For a start, if most companies actively presented their ‘statements’ to customers, they would be laughed out of court or shown to be the perpetrators of significant service lies. For example, I was in a very slow moving long queue at a car rental counter recently, manned by just one young lady who didn’t even look at those of us ‘waiting’, let alone talk to us. During this agony we could all see the company’s vision statement on prominent display,
promising the opposite form of service to the kind we were enduring.
Additionally, if organisations treated their financial statements as they do vision statements, they would be locked up. We are not allowed by law to present financial data in an untruthful manner, but no such laws govern corporate use of flowery language, absurd claims and arrant nonsense.
And why is it that so many companies appear to have vision and mission statements that are virtually identical? Could it be that the ‘statements’ have been created using the super
vision of like-minded consultants?
At a conference not long ago the CEO of a large company was due to set out the company’s latest ‘vision’ to managers and staff, just prior to my own presentation. Unfortunately, technical difficulties meant that he couldn’t use his PowerPoint presentation, and understandably he was hopping mad. In an effort to help I suggested that he should perhaps use the old-fashioned whiteboard to outline the vision–but this wasn’t possible because he couldn’t remember what it was! In a similar incident in New Zealand, a senior executive handed me what proved to be his last business card and pointed out the ‘7 Values’ of the company on the reverse of the card. I thanked him, put the card in the pocket of my shirt and the conversation continued. A few minutes later I asked him which of the 7 values were the most challenging; he seemed to reflect for a moment and then said ‘Can I have the card back for a moment please?’ Yikes!
People who operate in various ‘professions’ have ‘oaths’ or ‘creeds’ that guide their purpose and conduct, and while their respective statements are quite honorable in content–they are most often not put on public display. So why does the world of business do the opposite, and in the process present such menial messages? The answer is that ‘menial management’ prevails almost everywhere you look. Here are some clues:
- Most hotel chains use ‘guest surveys’ that feature the same layout and the same large number and inane type of questions ... they get less than 3% of the surveys returned by the way!
- Many companies use the same ‘titles’ for their sales people–such as BDM, BRM, etc ... no change of function, just a higher promise to customers.
- Huge numbers of companies are investing heavily in CRM, while they persist in offering a weak value proposition–via a weak sales team ... since business began, leading companies and their sales teams have always maintained high- level intelligence on customers.
- An enormous number of companies use the same, lame Tele-marketing approach ... creating irritated customers, depressed staff and lousy results.
- An increasing number of companies use the same hype-type ‘motivational speakers’ at conferences ... $5,000 or more for a 40 minute talk on a topic unrelated to business is apparently good value to the hirers.
- Very high numbers of companies use ‘traditional’ sales training, if any, involving futile learning challenges such as ‘how to handle objections’, ‘how to close the sale’, etc ... most sales people have never been taught how to open a sale, let alone close one!
These are just a few insights into the propensity of management to take and then run with defective ’concepts’ that have been around for years, which is the equivalent of stealing counterfeit money. Now consider the lengthy list of lapsed ‘success theories’ that have been devoured by legions of managers over the years:
- Theories X and Y
- MBO
- Quality circles
- Transactional Analysis
- Psycho-Cybernetics
- Process Re-engineering
- Total Quality Management
- Peak Performance
- Matrix Management
- One-Minute Management
- Win-Win selling
- SPIN Selling
- Change Management
While several of these concepts are overly abstract or downright dumb, some of them in my view reflect quite powerful philosophies. A philosophy though is not a ‘process’ and yet this is how these ideas have been treated by the majority of managers who bought into them. To weak managers the philosophies represent ‘new ways’ of doing business, more packages of goodies to be opened, played with and then discarded ... so as to make way for the very latest concepts.
To the strongest managers almost all philosophies are of great interest, to be entertained or abandoned. However, when good managers find potent philosophies this is the point at which they detonate their own thoughts, and the thoughts of colleagues. They literally take the ideas apart, asking questions and finding evidence to support or challenge the concepts under review. If they embrace a philosophy it is because they believe in it wholeheartedly, following their arduous work to determine its relevance and value. They then create processes to put the philosophy ‘to work’, selling staff on the reasoning behind the concept–and improving the supporting process at every opportunity.
This form of higher commitment to quality thought and action sees to it that great ideas are never allowed to lapse, in fact they just get better. And every idea that good managers run with will look quite different to the ‘original’ philosophy, not because they are disguised on purpose, but because they have been dismantled and rebuilt so that the idea in its
new and practical structure belongs to the organisation!
I have no doubt that vision and mission statements will soon belong to the lapsed list presented earlier, and the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. By the way, you may have noticed the contradiction that vision statements usually have nothing remotely ‘visual’ about them. This is strange because the Encyclopedic World Dictionary uses the word ‘vivid’ in its description of the word
vision (
click here for a description of
vision), and
vivid is defined as meaning ‘forming distinct and striking mental images’.
Real ‘vision’ in the business world generally comes to us from two power- sources, and neither of these areas of expertise find reason to create ‘statements’. The first group involves the special people who are capable of creating completely new and excellent products for us to use in business and private life, products we need and which we may even have vaguely dreamed of...but which we never asked for. Items such as fax machines, mobile phones, laptops and internet services come to mind in recent times, and going back in time we remember television, radio, motor cars, the telephone and electricity, to name but a few of these inspired contributions. The vision of ‘inventors’ is best known to them but I imagine that they have bees in their bonnets in the form of ideas that must be transformed into new products and services. I would also imagine that the inventors are not propelled by money motives alone, or even first. Whatever their motivation and
vision may be, this group represents the smallest of the two power-sources.
The second and largest power-source group is more down to earth and makes up most of the business area of
vision. These are the managers who position themselves to
see and be affected by the problems and needs of those they associate with, such as customers, employees and suppliers. They also position themselves to see the ways in which leading customers achieve outstanding results, as the basis for creating benchmarks and performance platforms for all other customers. The ‘positioning’ factor for these managers is crucial because intercepting and interpreting problems, needs and outstanding performance rarely happens by accident. One has to be where the problems, needs and achievements can be displayed and discussed, which is almost always outside of transaction mode. Good managers therefore have organised ways of learning from customers and staff, etc., and as they ‘discover’ problems, needs and high-level achievement methods from just a few, they become inspired to
envision a better future for the entire market ... which is the equivalent of labour pains leading to the birth of new product and service ideas.
When managers learn how to be consistently and significantly affected by those they serve and work with, they are
naturally possessed of a vision that need not be displayed by ‘statements’ on paper, but through the
active influence of higher human qualities such as purpose, enthusiasm, commitment and professional conduct.
Vision, n. “a vivid imaginative conception or anticipation”