10 minute read
Organisational Performance
VISION TO THE WIRE THE 2020
Vision is the destination that one visualises and wants to achieve, but the path is unknown. This is where goals come into play… setting the path for the rightful achievement of your vision, acting as milestones. – Sromona Bhattacharyya
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Back in who knows when, we all dreamt our big dreams and coined our big vision for year 2020.
If your Vision committed you or your organisation to a specific envisioned position “by 2020”, then you should be basking at your achievements because, strictly speaking at 12:00:01 January 2020, you would have attained your vision. Our team has been doing rounds finding out who’s celebrating big and who’s not.
We found quite a few who told us that year 2020 was, in fact, the target delivery year. So, we are here to work with all those as we all chase hard at bringing vision2020 to full life by 23:59:59 December 2020!
As they read this, some might be feeling some dejection or trepidation about bringing their (personal/organisation’s) vision to reality. It could be because the vision suddenly seems too ambitious and unachievable. And they might console themselves with the fallacy that “visions are motivational statements and aren’t always attainable.”
With that, they may give up on the urge to chase the vision. Some of our respondents say they’ve been disheartened by visions that seem no longer relevant as “events have overtaken” them. Needless to say, to be able to motivate people into pursuing a vision, you must believe in its importance, relevance and attainability.
Let’s take turns reviewing the different challenging scenarios. You can pick up some strategic insights or get to revive your own creative thinking towards your vision, giving it life and selling it to the rest of the team who will bring it to reality.
When the Vision is “Daunting”
If a vision seems too big, too ambitious and intimidating, it is important to embrace the sentiment behind it and identify a way that the organisation can express or live out this sentiment in a series of short-term, specific, attainable goals.
Martin Luther, Jr advised wisely: You don’t have to see the entire staircase, just take the first step. For instance, if the vision was “To be the biggest recruitment agency in Africa by 2020”, this may prove a challenge. You may not see the end of the staircase, so to speak.
Confining your interpretation
Big may indicate the size of the operation. It could also mean the size or number of clients on the agency’s books. It may mean the size of billings; the number of personnel; it may mean continental representation through a spread of offices or networks; it may also mean “biggest” as recognised by industry partners or the market through a combination of achievements, such as negotiation clout, reputation or the quality of clients that it attracts.
Confined targeting
In whatever aspect that management believes the organisation can prove dominance, that’s where it should focus the organisation strategy for the period remaining towards the Vision ‘deadline’.
To drive this, management needs to formulate or articulate goals with clear targets, making sure that not only are there organisationwide programmes to drive towards the demonstration of dominance in the selected leadership-specific aspect, but there should be a credible and transparent way to verify the leadership claim.
Credible Industry or Market Data
The organisation must be able to prove attainment of dominance in the aspect that qualifies it to be “the biggest recruitment agency in Africa in 2020”. It stands to reason that one cannot claim a superior position in a market or industry from an internal perspective. One should have sufficient information to compare themselves against the competition.
A tracking process that links to undisputed data is important to back the status.
Some industries cooperate and share data freely via a central bureau or institute, others have to rely on pure market intelligence, observations and deductive conclusion. With competition agencies on the watch, it would be prudent to ensure that not only can superiority claims be tested, but that any industry cooperation on figures doesn’t put the players at loggerheads with regulating authorities.
When it comes to audacious visions, then, one can see that no matter how big the industry grows, the executive can always find space to live up to the vision – and prove itself “the biggest” in some significant aspect. It is a statement that constantly inspires and drives the organisation toward greatness or leadership, if not of the entire industry, it could be “the greatest” in certain important niches.
When the Vision is “Knotty”
If the vision is abstruse or unclear, there is an opportunity for the executive to give it a rider or qualifying statement(s) to give a much clearer direction aligned towards the vision – if for a specified period.
Putting Meaning to the Vision
This can be achieved by expressing high-level priorities which form strategic focus in the line of the vision, so to speak. Let’s take IPM’s vision, for example: “To be a global portal of thought leadership for HR and people management”. Executive members go on to expatiate on the vision by indicating ways in which the Institute will prove itself a portal, platform, source or channel for global thought leadership.
It demonstrates how members can always tap into its resources to expand their people management knowledge and voice- thus gaining access to share or draw from the Institute what they need, as and how they need from the Institute.
Hence, as one thinks of the institute’s strategic focus having evolved from being a pioneer voice for welfare and humane conditions in the workplace, to a collaboration platform to professionalise personnel management, then to a strategic advisory body and an authority on professional development and educational evolution on diverse aspects of people management. In 2020, IPM fulfils the role of a stately sage for people management and leadership as well as a professional haven for people managers of all designations, levels and backgrounds.
This demonstrates that the vision had always been put on track through the decades and in different phases of the institute’s existence. One could argue that the more abstract a vision statement is, the more it has legs to carry through generations without the need for restating.
When the Vision is “Dwarfed”
Where a vision has been dwarfed by the organisations’ own achievements, there is no point in basking in the glory of the achievement, thinking you have arrived. While the vision may have been conceived as what the founder ‘saw on the horizon’, if the company gets to the horizon ‘too quickly’ than the founder anticipated, it is time to extend the vision and stretch the organisation to new heights or fresh challenges.
Arbitrary example
For instance, let’s say a Damelin-like institution, at inception had aimed to be South Africa’s leading correspondence college for Junior and Senior Certificate.
A revised vision could well have been “to be the leading institution for distance learning” when they began including vocational studies courses in their mix. A further revised vision, when they were able to offer weekend and week-night classes for both vocational and professional studies, might have changed to “… the leading provider of flexible education and career development”.
This vision would have carried well as the group opened learning campuses and full-time classes for undergraduates. It would have sufficed even where the mix grew to encompass live-streamed, digitally-aided interactive classes or on-site management development programmes. In other words, no further adaptation would be needed.
While a vision is meant to be aspirational and long-term, it may not always be possible to foresee market changes, particularly given the rapid acceleration experienced since the third industrial revolution.
Not only have product life-cycles been cut short, but industry lifecycles have similarly been prematurely obliterated or significantly disrupted – hence the need to keep finding relevance by re-visioning and adapting service models to meet new markets and new demands.
So, while one may perceive a vision as being overtaken by events, the executive can stay true to the vision with the least of adjustments, or graduate to a less confining or less rigid expression.
When the vision is “Irrelevant”
The only way a vision could be irrelevant is if it were narrow to the point of the organisation having no room to play. If the vision was “To supply the fastest-holding ink for top-end writing instruments in the South African market”, the organisation may no longer supply ink for fountain pens.
Product/Market Extensions and Diversification
As an alternative to divesting, who is to say it wouldn’t find new uses for the ink it produces? There is still demand for ink, albeit not for fountain pens. Staying with the top-end ‘writing instrument’ functionality, the company could make a play at the office printing sector and look at attributes of their ink that could lend themselves to more modern processes such as jet-printing or well-printer technology.
School art, illustration books or corporate branding material are examples a reputable ink company could diversify into – maintaining a fair measure of its operational processes and absorbing negative threats on human resources.
Drastic Measures
Organisations faced with a vision dead-end (legislatively prohibited or environmentally threatening) may have to consider more drastic measures. One thinks of the asbestos industry, for instance. If a company aimed “To be the leading asbestos roof supplier in highdensity areas”, chances are, they not only abandoned the vision and closed operations, but they are busy fighting law-suits and a longdrawn class action brought by sufferers.
For companies who can continue operating, a dead-end vision calls for an overhaul of operations. This might mean entering new sectors, facing new risks to fulfil the shareholders’ financial ambitions and secure other stakeholders’ interests – employees’ in particular. Industry diversification comes at a major cost, and new operating models may require huge sacrifices all round, in the interest of the parties’ shared future and security.
Vision longevity and sustaining factors
So, with all challenges that a vision poses – whether due to perceived over-ambition, vagueness or datedness, the most exciting challenge is getting the executive thinking outside the tunnel to help all those who subscribe to it, to realise it.
It might be that a bit of focus, elaboration, reinforcement, tweaking, strategic foresight or re-focus is required to keep all members on course, but peaks and troughs or disasters aside, it is always possible to deliver fair shareholder value and sustain the organisation into new waves of visioning.
Help at Hand!
So, if you need help realising or reviewing your 2020 goals, reach out and get the necessary help to either simplify, clarify or focus on aspects that will have you and your team celebrating together, come December 2020!
If the final destination seems totally out of sight, get some help up the few flight of stairs that you can still climb, and still register significant 2020Milestones - something everyone will remember.
Why is Holding a Vision Important
A vision is what gives direction to the efforts of the organisation and the contribution of every individual in the organisation
It provides everyone with a common destination and a shared reason to be ‘on the journey together’, no matter the role each person plays
Vision gives a basis for leadership, irrespective of who ends up at the helm
It guides strategic direction and reconciles disparate opinions on what is to be prioritised
It helps the organisation determine whether it has the right type of leadership and pipeline
It aligns the diverse and creative thinking that everybody brings to the party
A vision provides basis to evaluate leadership effectiveness and decision for additional investment A vision separates drivers from passengers
Elaborating on their respective sentiments, the contributors to the last two points added:
If a vision resonates with prospective recruits, the company can be sure that once on board, the people will bring their hearts, minds and hands to the job. They will be emotionally connected to the company’s journey, and actively conjure up novel ways to help it reach its destination.
It is quite telling when or if a person can’t recall the organisation’s vision. And here, it doesn’t mean regurgitating it word for word, but knowing and understanding the essence of it. If someone draws a total blank, it’s either a matter of acumen or level of interest in the organisation. As such an organisation would have to introduce necessary intervention to make sure that it isn’t weighed down by disengaged baggage.
A vision attained is value delivered As you all said it, a vision gives everyone focus and reasons to celebrate.
It gives all the players a sense of achievement. Often, this is not confined to current staff and management, but the pride also extends to those who were part of the early journey and added their sweat to the organisation: the alumni including old partners and associates.
