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Mission Vision and Strategy (2011)

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Page 1: Mission Vision and Strategy (2011)

The Curse of Management Babble (aka The Unholy Trinity of Mission, Vision and Strategy)

The primary audience for this article comprises well-intentioned, hard-working

Directors and senior executives who do not realise that they’ve undermined their

reputations and credibility by publishing vision statements and mission statements

that are neither visionary nor missionary.

It is better to have no Vision Statement than to have one that makes you look

like a numpty. It is better to have no Mission Statement than to have one which

proves that you don’t really have a mission.

Language matters. “The Ancient Mariner” works better than “The Old Sailor”.

Words create worlds. If, “Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of

the imagination” how do the words that you use strike a chord with your

audience(s)?

When it comes to vision, mission and strategy there are valuable clues in the

words themselves:

A vision can be seen. You can draw a vision – you don’t need words.

For mission think ‘missionary’. You’re out to change the world in some way.

Strategy comes from the Greek word for generalship. It’s about winning and

choices.

The cartoon refers to a common misunderstanding: many managers think strategy

is about operational excellence. It isn’t. Operational excellence is important but it’s

not strategic. It is about performing similar activities better than your rivals. In his

Harvard Business Review article, “What Is Strategy”, business guru Michael Porter

notes that strategy is about being different. Strategy is the creation of a distinctive

position involving a different set of activities. It requires trade-offs and tough

choices about what not to do.

There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer. Peter Drucker

© Alan Newman 2011 “Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”

W B Yeats

Page 2: Mission Vision and Strategy (2011)

In 1997 Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, by James C Collins and Jerry I Porras,

was published. The year before they’d written a Harvard Business Review article, Building Your

Company’s Vision. Both were big hits and they continue to influence thousands of managers. From

their research they concluded that Great Companies (not simply good ones) transcended traditional

performance measures and were guided by core ideologies and a strong sense of purpose.

Overnight everybody began writing mission statements and vision statements – whether the

enterprise had a sense of mission or a vision or not.

Vision statements are cerebral. Think about the word itself – a vision can be drawn, imagined,

pictured, SEEN. Here are some examples where Vision is or was genuine.

Henry Ford had a Vision. A car outside

every American home.

Martin Luther King

had a Dream.

Architects can’t proceed without a clear Vision of

what will be built.

Bill Gates had a Vision of ‘one PC per desk’: at work and at home.

NASA’s Vision for Apollo. We could see man on the moon before it happened.

A new management employee was being shown around Disney’s Magic Kingdom shortly after its

opening in 1971. “What a pity Walt Disney’s not here to see it,” he said. (Disney died in 1966). “Ah,

but he did see it,” said a colleague, “that’s why it’s here.” I don’t know if this story is apocryphal or

not, but either way it illustrates VISION.

A mission is visceral. ‘Missionaries’ are out to change the world. If an enterprise really has a

mission, then without embarrassment it can say, “We are out to change the world by [ complete the

sentence ]” and both insiders and outsiders will recognise the statement as being authentic and

relevant. Here are some examples where a sense of mission is or was genuine.

At Body Shop, Anita Roddick was on a

mission to eradicate animal testing from

the world of cosmetics.

Sir Freddie Laker

was on a mission to change the world of

aviation by offering the public cheap flights.

Mahatma Ghandi was

on a mission to win Indian Independence

from the British by peaceful means.

Social engineering.*

In the 1920s Marks & Spencer said that their mission was to subvert

the English class system.

NASA’s mission (1961): “To put a man on the moon and return him

safely to the Earth by the end of the decade.”

(NASA’s Apollo Program was a rare example where Mission and Vision combined.)

* In 1924, Simon Marks of Marks & Spencer visited the US and was a keen student of Sears

Roebuck’s success. He saw how the company’s catalogue was a social as well as a commercial

phenomenon: it connected Middle America with itself and with distant cities where fashion trends

were set. After the trip Marks and his fellow directors concluded that the business of M&S was not

retailing: it was social revolution. They said that the mission of their business was “to subvert the

class structure of 19th century England by making available to the working and lower-middle classes

goods of upper-class quality at prices the working and lower-middle-class customers could afford.”

Today Wal-Mart says that its purpose is “to give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as

rich people.”

Page 3: Mission Vision and Strategy (2011)

(‘The Money Thing’. Folks who’ve a habit of not thinking things through will say that the purpose of

a business is to make money. A business has to make money to stay in business – but making money

isn’t the purpose of a business. We breathe to live: we don’t live to breathe).

We noted earlier that strategy is about choices and trade-offs. Consider these two Strategy

Statements that illustrate the point: they relate to the 1991 liberation of Kuwait after the sheikhdom

had been invaded by Iraq. (We call this the TREB Test – This, Rather than this, Even if, Because.)

We’re going to do THIS: We’re going to liberate Kuwait

RATHER than this: rather than liberate Kuwait and topple Saddam Hussein

EVEN if it means: even if it means that Saddam stays in power

BECAUSE: because we abide by international law and the UN Resolution under which

we are acting is about the liberation of Kuwait only.

We’re going to do THIS: We’re going to liberate Kuwait then remove Saddam Hussein

RATHER than this: rather than liberate Kuwait only

EVEN if it means: even if it means we exceed the terms of the UN Resolution

BECAUSE: because when we have the opportunity to remove a tyrant our national

values say that we should seize it.

No matter how well a Strategy Statement might be written, it will only have power if it is authentic.

(Many companies assert that they are customer-focused but their customer-facing employees know

that it would be smarter to prioritise a meeting with their boss over a meeting with a customer).

An enterprise that emphasises Key Performance Indicators, year-on-year comparisons, targets,

quotas and EBITDA (which are all perfectly reasonable measures) will reward and promote doers

rather than thinkers; those who are task-orientated rather than people-oriented. And it is because

most organisations default to internal and operational priorities, and pay insufficient attention to

external realities and strategy, that they produce fatuous vision and mission Statements.

Most companies make do with straightforward, clear, understandable OBJECTIVES or GOALS:

Our Objective is to grow our business by 20%, year on year, for the next 5 years.

Our Objective is to be a FTSE 100 company by 2012.

Our Objective is to be Number 1 or 2 in all our chosen markets (as measured by revenue).

Our goal is to be the leader in our industry when it comes to customer engagement (as

measured by two reputable third parties).

Many corporate objectives don’t make the pulse race, or encourage employees to leap out of bed in

the morning, but there’s merit in telling people how you measure success.

Many top quality enterprises do not have a clear Vision or a sense of Mission.

That’s okay. Just don’t pretend that you do when you don’t.

Page 4: Mission Vision and Strategy (2011)

Alan Newman, INV8 www.inv8.co.uk Alan’s early years were spent in Kuwait before he came to a military school in the UK for his secondary education. After graduating with a degree in Psychology from UCL, he spent 3 years in Kenya on VSO as a science teacher. He then entered the world of I.T. and worked for a number of niche software companies before joining DEC as a software services manager, where he worked in the UK and Middle East. He attended the International Advanced Management Programme at INSEAD between 1987 and 1989 and became a freelance consultant in 1992. Clients with whom he’s worked include Aviva, AXA, Hannover Life Re, Liverpool Victoria, L&G, R&SA, and Swiss Re. He has also written for FT Finance and The Journal of Brand Management.

References and Recommended Reading:

Building Your Company’s Vision, HBR 1996, Collins & Porras

Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Collins & Porras

Competing for the Future, by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad

Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, by Michael E. Porter

Corporate Governance and Accountability, by Jill Solomon

Cultures and Organizations, by Geert Hofstede

In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters

Key Management Ideas, by Stuart Crainer

Management and Organisational Behaviour, by Laurie Mullins

Management, by Peter Drucker

Marketing Myopia, HBR article by Theodore Levitt

Strategy as Revolution, HBR Article by Gary Hamel

The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton M. Christensen

The Theory of the Business, HBR Article by Peter Drucker

Understanding Organisations, by Charles Handy