Rank your company’s vision
YOUR COMPANY, like most others, has a vision or purpose statement. The initial idea was to bring inspiration, but, recently, there appears to be a decrease in excitement surrounding it. What interventions can you make to ensure your staff works together and adds their discretionary effort? And how should the statement fit into your corporate strategy?
The reasons to forge an effective vision are simple to understand.
As we human beings look to the future, we can’t help but imagine what things might be lying around the corner. As such, while sitting at work on a Friday afternoon, we’re happy.
However, by about mid-day on Sunday, we start to feel much worse. Why? We have begun to anticipate Monday and a return to the weekly grind.
This addictive tendency to foreshadow what’s next is built into our psychology. Unfortunately, this fact is ignored by most individuals. Even companies which think about the future don’t understand it, which explains why social media is so compelling to the average employee.
A company vision is management’s attempt to offer a useful alternative, in the form of the following five options.
THE INVISIBLE VISION – A CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET
Most CEOs wake up each day inspired by a bright picture in their mind’s eye. However, as excited as these individuals may be, some don’t share the picture with others. In some instances, their communication skills are lacking. In many, they treat their vision as a private affair, not a matter of general consumption. They give orders to implement the secret vision but precious few details on its true nature.
If no one knows where your organisation is headed besides the top leader, it may be in this first category.
THE VAGUE VISION – WRITTEN BUT FUZZY
Most vision or purpose statements fall into this trap. These are free-floating aspirations which adorn walls and documents as a form of community property.
But, with its vagaries, few persons actually take action to fulfil it. Neither is there a real strategic plan behind it. Why? It’s never been translated into measurable details.
If you are not sure if your company’s statement is vague, try this test. Ask yourself, can a reasonable employee believe that it has already, or almost, been accomplished? Furthermore, does it have a year attached to it? If the answers are “Yes”, and “No”, respectively, consider it to be too vague for people to give it more than lip service. Truthfully, you are better off renaming it a slogan.
THE SQUEEZED-UP VISION –WHICH DOESN’T FIT
To prevent vagary, some companies try to rally the troops with a short-term vision of five years or less. However, in the absence of an explicit long-term strategy, this won’t work. Why? In some cases, the vision is just an extrapolation of the past. Mundane.
But, in the majority of cases, executives attempt to accomplish the impossible, squeezing 20 years into five. Their intent? To put ‘the fear of God’ into the hearts of lazy employees.
While this may seem like a viable tactic, it actually has the opposite effect. When staff realises that the effort is lost from the start, their eyes roll in disgust. Then, they disengage.
THE STRATEGY-LESS VISION – WHICH IS LEFT UNSUPPORTED
Sometimes organisations realise they need realistic time frames, and include long-term goals in their vision. However, they often don’t provide the support needed. In other words, the vision becomes a gas balloon, free-floating and untethered, meant only to be observed from afar in wonderment. Consequently, a tiny number of staff is inspired to act.
Most need much more. Why? Only a credible, long-term strategic planning effort can connect the dots between the future and the present. It should define the projects needed to create the new reality and the organisation required to carry out the vision. Such a plan engages stakeholders because it adds a stiff dose of feasibility, the missing element whose absence turns off so many. The final product becomes one people can believe in, and trust.
THE IDEAL VISION
By now, you may have gleaned that the best picture of the future must be defined skilfully. The end result is inspirational because it’s both credible and socially inclusive. Therefore, it meets the high standard of being both logical and emotional.
We have come a long distance in the corporate world from the way visions were accepted just a few years ago. Nowadays, the audience is more demanding than ever, and has moved beyond the initial excitement. Unfortunately, a company which satisfies itself with a poor-quality vision will pay a high price.
Rank, and then upgrade, your vision statement and you may unleash hidden commitment and energy which today lie dormant.
We have come a long distance in the corporate world from the way visions were accepted just a few years ago.