Why a Great Vision Statement is Essential for your Organization

Hi, my name is Paul Sloane. I'm an author and speaker on lateral thinking and innovation, and I help organizations all around the world to improve innovation. I work with leaders to improve the creativity in their teams and the innovation in their organizations, and I think that a vision is a key starting point for innovation in your organization. And what I'd like to do today is take you through the reasons why you should have a vision, a powerful vision statement, the benefits of it, and a few thoughts on how to do it on one or two examples. But let me start with a question. Do you want happy people working for you? Many managers and leaders think that's what they want. They want their team to be happy at work, and of course you don't want people to be unhappy, but it's really the wrong target. You don't want people who come into work and chat and have a latte and discuss the football match last night and go on Facebook. They're very happy. You want people who come in because they believe that what you are doing is worthwhile. They are passionate believers in what you're trying to achieve, and even if they're slightly hungover, they're not feeling great, they'll still come in because the work's important and it is work which is worthwhile. And this all starts with a vision, a core purpose, a mission of what the organization is all about, why you exist. And although vision and mission and core purpose are slightly different, typically people only remember one. statement, and it has to be short, understandable, and memorable. And if you can establish a very strong vision, then there are a number of important benefits for your organization. First of all, it gives everyone a common goal. Even people who are working in different departments or on the same team, they're still trying to achieve something worthwhile, which is the vision. Secondly, it's going to be a difficult journey. We're going to have to make changes, we're going to have to take risks, there's going to be challenges, people are going to have to learn new skills. People are much more ready to accept those risks and challenges if they're on a journey to a destination they think is worth reaching. Thirdly, you can delegate far more to people if they know where you're headed. Instead of telling them exactly what to do, you can say, this is your goal, this is what we're trying to achieve, this is your role in it, and it's up to you how to get there. And then you can delegate responsibility to people because they understand the purpose, where you're headed. And fourthly, you'll get a lot more creativity and innovation. If you employ smart people and you say, this is where we're headed, this is what we want to achieve, you figure out ways to get there, you come back with great ideas, they will typically step up to that challenge and you'll get more creativity and innovation in, in terms of trying to achieve the vision. So let me tell you the most famous vision story. You may have heard it. It concerns NASA in the 1960s, and a TV crew was doing a documentary about NASA. They interviewed various people. in the company, and they interviewed a cleaner, and she was cleaning the offices, and they said to her, what's your job here at NASA? And famously she replied, my job is to put a man on the moon. Everyone in NASA understood the goal, understood the purpose, understood what they were trying to achieve, and they were all striving as one huge team to do that. When Kennedy threw down the challenge in 1963, he said, before this decade is out, we will send a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth. Nobody knew how to do it. They hadn't even had a spacewalk or anything at that stage, and they had very, very rudimentary computer technology, but he got together a very smart team. He gave them a big budget. He said, you figure it out, and they did. And that's what happens if you have a really great vision, a really great challenge, and really good people. They will innovate to find that route. I've never worked with NASA. I have worked with GlaxoSmithKline, a big a pharmaceutical company, and their vision statement, what do you think it is? To be the leading pharmaceutical supplier in the top quartile with outstanding customer service? No, none of that BS. What they have, what their vision statement is, is this: to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better, and live longer. And if you're working for GlaxoSmithKline, you come in not because you want to sell drugs or do clinical trials, you come in because you're helping people to live longer, to feel better, to do more with their lives, and that's a really worthwhile purpose, and that motivates people and inspires people. So, how do you put a vision statement together? Well, typically you run a workshop and you look at core values and you look at how you're helping customers. I run workshops on this. Typically we run at least half a day coming up with ideas and then half a day testing them and refining them, and we can come up with some really good vision statements. But whatever you come up with, it should be short, it should be understandable, it should be memorable, and it should be these 3 things, ABC. It should be appealing, it should appeal to people. It should be believable, so it's realistic. But it should be C, challenging. It's something tough, it's something that's going to take an effort to get there, something worthwhile striving for. So appealing, Believable, challenging, ABC. But once you've established the vision statement and you issued it, you don't just sit back then. You have to keep reiterating it, keep telling people over and over again, explaining why it's important and explaining what their role is in the journey towards that destination. Jack Welch, the CEO of GE, said this. He said, great leaders create the vision, they passionately articulate vision. They own the vision and they relentlessly drive it to completion, and that's what you've got to do. You have to live the vision and live the values of the vision as the leader. So if you can construct a vision which is inspiring, which is short, memorable, and ABC— appealing, believable, and challenging— then that will become the foundation for innovation in your organization. I wish you good luck and great success with your vision statement.