is usually a man. I wonder how it would have been if it was a woman running for PM and her husband was running a successful business?

Regardless, it is the difficult task of those involved to find their higher purpose. In many cases, this leads to each individual finding their deeper purpose.