Absolutely necessary: A strategy refresh
ASKING about how operative core values have become at all levels, from the individual up to every working unit of the enterprise, is only the first step. It has to be followed by the whole more substantive process of undertaking a “strategy refresh.” This is absolutely necessary, especially after an enterprise has become Performance Governance System (PGS)-institutionalized and been recognized as an “Island of Good Governance.”
Such a process involves the following:
A much deeper and perhaps more detailed reflection on how the enterprise has remained true to its core purpose and continued to pursue its mandate or mission. An objective review of lessons learned from completing the PGS pathway would provide several useful perspectives as such deep reflection on the enterprise mission is responsibly undertaken. Mission, we remind ourselves, does not change; and it articulates what, in essence, the enterprise is supposed to do. And the experience over at least a few years of travelling on the PGS pathway would provide valuable lessons on how the enterprise can do better — and avoid serious shortfalls or even deviation — in delivering outcomes more fully in line with its mission.
The enterprise “vision” articulated and adopted at the beginning of the PGS journey would need to be re-visited. Completion of the PGS pathway and obtaining institutionalized status as well as the IGG brand presumably allows the enterprise to claim that its original vision has already been attained, or it has reached an important milestone towards the attainment of that vision. Thus, at the juncture when success has been attained through completion of the PGS pathway, the enterprise would need to either formulate a new “vision” for the next few years ahead, or mark out a new milestone that it aims to reach further up the road on the way to eventually realizing the original enterprise dream (or vision). Again, a reminder: an enterprise “vision” is always time-bound; it may be attained after a few years; and once this has been done, a newer (perhaps even more ambitious) vision would have to be formulated and adopted….and then shared with everyone within the enterprise.
Given its new “vision” or the new base camp where a certain newer milestone is reached, the enterprise would need to put together and design a new strategy map. Drawing from the experience e of travelling up the PGS pathway, the enterprise comes up with a new, refreshed governance and transformation road map, which identifies key (few but well-selected) strategic priorities, which then are specified further by elements normally associated with performance scorecards: Gamechanging initiatives, measures of performance and their accompanying performance targets for different time periods within the new “vision period.”
The strategy refresh exercise would take the enterprise through already familiar terrain. The enterprise, therefore, can undertake this exercise largely on its own, with little help from external expertiseprovider. It should draw on its own experience — both good and bad — in having gone through this terrain before. A final reminder: core values can never be left alone, standing on their own; they have to give life to the enterprise’s reflection on its mission, and to the refresh of enterprise vision and transformation road map. Only then can core values effectively deliver the moral force they are supposed to have.