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| Thursday, 4 November 2004 |
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Innovating a vision for growth by Dr. K. Kuhathasan, CEO, Centre for Leadership Excellence and Personality Development
The entire management team must work to ensure that the concept of a strategic vision becomes woven into the very fabric of the organisation and becomes an integral part of the management culture. The strategic business vision provides a framework within which the entire enterprise operates. A clear strategic vision allows the enterprise to establish its highest level goals and to formulate the plans necessary to achieve those goals. The answers to the following questions may be necessary to develop a vision for your organisation. What will the organisation be like in five - 10 year's time?, What will be the major products and services?, Who will be employed?, What will be their qualifications or educational attainments?, What will be their key attitudes and behaviour?, What will be the shared values of the organisation?, What will be the culture of the organisation? A vision in: * A portrait of greatness, how things ought to be, * An expression of your highest hope, * The product of your heart and your gut as well as your head, * Values-based A vision describes not just where you want to be and what you want to be like, but why you want to be there and what contribution you'll be making, what purpose you'll be serving, beyond making a profit. Your vision should excite and inspire you. Developing a vision A vision is an aim for the future - at any level, from team, to department, to organisation. To develop a vision, define what you are aiming to achieve in the future and compare it with where you are now. Map out what you will need to bridge the gap, from extra staff or training to purchasing new technology. As a leader, you must consider all the necessary steps to achieve the vision. Any organisation can be broken down into visionaries, pragmatists and conservatives. The last group leads the opposition to change, while pragmatists are followers rather than leaders. But both need to be animated by the visionary's strong leadership. Involving pragmatists and conservatives in plans for change may, over time, make them more responsive to share visions. Expressing a vision Visions need to be expressed as statements to communicate a clear understanding of the long-term aim and the principles underlying it. When creating such a statement, ask yourself if anybody reading it would be able to extract a practical understanding of the business you are in, where your leadership is going and how it is getting there. It needs a triple focus: on the customers, on the people who serve the customers and on the constantly improved performance that makes that service excellent. That is unlikely to be the case if your statement reads much like everybody else's. Become the strongest critic of your own vision. Communicating the vision is as important as formulating it. Many a strategic vision has failed to materialise because it was not effectively communicated to those who were required to implement it. Leaders must not only identify their organisations' strengths and weaknesses and match them against the environmental opportunities, but they must also find ways to inspire employees to meet these challenges. This vision of the future must be formulated in such a way that it will make the pain of changing worth the effort. Some examples of Vision Statements * "Our Vision is international recognition through Excellence". * "Winning through innovative and profitable actions - exceeding customer expectations everywhere we serve". * "We will be an international leader in Telecommunications". * "Put energy into action, providing ever better quality and value to those we serve. We seek to set the standard for excellence, leadership and integrity in the utility Industry". * "To be the best .... products Company in the world". * "We will lead local suppliers in share, product/service quality, value, customer satisfaction and good conduct by being different and measurably better". * "Strategies, policies and implementation are designed for and by our people, who ally with supplies to achieve high customer ratings". * "We invest and innovate to double real revenues every three years, while raising operating profits, cash flow, giving added value and sharing the rewards". Sharing a vision is imperative In order to have a vision that is translated into action it must be shared. If it is a personal vision, it should be shared with your loved ones and friends. If it is a vision for your organisation, it must be shared with all the stakeholder. People cannot help you to achieve your vision unless they know what it is and become as committed to it as you are. You will be surprised where help and counsel come from when you share you vision with others. An organisational vision cannot be something that is merely published and passed out to everyone. It cannot be imposed or handed down as a directive from the top. It must be lived by the leaders and accepted by all if it is to become a vision that has everyone working toward the same ends. To gain that acceptance, however, may not be so easy. Shared vision, on the other hand, is when all the people are committed to the vision and therefore committed to making it happen. To have a shared vision, the following fundamentals must be given top most consideration The Company culture must foster individual thinking and actions and provide fertile ground for commitment, not just compliance, The people must be part of creating the vision, Vision cannot be sold. People must be convinced to accept it, Leaders must believe in the vision and must live with it, The vision should be simple, honest statement that describes the purpose of the organisation, It should be consistent with the core values of the people in the organisation, The shared vision should be a launching platform for the company's mission. After the vision has been created for the organisation, top level strategic planning becomes the next step. Strategic planning involves creating a mission statement that enables the organisation to achieve the vision, articulating organisational goals to implement the vision, formulating a high-level view of the business environment, developing high-level business objectives for the extended enterprise, and identifying the information channels that are required to support the organisation in the context of the extended enterprise. |
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Produced by Lake House |
An effective vision is of critical importance to success in today's
environment. Executives and managers at all levels must work together to
form and clearly articulate a strategic vision. Managers at all levels
must then clearly understand this vision and must effectively communicate
it to everyone in the organisation.
