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Connecting With Purpose

Connecting With Purpose

Written by: Mark Griffin
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Connecting With Purpose is a place for consequential conversations about doing what matters most in times when our families, workplaces, and communities need us. On the PurposeFused podcast, our partners host conversations with leaders from multiple sectors about what's possible when we invest in leading and living with purpose, for ourselves and our teams. By learning from guests' experiences in the purpose journey, as business leaders and humans beyond the workplace, the show serves as a catalyst for action. Connecting With Purpose inspires and guides discovery to embed purpose into people's work and lives, improving wellbeing and performance for themselves, their organizations, and their worlds. We help leaders create the impact they seek and inspire a ripple effect of purpose activation.2023 Careers Economics Personal Success
Episodes
  • Playing in Position: Are We Getting The Best of Our People?

    Playing in Position: Are We Getting The Best of Our People?
    Oct 14 2026
    What if your biggest leadership problem is not effort, but misalignment? Mark Griffin argues that high-performing people often get pulled out of position, doing more than they should, diluting their impact, and draining the very energy their team needs most. Drawing on founder experience and lessons from rugby, Mark unpacks the idea of "playing in position" as a practical leadership framework for individuals, teams, and organizations. He shows why capable people can still underperform when they're using the wrong strengths, why some leaders become trapped as the "doer" instead of the enabler, and how teams lose momentum when specialists, decision-makers, and support roles are not working in sync. You'll discover: —The three self-level elements of playing in position: what you contribute, what energizes you, and the leadership maturity to adapt under pressure —Why moving from "me" to "we" changes everything about how strong teams create value —How complementary strengths like challenging thinking, making sense of complexity, driving decisions, and filling blind spots build real resilience —Why systems, rewards, and promotion paths often sabotage performance even when the people are talented —What changes when founders step back, leaders shift from delivering to enabling, and employees start behaving like owners Mark also breaks down the hidden cost of asking people to collaborate while rewarding individual output, or promoting top performers without preparing them for the identity shift that leadership requires. If your team is full of talent but not getting the results you expect, this episode will help you see the problem differently. Essential listening for founders, executives, team leaders, and anyone asking how to get the best out of good people without burning them out in the process.
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    18 mins
  • What Founders Get Wrong About Succession & Employee Ownership | Jason Wiener

    What Founders Get Wrong About Succession & Employee Ownership | Jason Wiener
    Oct 7 2026

    In this episode of Connecting with Purpose, Mark Griffin is joined by Jason Wiener, founder of CurrentShift Legal, a legal and business consulting firm serving mission-driven companies, social impact organizations, and environmentally focused enterprises.

    Jason specializes in employee ownership, worker-owned and stakeholder-owned business models, business formation, capital raising, restructures, and complex transactions. He is deeply passionate about using better-designed ownership models to redistribute wealth, increase employee agency, and build organizations that are both commercially strong and socially responsible.

    But this conversation goes far beyond legal structure. Mark and Jason explore the human side of founder transition, including identity, purpose, succession planning, leadership readiness, culture, decision-making, and the risk of founders becoming bottlenecks inside the businesses they built.

    Jason has lived this personally. He has stepped away from his own business, re-engaged with it, and written extensively about the complexities of founder transition. He shares why succession is not simply about transferring ownership or authority, why culture and psychological safety must come before legal mechanics, and why employees need more than compensation to feel truly invested in the future of a company.

    They also discuss how employee ownership can create greater agency, dignity, voice, and accountability, especially during a period of economic disruption, AI-driven change, and major generational wealth transfer.

    If you are a founder, business owner, senior leader, employee ownership advisor, or anyone thinking about succession, purpose, organizational culture, or the future of work, this conversation offers a thoughtful look at what sustainable transition really requires.

    In this episode, you'll hear about:

    • Founder transition and succession planning
    • Employee ownership and wealth redistribution
    • Leadership readiness and reducing founder dependence
    • Purpose, values, and identity
    • Culture, communication, and psychological safety
    • Decision-making and employee agency
    • Preparing employees to become future owners
    • Why legal structure alone cannot fix a broken organization
    • The role of ownership in building more resilient businesses
    • Jason's perspective on legacy, family, and long-term impact

    Connect with Jason Wiener:

    Instagram
    https://www.instagram.com/jwpcpbc/

    CurrentShift Legal on LinkedIn
    https://www.linkedin.com/company/currentshift-legal

    Jason's LinkedIn
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrwiener/

    Website
    https://currentshift.legal/

    If this conversation resonates, subscribe to Connecting with Purpose for more conversations on leadership, purpose, performance, founder transition, employee ownership, and what it really takes to build organizations that can thrive beyond the founder.
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    53 mins
  • Founder Transition: The Hidden Pressure Founders Carry Before an Exit

    Founder Transition: The Hidden Pressure Founders Carry Before an Exit
    Mar 11 2026

    Founder transitions are often framed as financial or structural events. But long before a succession plan, ownership evolution, or exit is announced, founders carry a hidden layer of pressure that few people see.

    In this solo episode of Connecting With Purpose, I continue the conversation from last week's episode, Founder Transition: Identity Before the Deal. While that episode explored the identity shift from operator → owner → steward, this episode focuses on another critical dimension of founder transition:

    The weight founders carry while navigating the future of their business.

    Even when a company is growing and performing well, founders entering a 24–60 month transition window often find themselves holding complex questions about the future of the organization and their own next chapter.

    They are simultaneously responsible for:

    • Maintaining operational performance and commercial rhythm

    • Exploring succession or ownership evolution options

    • Protecting the long-term sustainability of the company

    • Considering the impact on employees, investors, and stakeholders

    • Designing what life and leadership look like beyond the business

    When this pressure is not processed intentionally, founders often experience:

    • Decision fatigue

    • Reduced clarity

    • Reactive leadership

    • Becoming the unintended bottleneck during transition

    In this episode, I explore three practical areas founders must focus on to navigate transition successfully.

    1. Creating protected space to process the transition

    Transition decisions require strategic reflection, not just operational speed.

    2. Separating transition work from the operational rhythm of the business

    Maintaining execution cadence protects performance while transition planning moves forward.

    3. Designing the founder's next chapter intentionally

    Transitions are strongest when founders are stepping toward something meaningful rather than simply stepping away.

    Founder transitions are not just about transactions. They are about protecting founder capacity, leadership clarity, and decision quality so the business and the founder can both thrive in the chapter that follows.

    If you are 24–60 months from succession, employee ownership, partial liquidity, or a potential exit, the structural and financial work will come. But the human work starts now. Traditional advisors guide the deal. I partner with founders through the leadership evolution that determines whether transition strengthens or destabilizes the system.

    Subscribe for more conversations about founder performance, ownership transition, and building businesses that thrive beyond you.

    And as we say in rugby: I've got your back.

    #FounderTransition #SuccessionPlanning #FounderExit #OwnershipTransition #EntrepreneurLeadership #BusinessSuccession #LeadershipTransition #PurposeDrivenLeadership
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    19 mins
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