Four Vital Ways To Activate Your Corporate Vision

Your business will benefit in extraordinary ways when you do what very few of your competitors do: create clarity and inspiration about three important issues -

1. The purpose of the business. Why does it exist? Why was it established? What was the dream of the person who started it? Who does the business desire to serve?
   
   
2. The vision of the business. What do you want the business to achieve? Where do you want it to be positioned? How does the future of the business "look" and "feel"?
   
   
3. The goals of the business. What are the specific and measurable goals along the way to achieving the vision? Are they believable, achievable, and inspirational?

Most organisations fail to create clarity about these issues. Are you one of the few organisations that has clarified and then published its Purpose, Vision, and Goals? When I ask employees about these fundamentals, the usual response is sceptical, even cynical, laughter. In fact, very few employees can remember them! If your organisation has published its Purpose and Vision, are they empowering and inspirational? Do the employees understand what the words mean? Can they share these fundamentals with new employees and with customers? Do they want to share them?

Create an environment that allows the answers to these last four questions to be an unequivocal "YES", and you will unlock extraordinary energy, power, and sustainable success! You will have overcome the four big mistakes that squash the power of these fundamental resources for your business. I believe that people who lead sustainably successful organisations understand that every business is about people:

• the people who work in the business,
• the people who are customers of the business, and
• the people who own the business.

Leaders who ignore or fail to understand this, and make the error of describing organisational purpose solely or primarily in terms of profit generation, will not create a sustainable, inspired commitment from the people they lead. In the 21st Century, the Knowledge Age, if you lose your good people too easily, you will lose your business!

Arie De Geus in The Living Company, eloquently describes the conundrum with a beautiful metaphor. He says, "profit for business is like oxygen to human beings: it is essential for survival, it is not the purpose!" When the purpose and vision of your business are fulfilled, when your business delivers to its customers the products and services which were the reason for its establishment and ongoing existence, profit is the reward!

I recently facilitated part of a leadership development program for future leaders of the ANZ Banking Group Limited. I asked these future leaders to describe the purpose of the Bank. Most of them said that it was to "make money". Upon detailed discussion, most agreed that a far more inspirational purpose revolved around the customers of the Bank. They were keen for the Bank to adopt an inspirational purpose to the following intent: "The purpose of the ANZ Bank is to solve our customers' financial and banking needs in a way that delights those customers through the passionate purpose of our people."

The reason why such a purpose inspires is clear: it revolves around people! Relationships impact on our souls, our spirits and our hearts. Money is less likely to do so. If money is the purpose of your business, then focusing on results and benefits to your customers is difficult.

Harnessing the power that is available to your business through inspired employees will create sustainable success for you. The best way to get them inspired is to adopt clear and inspirational statements of your corporate purpose and vision.

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Buy Charles Kovess' Audio Seminar CDs from the Resource Centre:

7 Steps To Create Great Teams

Passion: The Key to Your Sustainable Competitive Advantage in the 21st Century

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