How you create your vision is as important as what it says. Here are stories of two companies that illustrate this important lesson and 5 guidelines for how it’s created.
The Story of an 11th Hour Turnaround
In 1994, Connecticut became the first state to open telecommunications to the competition. The local telephone company, Southern New England Telephone (SNET), was the smallest of the “Baby Bells” with a typical monopoly culture.
In anticipation of deregulation, the officers had created a new vision for the company, competitive strategies, and a comprehensive business plan.
But when they looked at the culture of their company, they realized their sleepy monopoly culture was not going to be able to implement their new competitive strategies. Employees did not understand and were not committed to the significant changes that would be needed in their attitude and behavior if the company were to become a competitive retail service provider.
The only people who understood and bought into the new vision were those who had been involved in creating it – the officers.
The officers needed to do something drastic, quickly. Realizing they had not paid enough attention to how it’s created, they immediately began a high-involvement initiative.
Using RTSC, a collaborative change process, they held two three-day meetings – one of 500 people and another of over 800 – to confirm the strategies, to identify a vision of the new culture and the values needed to guide behavior and decisions, and to identify roadblocks that needed to be removed. During these meetings they engaged in real dialogue and made decisions in real-time to create a vision that inspired a critical mass of the organization to quickly reshape their culture.
It was a tremendous effort with a huge payoff.
And it a great lesson for the officers in the importance of early and deep involvement. If they had involved wide representation of management and front-line workers during the earlier planning process, their people would have joined them on the journey from the beginning. Not only would there have been better understanding of the strategies throughout the company, the officers would have gotten good input on feasibility of the strategies and what would be needed for successful implementation.
How Edelman Public Relations Created Their Vision
Right from the start, Edelman involved all 38 offices and all staff levels with the specific purpose of creating a shared-focused future. “We were a company in transition, evolving from an organization with international offices to a true global network,” said Richard Edelman, who followed his father into the role of president and chief executive officer. “We recognized that companies with clear focus, vision, and goals have a proven positive business impact. It was apparent we needed that to continue to succeed.” Click here to read the story of how Edelman created their vision.
5 Principles for How It’s Created
- You can craft the most wonderful solution or plan, but if you do it in isolation, you might be surprised by the lack of enthusiasm it generates. When people participate in creating a plan, they have a deeper understanding of what’s needed and are more invested in its success.
- Taking the time upfront to involve people can be frustrating for those who already have ideas or are feeling urgency. Remember to have patience with process. Go slow at the beginning in order to go faster and smoother later.
- The planning process itself creates learning and change for those who participate in it. If you wait to pull people in at the end, they will not understand the issues the way you do, nor will they share your enthusiasm.
- As you proceed, pay attention to how, not just what, you are doing.
- Trust your team. Have the courage to ask, listen, and let go of control. You will actually be a better leader as a result.
Involving your people in shaping up your organization’s vision & values is, I feel, the best way to validate those values. When you take their opinions and suggestions, people feel like a part of the process. They feel more motivated to incorporate those values in their behaviour because they are responsible, at least in part, for laying down these values. This works better because then your employees don’t feel like they have someone else’s values thrust on them. They have had their say in it, and therefore, the vision & values become shared, as opposed to enforced.
Thanks for brining this to notice!
– Sindoora (http://www.beyondhorizons.in)
Well said, Sindoora! Thanks for further illuminating the message of this post.
Thumbs up to them for recognising that they did not have the right people to implement the plan and engaging them to get the mindsets on the same page. It is sad seeing the leadership being clear on a strategy and not making people aware of why the change of path is important, resulting in no buy in and therefore failed execution. It can’t have been an easy conversation to have, telling people why they need to up their game.
I give them a lot of credit also, especially for having the courage to work directly with the people instead of trying to lead from a distance. They struggled with fear of letting go of control, but the real danger was in continuing down a path that would not get them where they wanted to go. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, Thabo.
Having worked on this with you Jesse, one of the other aspects I always find fascinating about large scale change are all of the layers and levels of change that unfold. There were personal transformations in members of the officer group. Some of the biggest “resisters” to the process became the largest proponents for it. And of course we, as consultants and co-conspirators to the process, will never be the same again either!
Hi Jake, I’m so glad you commented as you were as intimately involved in this change effort as I (and the author of Real Time Strategic Change which describes the large-scale change model we used). There is much to be said about the transformation and learnings, and I only wrote about one small aspect. It would make a wonderful case study. The personal transformation was especially remarkable – of the officers of the company, the employees, the union leaders and us!
I’m from the school of the ‘top down’ strategic plan which includes crafting Mission and/or Vision. There are many reasons for this approach, the most important being that people in the organization expect strategic direction from their leaders. However, as Jesse points out, this is not always the way – her example of a monopolistic company is the perfect example or a situation where ‘top down’ might be problematic. Yet, those who choose to involve everyone in the process run the risk of settling for compromise; afterall, if you are going to involve your people, you better be prepared to use their input. And let’s not forget, the great Vision will last a long time. Like great strategies that stand the test of time, no one will remember the architect(s).
John, Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. It is likely we are not that far apart in our views. I think in most cases, it is best if the senior leaders do the initial crafting of the mission/vision/values, but before they finalize it, I encourage them to get input from their people. I like to think of it as creating a lump of clay – the senior leaders create the substance – and then allow their people to put their thumbprint on it before it’s baked. As you point out if you ask for input, you need to be prepared to use it or to respond with a clear logic on why not. In my experience, the greater risk is in not getting input. Without input, you might find you are out on a limb alone, especially when there is a disconnect between the top of the house and the rest of the organization, which is the case in most organizations I’ve come across. I love your closing sentence – standing the test of time is a hallmark of a great vision, and yes, a true vision is about the vision, not the architects. Thanks John, for enriching the conversation.
Ah, some spice to the soup. John, in the first chapter of my book Real Time Strategic Change I describe “Top Down,” “Bottom Up” and “Whole System” change approaches — all have their merits and can be combined at different times for different reasons. At the end of the day I am a pragmatist with an idealistic bent.