The relevence of Vision

Ian Neal says, the vision is an essential tool which can give an enterprise the focus, energy and drive that comes from many people sharing a common purpose. As people become remote from the leader who founded the enterprise the job of inspiring people and keeping them actually focused on achieving goals that take the business forward towards achieving its goals is the biggest challenge of the leadership team.

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion” Jack Welsh.

Taking the time to define a realistic yet inspirational vision that is also authentic and meaningful to the people inside the business is an effort that Ian Neal has always found very worthwhile.

The “vision thing” is something that is often misunderstood or dismissed too easily by leaders.

Vision defines where it is we wish to go or to be. It describes the businesses FUTURE state, in say 5- 10 years. Think of a picture that captures what the business is in this future. This is the vision. If this vision can be articulated well it will clearly differentiate the enterprise from its competitors in the eyes of its employees. Setting this vision defines clearly the long term target for the business. After the vision has been set it should be used to guide the strategic planning process, which defines the how we get there piece. The vision should also define the company’s brand (logos, tag lines, promotional material etc) and influence all of the tactics that the business uses to achieve its vision.

Below are some famous vision statements, which helped galvanise the organizations towards success.

GE -1980s: Become the number one or number two in every market we serve and revolutionize this company to have the strength of a big company combined with the leanness and agility of a small company

Honda -1970: We will destroy Yamaha

Sony - 1950s: Become the Company most known for changing the worldwide poor-quality image of Japanese products

Ian is often asked about including financial goals in the vision. After all, they have the advantage of being measurable and easy to communicate. However Ian Neal believes the problem with including numbers in the vision is that this will drive wrong behaviours and create confusion in the people who work for the business, those who are far from head office and are charged every day in delivering what ever product or service it is to the customers. Remember that customers wants and needs are to be satisfied by the business and their demand will always be for the best product at the lowest cost. If you think about that for a nano second it will be clear that customers demands are probably in conflict with a vision that includes the revenue and profit numbers of the business.

A much better way is to keep the financial targets at the highest level in the business and translate this into customer focused wording and deliverables at the coal face of the enterprise. It is then managements job to live in the two worlds of finance and customer. Some businesses actually only have the CEO live in both worlds. One CEO who I know well freely admits that he is the only person in what is a highly successful business that lives in both the world of numbers (financial returns, shareholder value etc) and the world of customers. All of his direct reports (except the CFO) lead and cheer the people towards their goals of customer value and customer satisfaction. The main tool that was used at the very start of the business was to establish a vision for the business. This vision was then used to develop values and has driven culture which is the ultimate differentiator of this enterprise. It has been a sustained vision around which the enterprise has been built for well over a decade now.

The importance of the vision is that it provides the focal point for the enterprise around which the people employed can rally and direct their efforts. If the vision is correctly defined and then continuously articulated as per Jack Welsh’s quote it will help the business outperform and create superior value for its shareholders even though it contains no numeric targets.