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It is not possible for a Company to become great without a vision. Companies that only live for today and how much profit can be made on the next deal are doomed in the long-term. They will be mostly reactive companies only changing products, locations, employees, or business systems when faced with eminent bankruptcy. They will never be a Great Company with higher than average profits and value.
Great companies are born because somebody had a vision of what the company will look like when it was done. This vision could be as simple as being the most profitable business in town to being a national leader in their industry. They then grow their company to that vision by communicating what they want to accomplish to all the other interested parties to their endeavor. The other parties include the employees, the vendors and their customers.
When we talk about a vision we are talking about a picture in your mind. That picture might be a large building or a chain of stores with the Company's name on them. That picture might see satisfied customers coming in to the building and finding at their finger tips the right products to fit a need while singing accolades about the beauty of the companies organization. The picture might be of an income statement showing X amount of gross sales and Y amount of profits. Whatever your picture is, the next step is being able to describe it to others.
A vision that is not, or can not, be explained to others is almost as worthless as no vision at all. Your employees, your vendors, and your customers will be left to themselves to guess what you are trying to accomplish and each individual will guess differently. Some may decide that lower costs and low customer prices are what you are all about, others may decide that sales growth is the company's big gig. These conflicting visions will make it impossible to succeed except for the occasional random hit of good luck. Depending upon good luck for success is a very risky proposition indeed.
The example most sighted by consultants of what is a good communication of a vision is President Kennedy's speech about going to the moon. He said "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Everybody understood the goal clearly because they all had a similar picture in their minds of the little spacemen standing on the moon holding up an American Flag. Kennedy did not use weasel words like "be best at space" or "first in space technology" which would have resulted in everybody having a different picture of the goal. Kennedy gave everybody the same vision which allowed the project managers down to floor sweeper to understand what their organization was all about and what it wanted to accomplish.
Another significant thing about Kennedy's mission statement was that it had a time line - "before this decade is out". Time lines produce a call to action that says we had better get in gear if we expect to get there. Additionally, there was parameters about the risks that he was willing to accept in the part that says "and return them safely to the Earth". It is always a good idea to let people who are implementing your vision to know the risk level you are willing to accept. Suicidal astronauts were not acceptable in accomplishing the mission.
I have found that a Q&A approach is very helpful in brining your vision into focus. Click here for Questions to Ask
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