Heart of Business - Free Template

The Heart of Business toolkit walks you through each of Joly's four pillars and helps you assess where your organisation stands on each one.

You'll find:

• An overview of the model and how the four pillars connect
• Diagnostic questions for each pillar - noble purpose, people at the centre, stakeholder interdependence, and profit as outcome
• A convergence assessment to identify where your pillars reinforce each other and where gaps exist
• Prompts for leadership team conversation about what it means to operate from the "heart"
• Space to capture priorities and next steps

It works well as preparation for a leadership offsite or as a standalone reflection exercise for senior teams thinking about organisational purpose.

Start with the pillar that feels most familiar to your team. It builds confidence before you reach the harder questions. For most teams, People at the Centre or Noble Purpose is the natural entry point.

Don't rush the Stakeholder Interdependence conversation. This is where teams often discover they've been thinking about value creation too narrowly - mapping the full web of relationships takes time and usually surfaces surprises.

The real power isn't in scoring each pillar individually. It's in the convergence conversation. Where do your pillars reinforce each other? Where does strength in one area mask weakness in another? That's where the useful work happens.

Come back to the assessment after six months. The model works well as a recurring check-in, not just a one-off exercise.