When I discuss with my master’s students at the College of Management, Mahidol University the topics of vision, mission and strategic objectives, I kick off the session with a couple of provocative questions: “Who of you knows the vision or mission statement of your company? Who can tell me what are the corporate values of your firm? And who is able to recall any strategic objective and related planned strategic action of your organization?” Before we continue, please allow me to provoke you, too: Can you answer any — or maybe even all — of these questions?
Typically, not more than two out of up to thirty students in class know at least the vision or mission of their organizations; all the others are completely unaware of the big picture descriptions and identities of their employing organizations. This result is surprising, and it is not. Most mission statements and corporate visions are impotent, containing too many popular business buzzwords and are often vague and ambiguous. How about the vision, mission, values of your organization? Do they inspire you, bore you, or even make you laugh?
How can we explain this remarkable result? I recently found a cue in an interesting TED talk (www.ted.com) by Simon Sinek. “All great leaders think, act and communicate in exactly the same way, and it’s the complete opposite to everyone else,” asserts Sinek. “Every company on the planet knows what they do. Some know how they do it, whether you call it a differentiating value proposition, or proprietary process, or USP (Unique Selling Point). But very few people or organizations know why they do it.”
If Sinek is right, if most organizations and leaders didn’t know why they do what they do, would it still be surprising that so many vision and mission statements are stale, uninspiring and often indistinguishable from any other firm in the particular industry? Would it still be surprising that most employees — if we take 93% of my students as a non-representative yet indicative sample — can’t remember or are unaware of the desired future focus direction and the core identity of their employing firms?
How can we resolve this problem? In line with a question-scheme that he calls the “golden circle,” Sinek argues that inspiring leaders think, act and communicate from the inside out by first asking Why, then How and only then What. Here is how I suggest a corporate leadership team apply these “golden circle” questions when working out and communicating the strategic big picture definition or strategic focus direction of our organization:
1. Start in the core by asking: Why?
When working on the strategic focus of your organization as a leader or leadership team, first ponder the most challenging questions: “Why are we here? Why does our organization exist? Why do we get out of bed every morning? And why should anyone care? Why is the world better off because we exist?”
For most organizations, these Why-questions are painful, blunt and disarming. They query your essential core, your purpose, your raison d’être or reason for existence. They probe for your cause, your core beliefs related to why you focus on a particular business, and why it is important that you care about going about it. Now how about your organization? What do you believe in? What important purpose should your organization fulfill? For example, in the case of THINKERGY — The Idea Company in Asia, we believe in the importance of creativity and innovation for business; we believe that Asia needs more creativity and innovation; and we believe that we can play a pivotal role in helping to unleash the vast unrealized creative potential of Asian companies.
Once you have gained clarity on your organization’s purpose, it’s easy to translate this into a simple, tangible vision (“Our vision is to be the most respected innovation company in Asia by 2020, serving prime Large Asian Corporations and the world’s top MNCs”) and a powerful mission statement (“Our mission is to create creators to boost business creativity and innovation in Asia and beyond”).
2. Continue by asking: How?
Next, ask the How-question: “How are we going about our business to be true to our purpose, our core beliefs, our vision and our mission?” Aside from pointing to one’s proprietary processes and USPs here as suggested by Sinek (our proprietary X-IDEA Innovation Method in our case), I realized that the answers to this How-question lead you toward compelling corporate values that can guide the daily practices and decisions of your managers and employees. Most importantly, however: because you first asked Why before moving to How, your corporate values are now beautifully aligned to your vision, mission, and core identity and beliefs, thus making it easy for your employees to identify with your core values.
For example, our new corporate values at THINKERGY are “Value, Energy, Creativity, Wow, and Action,” and our belief in the importance of creativity and innovation and of our mission is the strong gravitational force that holds all values together.
3. Finally, move to the final question: What?
At long last, it’s time to ask the most straightforward question, What: “What exactly are we going to do when we go on our important mission in order to realize our grand vision, thereby being true to our values?” Here, you outline your strategic business focus areas and core value offerings that help you live up to your desired reason for existence and to celebrate your unique core identity.
For example, at THINKERGY, we will realize our Vision 2020 by offering systematic yet playful and experiential innovation solutions to our corporate target clients that fall into one of four focus segments: Innovation Trainings, Real-life Innovation Projects, Train-the-Innovation Trainer-Programs and Train-the-Innovation Champion-Programs. And we will do it in line with our corporate values by adding meaningful value to our clients, creating original, proprietary innovation solutions that we energetically deliver as Wow-experiences, and by taking action every day to move closer toward our desired vision.
© Dr. Detlef Reis 2010. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the title “You know how to do it, but do you know why you do it?” on 2 September 2010.