VISION -- Oops! There I go again!

I find I am not done with the vision thing!  So, this is a follow-up to my previous post!

Once we separate Stab (stating the obvious) visions and Real visions, vision and strategy become quite intertwined.  Yes, vision is still the distant objective; and strategy more the “how” of achieving that vision in the shortest, simplest way.  But without a strategy to match, your vision will remain on banners – whether on walls or online.  Conversely however, a clever strategy may not need a clear vision to take it forward.

It, of course, helps to have a clear vision as well.  But it is not a necessity.  In fact, when the future is not clear, especially in high technology spaces, or where popularity or standards are involved, many companies adopt a strategy of ‘flexibility’ or ‘spreading the investment’.  That’s a case where we have a clear strategy (we will NOT invest heavily in any one technology / platform), but not a clear vision.  Rather, we admit to ourselves that our vision of the future is not clear.  That understanding drives the strategy!

Of course, many fail even with a clear and powerful vision.  One cause, as we discussed above, is a weak strategy to execute it.  Another is having a great vision and even a great strategy, but no execution capability.

A key element of execution and something I see more often is the communication of the vision.  Most Stab visions are followed with a routine communication plan.  Posters, banners, website updates, or at best, town hall sessions.  Little emphasis is placed on the style of communication: the language, the content, the stories, the context… and perhaps most important of all, the leaders do not pack it with passion.

In fact, I have seen this so often that I’d like to make communicating the vision the real point of this post!  Yet, rather than re-invent what this should be like, permit me to quote from the best.  Here’s what John P. Kotter said in his landmark article “What Leaders Really Do” in Harvard Business Review, circa 1990.

“Good leaders… articulate the organization’s vision in a manner that stresses the values of the audience they are addressing.  This makes the work important to those individuals.”  (Emphasis mine)

The operative word is ‘values of the audience’.  We just said the vision should not state the obvious.  Yet, it has to be made clear to the organization.  The logical way of doing this is to link it to the pre-existing values of the audience.  That is the insight of Kotter.  When the vision statement speaks the language of the commoner – whether customer or employee – when it is able to engage them, invoke in them the passion felt by the leader, connect with what they value already, that is when it would have served its purpose.  The word “invoke” is operative.  The idea is the audience needs to be able to see the vision the leader is talking about.  They should be able to convert the words into a visual of their own.  That is when a vision can be said to be communicated.  That cannot be done without passion and commitment.

Unfortunately, too many vision statements are filled with cliché and jargon to be able to relate to the real audience.  Visions like that of The Body Shop or Air Asia (Now everyone can fly) resonate with their chosen audiences – both employees and customers – precisely because they ‘stress the values of the audience’.

So, we have the development of the vision, which, to be effective, tends to be product / service / market / customer focused.  We then have its communication, which needs to connect with the existing values of the audience.  This, of course, is not a one-off activity.  To quote Kotter again, “Leaders also regularly involve people in deciding how to achieve the organization’s vision (or the part most relevant to a particular individual).  This gives people a sense of control.  Another important motivational technique is to support employee efforts to realize the vision by providing coaching, feedback and role modeling…”

Let’s see vision in action.  I think Zappos.com offers a great example.

To start with vision is not a statement for them.  Its just that – a vision.  So, on its website we see two vision statements!

In it’s ‘About Us’ page  you see the following text:

“So here is the vision:

• One day, 30% of all retail transactions in the US will be online.

• People will buy from the company with the best service and the best selection.

• Zappos.com will be that online store.”

Again, in a CEO letter dated 22 Jul 2009 , he says:

 “…our vision remains the same: delivering happiness to customers, employees, and vendors”!

That’s the beauty about real vision!  It is not about the words.  It is not a statement.  It’s the vision that is invoked.  That vision means several things.  Outstanding customer service?  Of course.  Happy employees?  Sure, that is what will make it happen.  But best selection also means engaging the best vendors.  So, you need happy vendors too!

So what happens to profits?  ROI?

Well, they have to wait!

Indeed, Zappos was passionate enough about the vision to stick to it all the way!  In July 2009, under pressure to deliver a return to Sequoia Capital and its other investors, the company announced it would be acquired by Amazon.com in an all-stock deal.  Tony Hsieh, Zappos’ CEO explained to his employees:

“…We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run Zappos -- continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our culture, and our business. …it will be as if we are switching out our current shareholders and board of directors for a new one… We want to align ourselves with a shareholder and partner that thinks really long term (like we do at Zappos).”

We don’t get many stories like that.

Sri

www.sigmax-e.com

The Vision Thing - Taking a stab at it!

Having a “Vision” is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for success.  
Not necessary, because there are hundreds of organizations that do not have a ‘vision’ – at least formally -- and have yet been hugely successful; the ‘dabbawalas of Bombay come to mind.  Similarly, there are an equal number of organizations ‘sporting’ elaborate vision statements that have not even taken off the ground.

In my view, a formal vision (statement) is a nice to have.  It certainly helps clear ambiguity, especially, if it is something different from the usual, “leader in our chosen market” type. 

Again, to me, vision is not necessarily the vision statement.  Let me give a notable example.  Here is what I found on the website of The Body Shop. 

“I just want The Body Shop to be the best, most breathlessly exciting company – and one that changes the way business is carried out. That is my vision.”  Anita Roddick. Human Rights Activist.   Founder of The Body Shop. 

That’s a great vision!  But, you may agree that statement, by itself, could hardly be credited with the success of the company.  To my mind, The Body Shop’s real vision is buried deep inside their “Values”.  It goes, “…we always strive to protect this beautiful planet and the people who depend on it. We don’t do it this way because it’s fashionable. We do it because, to us, it’s the only way.”  Building a ‘cosmetic’ company -- with all the baggage the word carries -- around such a value is the real vision; linking the near opposites of ‘cosmetic’ and ‘natural’. 

Visions come in at least two broad flavors.  Some talk about market leadership, growth, return to share holders, serving customers and the like.  In fact a quick review of a random hundred vision statements will reveal that most address such areas.  I call this category “Stab” visions.  (They take a stab at making a statement and they STAte the oBvious.)  When a vision statement states something inevitable, something that no business / organization can do without, that is a Stab vision.  I will go out on a limb and say that such vision statements are useless.  Dump them.  Remove them from your websites.

The other category is where they try to do something more (or less?) than the obvious.  Perhaps even instead of the obvious.  “We will strive NOT to please our customers” is a vision that would certainly fall under this second category!   More seriously, such visions are often product-driven.  They show a certain passion for the product, service or competence that is offered.  Sometimes, a different way of looking at the obvious. 

The recent news story about Café Rottenmeier in Tokyo, is a case in point.  At this café, all the waiters are "granny maids".  They have been selected through an open recruitment process seeking people, aged between 24 and 77, who "see themselves as grannies".  Besides serving their customers with a terse, unsmiling greeting, they even scold them for slouching on chairs or for not removing their coats!  And this ‘customer service’ has been drawing over 500 guests each day, besides huge viral publicity (to which, I now, wittingly contribute)!  Visions like “a PC on every desktop” fall in the same genre.  They reflect a passion, or dimension, for the product or service on offer – not the demands of share holders.

While a vision does not have to be ‘unique’, if it is not about your product or service, if it does not talk about addressing a different aspect (a novel insight?) of your customer behavior, you may be drifting into Stab zone.  

Sri

www.sigmax-e.com

Staying with Operations Excellence...

The last time we were here, I said, "The surprising thing about execution is that it is very, very simple. Any one can do it.  And that is the problem! It is very, very boring."  So how does one handle this situation? 
The first - and simplest - is when an 'activist board' takes control to decide whether the company needs an 'Operational CEO' or a "Visionary CEO" (yes, they are different people).  They then go about hiring the right kind of CEO.  The Operational guy does not get bored with the execution stuff.  S/he revels in it.  They love going to the shop floor, getting involved, meeting the people there, motivating them with coffee or beer.  They pour over reports and ask questions.  They are thinking next quarter, next product launch - and if they really need some visionary thinking, they call in McKinsey - or is it Bain? - whoever.

What if the Board decides they want a "Visionary CEO"?  Well this guy comes up with a new vision, is hopefully charismatic and manages to rally the troops around their vision.  Should the time come for execution, he hires a Chief Operations Officer.

But then a few CEOs manage to do both, i.e., the vision thing as well as getting hands dirty.  How do these people do it? 
Great companies like GE have developed a mantra for this.  They use two broad tools:

1. Dashboards
2. Calendars

Dashboards are standard reporting formats, typically graphic.  They tell the operations story visually and do not take a lot of pages.  They come in slides, instead.  The page layout and orientation shifts from portrait to landscape.  You see less text and more bullets, arrows, graphs, pictures and colors.  You think visually.  This brings the detail more in tune with the visionary's bias for the visual.

Dashboards are not easy though.  They take a lot of time to design.  Even more, to bring to shape.  The CEO needs to sit with her team and be able to identify the vital few metrics s/he wants to track.  They need to be few and yet comprehensive enough.  A Balanced Score Card kind of approach is very helpful here.  It then takes a smart six sigma kind of person to design the actual dashboard templates.  The scene then moves to IT to come up with a system to generate the required data and massage it to fit the template on a periodic basis. 
The good news is that this can be done. 

Calendars.  This is the "Financial Year" kind of rhythm, you find in the Finance Departments of most multinationals.  "If its September, its time for Budget Blues", "February is Performance Review month", etc.  You set up a detailed, enterprise-wide process for key functions and ensure it works like clockwork. 
The idea is to eliminate the 'clutter' of unplanned work taking over your day.  (You never succeed 100%, but you can still do a good job). 
So, there are cycles for all key processes.  The work for them starts on a particular date every year and concludes on a particular day every year - typically by way of a presentation to the CEO or to the Board.  This enables this CEO to stay on top of operational issues, while focusing all the time in-between to his vision thing.

I bet there are more.  Can't think of them right now, though!  If you can, please add here.

Sri

www.sigmax-e.com