by Evan Hackel
A company needs to share a powerful vision with the world.
One reason for having that vision is utterly simple. If everybody in the organization knows where the company is going and knows what their roles and responsibilities are in making that happen, the result will be an organization that operates like a rowboat powered by coordinated rowers, with all of them rowing in the same direction.
In contrast, when people don’t know where they’re going and are battling to go to different places, the result will be a rowboat that is spinning around and around and around.
That sounds incredibly simplistic and obvious. Yet as you know, many companies do spin around and around due to a lack of vision. That situation is immensely common. Why is that, when some relatively simple leadership practices can give direction to the entire enterprise?
Why Does This Happen?
Here are several reasons:
· Company leaders really do lack a vision. They are too busy doing business to develop one.
· Company leaders have a vision, but they are reluctant to share it or bring other people on board. Why espouse a vision of where the company can go? Why take pains to communicate the vision to people who work in the enterprise? It is easier, and less stressful for a company leader to simply walk into an office, close the door, and start sending emails and making phone calls.
· They are afraid of doing something different. Some company leaders think that if their competitors never talk about a vision, why should they? They are losing sight of the fact that having a strong vision is exactly what can make them more powerful than those competitors. “Dare to be different” is a philosophy that is worth exploring.
Components of a Vision
The vision developed by one executive is often quite different from that evolved by a second one – or a third or a fourth. Yet although they differ, they generally embody some or all of the following.
· A clear statement about where the company wants to go. Perhaps you want to become the dominant manufacturer of glass fiber panels in the U.S.A., or you want to become the leading vocational training school in a particular field. You should embody goals like those in your vision and vision statement.
· A description of how you intend to reach that goal. How are you going to do it? Will you entrust your employees to lead the way, or build technological solutions to developing products and delivering them to the marketplace? And will you do so by empowering your people?
· A statement of deeper human or societal values. You don’t necessarily need to state that your enterprise will have a positive impact on the people who live in your community. But if you are thinking in that way, why not make those beliefs part of your vision statement?
A Story from My Life
I’m going to just share a true story from my life, which I think you’ll find impactful.
I went to college and then I went to graduate school, and I got my MBA. And during this same time, I was part of a family business. I worked part time there. In summers, I worked full-time.
My father and I always talked about business. It was a $3 million business. And in today’s dollars, did about $15 million business a year.
For six years in a row, it had not grown. And so I came back and said to my dad, “You know what we need is a business plan.”
We went ahead and built a business plan.
Back in those days, management was top-down. The company leaders told employees what to do, and they were expected to do so.
We had about 70 or 80 employees at the time. So we held meetings with employees, based on the different parts of the company.
And we built the plan and then we shared it with every employee in the company. In fact, we actually had a dinner, and we shared the plan with everybody, and we got people excited by the plan.
But here’s the important part. The employees had ownership of this plan because they were part of the conversation that created it. They were part of making these decisions. So it had not only the benefit of being shared, but it also had the power of ownership, because everyone was part of the process.
And our plan was to grow from 3 million to 10 million in five years. But what happened is we grew from 3 million to 5 million to 10 million to 25 million, and we had immense success because everybody was rowing in the same direction. Everybody knew what they were going to do. Everyone knew how the company was going to grow, how we were going to get there.
It was incredible. Similarly, I went to work for a company known today as CCI Global Partners. I was the fifth employee of the company in 1988 and we grew on an average growth rate of 29% for 20 years and ended up having $10 billion in sales. Incredible success.
We built a shared vision, and everyone knew where we were going. Everyone was involved in the process.
But here’s the key point. You must have a vision. It starts there. And that vision needs to then be taken and spelled out.
Now, does it have to be spelled out in a 500-page business plan? No, it does not. In fact, I would argue a 500-page business plan is detrimental because who is going to read it?
But you can create a business plan that’s easy for people to digest. Maybe a PowerPoint, something that everybody can digest and get and see. And you share it with your new hires, your vendors, your customers – everyone.
Involve everybody in the process of developing a vision and communicating it to everyone in your company.
In my company, we have an annual tactical meeting. We look at the company strategically, we remind ourselves of our strategic goals, but then we go and work as a team on what we’re going to accomplish for the next year.
Everybody has a copy of that game plan. Everybody knows what we are doing, not just what they’re doing, but what everybody else is doing in the company.
When you have this kind of clarity, you can accomplish anything. But without clarity, what happens is you go in one direction, then the next direction, you know, chasing the shiny object.
Let the world know where you’re going, and you will make it happen.
