How Focused is Your Organization's or Team's Vision?

How Focused is Your Organization's or Team's Vision?

Throughout the 1990's, organizational consultants thought that if they admonished leaders to create and broadcast a compelling vision statement for their organization or team, the effect would result in improved productivity. Leaders responded by retreating to off-site country clubs or resorts with their fellow leaders to craft vision statements for their organizations.

As the leaders did their work they longingly spent time looking out of the large meeting room windows to the green grass of the golf fairways and the people in bright red and yellow swimming suits lounging around the swimming pool. In spite of the attractive and tempting scenery, the leaders did a fair job of brainstorming and creating a list of ten to thirty individual statements of the organization's future vision.

The problem occurred when the time came to select the top one to three statements that were the most important. As the leaders tried to select the most important items, each leader argued for the direction statement that personally exalted their division or priority. As they became impatient to get to the golf course or swimming pool instead of picking the most important vision or mission statements, the leaders compromised and agreed to all of the statements. This is one key reason why most mission and vision statement are so long and worded in such non-specific language.

Some of the leaders that I know went to their off-site management retreats with great hope. They thought that formulating a vision statement would help resuscitate their organization, which was often in trouble. During the off-site retreat, they became anxious when they observed their fellow leadership team members more interested in the golf course and swimming pool, than the company's future. These concerned and dedicated leaders, however, returned to their organization and broadcast the wordy vision statement as best they could. They presented it to other leaders and workers - and it was usually delivered in a top-down, one-way communication manner with little discussion or application to daily work and goals. The leaders stood back and observed how nothing improved. There was no increase in productivity and these idealistic leaders gradually became more discouraged.

The problem with long, flowery mission and vision statements is that they have no focus. Focus is required to have direction. Think of a compass. A compass has four main directions: north; south; east, and west. If you want someone to meet you somewhere, you give them specific directions: "Go west for five miles, turn north, and go .6 miles." The long, flowery mission and vision statement is the equivalent of telling someone "Go sort of west and north, and then at some point change to a northwesterly direction." If you gave those directions to a friend to meet you for a picnic, where do you think he or she might end up? If you were one of the leaders of a thousand-person organization in California and wrote those directions out for each person to meet you, people would be scattered all over the state.

Over 50 studies on goal setting proved that goals and any other direction statements must be worded as specifically as possible for them to influence improved productivity. Research cited by two IBM internal consultants (Hardaker and Ward, 1987) found that profitable companies had greater agreement and alignment on the top five priority goals. The 10 top managers of each of the 40 most profitable companies had agreement on the 6 to 12 most important goals. On the other hand, the top 10 managers of the 40 least profitable organizations had 26 to 43 separate goals per organization.

Facilitating organizational leaders or a work team in developing a focused vision statement is a hard and arduous project. The facilitator must have the leaders discuss and listen to diverse and conflicting voices on what they believe to be the few most important priorities of the future vision. The leaders must make the tough choice of narrowing down to the few priorities the whole organization will strive to achieve. The process is hard work, and even painful, and the facilitator, more than likely, will be criticized for a meeting that wasn't easier or more fun.

Organization leaders I have worked with, whose companies achieved great results with a focused vision, spent at least 30-40 hours refining the laser-like focus. The leaders spent that time in 4-12 hour clumps to avoid burnout and having the conflicts become too acrimonious. The Vastar Resources management team cited in Side by Side Leadership underwent this process to develop their visionary goals, which was one factor in propelling their organization to over a $5 billion increase in shareholder value within four years.

The book, Side by Side Leadership, shows that breakthrough results require a package deal or systems model, and a focused vision is only one element in the proven formula. In future articles, I will be providing additional tips on how you can succeed with the other practices and principles of Side by Side Leadership.

For permission to reproduce this or any Side by Side Article from the on-line community, contact Hillary Keith by
e-mail: community@sidebyside.com or by calling 1-800-204-3118.