QUOTATION 40

CLAUDE I. TAYLOR ON VISION BUILDING

WHAT TO DO

• Too many vision statements are a load of pious pap. A vision statement is not the same as a mission statement, objective or target. It’s something that the organisation aspires to. It’s something you would like the organisation to be or represent. You may never get there but it’s what keeps the organisation moving forward. That means that it has to be meaningful, clear, understandable and easy to communicate to staff, customers and other stakeholders.
• Unfortunately, too many organisations produce long-winded statements that are difficult to understand and hard to remember. They then compound these errors when they fail to share the vision with staff in a way that people can understand. Sticking a copy of the vision statement up all round the place just isn’t going to cut it. Left to their own devices, a group of 20 people will all interpret differently what a statement means and will have difficulty relating it to their job.
• Use the following strategy to ensure that all staff understand and sign up to the statement:
  • Write the mission statement in clear simple English without any jargon or management speak.
  • Keep writing and rewriting the statement until you have distilled your message down to fewer than 20 words.
  • Arrange a series of staff briefings at which you introduce the statement and explain what management mean by it. No matter how simple and clear your statement is, this is essential. Why? Because what senior management understand by certain words means something else to staff down the hierarchy. For example, ‘efficient delivery of services’ means maximising outputs from a given input to management but a reduction in staff to front-line staff.
  • Allow staff to ask questions, and answer them truthfully. Don’t be afraid to tell someone that they have misunderstood the statement if they have, but be open to the possibility that the statement is ambiguous.
  • Don’t wait for staff to ask, ‘How does my job contribute to achieving/moving closer to the vision?’ Tell them how important their work is. Give them multiple simple examples of how different jobs contribute to the vision. For example, you can produce a great product but, if they are carelessly packaged by staff and damaged in transit, customers are not going to be happy.
  • Leaders and managers need to continually refer to the vision statement in their daily work. When there is a problem, people should automatically think, ‘What’s the best way to deal with this in line with our vision statement?’ If that means ignoring procedures or processes, so be it. No one should be criticised for prioritising the vision statement over petty rules and regulation.

QUESTIONS TO ASK

• Can I recite the organisation’s vision word for word? Can my staff paraphrase the vision statement?
• Am I cynical about the value of the vision statement? If so, how does this affect my staff’s attitude to it?