© Tesseract Management Systems / Managing by Design / 2002 - 1 DEVELOPING VISION These slides are intended to support a group through an exercise to develop

© Tesseract Management Systems / Managing by Design / 2002 - 1

DEVELOPING VISION

These slides are intended to support a group through an exercise to develop a vision for their organisation. They reflect a number of different ways to draw out individual visions, and to begin to pull these together into the basis for a common vision for the organisation.

Please also see the slide set on ‘Process Visioning’

Please do not attempt to use these slides as part of a presentation until you have read and fully understood the relevant sections of ‘Managing by Design’, you know how the slide works, and you are clear on the points you wish to draw out with it.


VISIONS

What are they, and why have them?

"WE SHOULD TAKE CARE NOT TO MAKE THE INTELLECT OUR GOD;

IT HAS, OF COURSE, POWERFUL MUSCLES, BUT NO PERSONALITY"

Albert Einstein


DEFINITION OF A VISION

A VISION is a statement of where the organisation wants to be over a time-frame of, usually, 3-5 years. It is a description of the desired business characteristics, performance/standards and values.

It will be:

An easily explained statement clarifying the overall long term company performance

An advertisement of the intention to change independent of what now seems possible

An ever present standard against which to judge action

A feature which clearly distinguishes your organisation from others

”Where there is no vision,the people perish"

Proverbs 29:18


VISION

Three people engaged in the same job of placing large stone blocks one on top of another were observed to be working with varying degrees of effort and care. When asked what they were doing:

The first man, rather bored and listless, replied:"We are placing blocks one on top of another - thus”

The second man, more interested in the task, said:"We are assembling what will be part of a large wall”

And the third, responding with passion, enthused:"We are building a great Cathedral, that will be a place of wonder and glory for centuries to come"


CONTEXT FOR VISIONSome questions to consider

What would transform the experience of your customer’s customers?

How could the strengths and potential of your organisation be used in new ways to add value? for customers, for the society, for the world?

What challenges and ideas would attract the very best talent and business partners to work with you?

What are the biggest problems that your customers (or their/your parents) are currently wrestling with?

How will technology evolve in the future, and how will new technology begin to affect us?

What is currently limiting your thinking on how great your organisation really could be?


INTRODUCTION TO VISIONS WORK

Completeness in Visions:

TheImpact

YouWill

Have

TheThings

YouWillDo

TheWayYouWillBe

TheChanges

YouWill

Make

Without a Purpose

What is the point of all this?How would you design it?

How would you know it was successful?

Without defining these... The purpose

forces you to invent

them!


RICH PICTURES

Please spend 10-15 minutes drawing a picture on your piece of flipchart.

The drawing should reflect your personal vision for (your organisation) - the differences you personally would like to see made by the current management team.

Please then take 2 minutes to explain your drawing to the rest of the group.


IMAGINE …

Imagine a company that has transformed the face of its industry for ever

Imagine an company that has changed beyond recognition the way that businesses operate

Imagine an company whose performance improves 25% a year, every year

Imagine an company that is a benchmark in the industry for its culture and working practice

Imagine an company that continuously delights its customers, and is never late with delivery

Imagine an company that has 5000 job applicants every year, and where everybody wants to work

Imagine an company that produces solutions that never fail

Example only!


IMAGINE …

Imagine an company whose Senior Managers are regularly headhunted for jobs at £300K p.a.,

...and turn them down!!!

Example only!


PARADIGM CHALLENGE

In your syndicate groups:

Think through the limits that currently define (your organisation’s) “Box” - the boundaries which separate acceptable ideas from typically unacceptable or “off the wall” ideas

Use the thinking of the previous sessions, and of the prework, to generate (brainstorm) a large number of ideas that are currently outside of these boundaries

Refine this list into a limited number of ideas that you feel may possibly have some potential or merit

Be prepared to present your conclusions to the rest of the group - there is a prize for the most interesting!

You have 60 minutes


INPUTS TO SYNDICATE

Thinking about a 3-5 year vision:

What is the most dramatic influence you could have over your customers/beneficiaries in 5 years time?

What potential areas of your customers could you influence, and make them invincible in these?

What in our industry is currently impossible, but if it became possible would set us or our customers back to zero?

What would make you, as a team, the most valuable heads on the recruiters/headhunters lists?

In how many ways could you work with other radically different organisations to deliver something new and transformational?


GROUP EXERCISEVision Elements

We are going to do a walkround exercise starting with one person to a sheet of flipchart paper, writing down our thoughts on our vision and then passing on to the paper on our left.

Consider each piece of paper that you pass:

does it spark off a new idea for an inspiring phrase?

do you wish to add to, or amend the phrase?

Do you wish to take an entirely different line?

Use the thoughts and ideas that appeal to you out of the earlier exercises, and that come to you as you do the exercise. Annotate the paper accordingly and pass on to your left. Be alternately outrageous & sensible (build on the ideas you have seen). You are not bound by what you write.


GROUP EXERCISEVision Elements

Topics to consider:

The cover of ‘Time’ magazine

The History of Z in the early 21st Century

‘Tomorrow’s World’ devotes a programme to Y

Evidence to the Public enquiry on the ‘X Collapse’

Why head-hunters don’t bother with Y

…

Replace with names

(X = your main competitor)

(Y = your organisation)

(Z = your industry)


SELECTING VISION ELEMENTS

When you have passed all the pieces of paper reflect on the phrases you have seen.

Select four phrases or elements which you want to see considered as part of your organisation’s Vision (explicitly or implicitly):

Two can be relatively conventional (green dots)

Two must be unconventional - stretching us beyond where we are currently into new, but valuable, areas (red dots)

Stick your four dots in the left-hand margin against the elements you have picked.


NEXT STEPS ON VISION

Ponder on the ideas over the next few weeks

Share ideas with others and develop your thoughts

Develop a clearer form of words for our Vision

Look at the implications, and develop the vision further through this

Agree the next steps:

Word-smithing and finalising the vision

Sharing it and using it

Building it into the next QFD & Business Plan


FACING SOUTH

The following slides on Facing South are an exercise to get people to think through what is involved in making the Vision real to people within your organisation.

S


FACING SOUTH????

Somebody tells you:

“….to succeed in this company in terms of progress, pay, job satisfaction, and being helped to achieve your goals, you have to position your desk facing south!”

What would have to be the conditions pertaining at the time for you to really believe him?

S


FACING SOUTH????

You tell somebody:

“….to succeed in this company in terms of progress, pay, job satisfaction, and being helped to achieve your goals, you have to:

understand the Vision

relate all your objectives and activities to it

find new ways in which you can make it happen!”

will they really believe you?

What do you have to do about it?

S


FACING SOUTH????

What would you do if the Vision were vital to you?

How would this ‘value’ of yours be evident to others?

How would you get others to align their agenda with yours?

S


What itmeansfor our

Customers

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATION OF PURSUING OUR VISION?

Our Vision

TheChangesWe WillHave To

Make

How We Will Bring About

Those Changes

GrowthSavingsImage…Work?Risk?

ProcessProductStructure...?

ProjectsPeoplePolicy…?

Further Definition


EXTERNAL IMPLICATIONS

Have we considered (for example):

products and services

markets and competition

economic, fiscal and regulatory environment

legal and financial status and structure

technology and systems

image and public relations profile

industrial relations (union relations, agreements, customs and practices)

business performance (share value, market share, size, growth, profitability)

...

What itmeansfor our

Customers

GrowthSavingsImage…Work?Risk?


INTERNAL IMPLICATIONS

Have we considered (for example):culture (value, attitudes, style behaviour/common practice, language, performance measures)people (numbers, competencies/skills/know-how)organisation (mgt structures, job design, systems)operational performance (ratios, stds, productivity)key business processes management processes (planning, budgeting, decision making, delegation/responsibility sharing...)human resource management policies and practices (resourcing, developing, rewarding and recognising)information and reporting systemswork environment (facilities, amenities, benefits)...

TheChangesWe WillHave To

Make

ProcessProductStructure...?

Documents

© Tesseract Management Systems / Managing by Design / 2002 - 1 DEVELOPING VISION These slides are intended to support a group through an exercise to develop