A Sincere Statement of Vision

Do you know your organization’s vision statement?  Every organization should have one, and it should serve as a guiding principle for its members.  Then, the organization’s mission statement should directly align with the vision statement, and in a more specific way state how the visions is going to be fulfilled.  Then, functional areas should be encouraged to create their own mission statements that align with, and reinforce, the over arching mission statement.  (While vision and mission statements are important, in this article we will focus on vision statements.)

Aligning vision and mission statements that express the guiding principle and how to fulfill it are, of course, the ideal situation.  A frequent problem with this exercise is that an organization’s leaders do not truly understand the importance of a vision statement or recognize its value.  In these cases they come up with something that sounds good, or states what they want people to believe about their organization, or, even worse, simply spouts marketing drivel.  This approach to the vision statement can actually be a detriment, not a benefit, to the organization.

A Guiding Principle

The vision-mission statement is written for the members of an organization.  A clear vision statement should serve as a guiding light for members of the organization to understand what the organization is about, and to what ultimate principle all their efforts should be working toward, in both direct and in supporting roles.  Clear, accurate, reflective vision-mission statements are a crucial way of getting all members of an organization to pull in the same direction.  Those outside the organization should be a secondary audience.

A less than sincere vision statement can actually create problems in an organization instead helping it.  Members of an organization will know when vision statements do not really express the real core values (what is important) or principles of the organization.  They will see the statement as, at best, meaningless, and, at worst, a lie.  What effect do you think this has on the credibility of the organization’s top management?

Inconsistencies Cause Confusion and Waste

Let’s consider an example when is comes to sincerity and honesty in a vision statement.  Frequently, an organization might put something like “to provide the highest level of customer service” in a vision statement.  A problem might arise when an organization’s real ultimate goal is not the best customer service, but to maximize profit margins.  While many organizations have such a core purpose, they are not willing to be forthright in their vision statement.  Therefore, they come up with an artificial vision statement that confuses employees.

Providing top notch customer service, for example, is expensive.  It requires the customer service staff be well trained, well-compensated, have decision making authority, and feel like they are an appreciated and important part of the organization.  A commitment to high levels of customer service can certainly lead to increased sales and to growth.  Training, and compensation, however, are expensive propositions can also negatively impact short term profit margins.

Organizations stating a vision of excellent customer service while really seeking high profit margins have a serious compatibility and consistency problem.  For example, having underpaid, poorly trained, and stressed out customer service representatives with high turnover rates and no real authority is not the path to excellent customer service.

If the real vision is high profit margins, then that is what the vision statement should say.  Then at least the underpaid, under-trained customer service staff will understand their conditions, instead of looking with bewilderment at the vision statement promising excellent customer service.  Not only will they understand the vision and mission of the organization, they will be much more likely to behave in ways that fulfill the true goal of the organization

It is not that the leaders of the organization are typically tying to be deceptive, nor do they intend to confuse their staff.  As stated earlier, the problem typically stems from a lack of understanding of what the role of the vision statement is and its importance in communicating core values within the organization.  We hope examining an example of a misleading vision statement clarifies its significance and impact.

A New Vision with a New Year

Just as an insincere vision-mission can confuse members and cause inefficiencies and waste as they try to fulfill a vision that doesn’t really exist, a sincere statement of vision and mission puts employees on the same page as management.  If there is coherency and consistency between what management says and how management behaves, then members will more clearly understand what the organization is about, and they will be much more likely to behave in ways that fulfill the true goal of the organization. (Even if that is to deliver bad customer service in order to maximize profits, if that is what the organizational leaders really want.)

Creating a sincere, honest statement of vision of what the organization is and can be is an important step in getting your organization to pull together.  The first step in creating a sincere vision statement is for the leadership to spend some time reflecting on what their vision for the organization is.  Then, once crafted, it should be clearly communicated to all levels of the organization.   If you start now, you could be ready to roll out your new vision-mission statement with the New Year.  But it is important to create a vision-mission statement to last for the foreseeable future.  Constantly changing vision-mission statements can be as confusing as misleading ones.

Now we have defined terms and discussed the importance of vision-mission statements.  Next week we will tackle goals and objectives.

For a deeper understanding of process improvement programs for your organization, attend the next Implementing Lean Thinking or How to Align a System of People and Processes for Results class. If you are eager to learn more about creating more order out of the chaos you are feeling at work, then the How to Create Well-Defined Processes class is right for you.

To learn more about using effective auditing techniques to improve your organization, attend the next Internal Auditor or Lead Auditor Training Class.

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Posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 under Business Management & Operations