Embrace the Big Five Elements
The struggle to find a new vision involves embracing five elements
A few years ago there were two big fish in a
small pond. The fish were HP and Dell; the pond
was the laptop market. HP and Dell dominated
the laptop market and made healthy profits.
Nearby were two more ponds: one for the mobile
phone market and a smaller one for tablets.
Today, these ponds have merged into one.
Suddenly, HP and Dell are not only competing
against each other. They are competing against
bigger, stronger fish like Apple and Samsung.
In these situations, executives – like those
currently at HP and Dell – often struggle to find
a new corporate vision, especially after years of
successful results. So what to do?
We know there is immense pressure on
executives to perform and constantly satisfy
shareholders: big shareholder says to CEO “I’m
more than happy to go along with your dream,
John – even your wildest fantasy. Just make
sure it meets the profit targets for the next four
quarters.”
automobile” (Henry Ford) are two clear visions.
Strategy is how to achieve that vision.
The result is executives and managers get
caught in a trap: wanting to move in a new
direction, but severely constrained by never
being able to make a short term loss for a
long term gain. So while disaster looms, they
busy themselves with trivial solutions – erratic
restructuring, cost cutting and redundancies.
Second, take a fresh look at your business.
Every business model is built on assumptions.
Question those assumptions by looking at what
is happening in the world and how it affects
the business. Look for the meaningful patterns
from the mass of data to identify emerging
trends. Third, connect the vision to your
inherent strengths and core values. Richard
Harrington became the CEO of Thomson
Corporation in 1997. At the time Thomson
produced 55 regional newspapers in North
America. Harrington also saw the early signs that
advertisers were shifting online: eBay for used
products and monster.com for jobs. He intuitively
knew large corporations would soon follow. In
response, Harrington used Thomson’s inherent
strengths – collecting and reporting news – to
create a new vision “to deliver information and
services to online professionals” like banks and
There is a better solution when you are struggling
to find a new vision.
First, do not confuse vision with strategy. Go
into any large office, look at the framed vision
statement on the wall, and the chances are you’ll
be reading a confusing mix of vision and strategy.
Put simply; a vision is what the future looks like
for the company, typically in a few years. “To put
a man on the moon by the end of the decade”
(NASA, 1960s) and “To produce an affordable
Embrace the Big
Five Elements
continued
financial institutions. How many of today’s
newspapers wish they had done the same
15 years ago?
Fourth, accept risk and not knowing “the
perfect solution”. Because the perfect
solution rarely appears immediately, the
best executives allow space for options
and alternatives to emerge. It is unlikely that
NASA’s or Ford’s first attempt to achieve
their visions were successful. They engaged
in small experiments and improved as they
went on, with the ultimate vision always
in mind.
Finally, have the courage to use your
intuition. As with taking risks, the courage
to use your intuition is a question of
temperament. Richard Harrington used
his intuition – with the full support of the
Board. He saw which way advertisers were
moving because he intuitively looked at the
business from the outside-in. No amount of
data crunching and Excel sheets could have
given him that insight fast enough.
The challenge of finding a new vision is for
executives to embrace all five elements.
Compelling in its Creation and
Communication
Teams with a compelling vision achieve better financial results
To be compelling, a vision has to pass a
number of basic filters: it is future-focused,
powerful, clear, gets your attention,
motivates you and is easy to communicate.
A good example is Walmart’s, “We save people
money so they can live better.” Most people
would agree that it is a compelling vision.
Now consider this (real) management
consultancy’s vision statement: “Our vision
is to be the global provider of products and
services within our fields, and practical enough
to expand strategically while maintaining our
uncompromising core values and achieving
sustainable profitable growth.” Is it compelling?
Maybe… for scrabble players looking for new
triple-score words, but it is unlikely to inspire
loyalty, hard work and innovation amongst
a team.
A common way of creating a vision statement
is for a group of senior executives go on a
“leadership off-site” and hammer it out. At this
stage, even with the best vision statements,
there is little emotional engagement or sense of
ownership beyond the senior leadership team.
So the new vision is shared via an “internal
communication campaign”.
After already sacrificing a two full days – valuable
time – to create a text version, leaders think
the hard work is over. All they have to do is tell
people what the vision is. To see leaders do this
can be shocking. Why do these mild-mannered
managers, when communicating a new vision
to their team, suddenly transform into a cross
between Attila the Hun and Winston Churchill?
They (wrongly) believe that the more serious,
the more dramatic and the more dominant
they sound, somehow the team will be more
motivated and inspired. The effect on most
teams is the exact opposite.
In an example I saw recently, an executive
adopted this style, talking down to his team of
managers. You could almost feel the heat from
their brains as they analysed what he wanted
them to do, what they thought they should do
and why they should do it.
All sorts of objections – grounded in emotional
resistance, but dressed up as “logical points”
– were raised by the team. One objection was:
“What about customer x? That’s our fourth
biggest revenue generator, but the vision says
that we should ignore it?” The underlying tone
to the question was more emotional: “I deal with
this big customer, which the company is not
going to focus on now. What will happen with
me? This new vision makes me nervous because
my job is under threat.” Although the executive
tried to explain his vision, the managers’
positions became more and more fixed and the
session collapsed 45 minutes later in confusion
and frustration.
It is much better to focus on resonance: to
present the vision statement and have a dialogue
around which parts resonate with team members
and what concerns and questions they have. By
giving them this space to work through the vision
statement (like the executives did on the off-site),
the team becomes more committed and the
vision becomes compelling.
Why does it matter? Can a company be
successful without a clear vision? The best
answer to those questions is in the extensive,
long-term research of 83 large corporations
by Bain & Co. It found that companies who
have clear visions and an aligned strategy
achieve better financial returns. A compelling
vision also increases talent retention and
productivity. Now those are reasons to resonate
with your team!