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Building Your Companys Vision

By James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras
The most successful companies have historically been those, who have fixed
core values and core purpose and their business practices and strategies have
evolved with a changing world. The dynamic has been preserving the core and
stimulating progress. The writers have found that such companies outperform
the general stock market by a factor of 12, since 1925.
Vision provides the guidance about what core to preserve and what future to
stimulate towards. A well-conceived vision statement can be described in
following components:

Core Ideology
It describes the enduring character of an organisation. The idea here is that it is
more important to know who you are, than where you are going, for where you
are going changes with the world around you. It endures as a source of guidance
and inspiration.
Core Values
Require no external justification; have intrinsic value and importance to
those inside the organisation.
A great company decides for itself what it values to be its core, largely
independent of current environment, competitive requirements, or
management fads.
Companies tend to have few core values, usually between three to five. If
you are excessively articulate, you may confusing it with strategy,
practices or norms.
Core

Purpose
The organisations reason for being.
Purpose should not be confused with specific goals or business strategies.
Purposed can never be fully realised means that an organisation can never
stop stimulating change and progress.
For eg. 3M defines its purpose not in terms of adhesives and abrasives but
as the perpetual quest to solve unsolved problems.
Note that none of the core purposes fall into the category of maximising
shareholder value!

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Core ideology cannot be created, it must be discovered. The authenticity,
discipline and consistency differentiates visionary companies from the rest of the
pack. Identifying core values and purposes is not an exercise is wordsmithery.
Also, do not confuse the concept of core ideology with core competence.
Envisioned Future
Vision-level BHAG
Bold missions the Big, Hairy, Audacious goals are a powerful way to
stimulate progress.
It engages people, reaches out to them and grabs them. It is tangible,
energising and highly focussed.
A vision-level BHAG applies to the entire organisation and requires about
10 to 30 years of effort to complete.
Vivid Description:
A vibrant, engaging, and specific description of what it will be like to achieve the
BHAG.
The idea is to paint a picture with words.
Do not confuse core ideology with envisioned future; more specifically, do not
confuse ideology with BHAG. Core purpose is the reason the organisation exists
in the first place. It makes no sense to analyse whether the envisioned future is
the real one. To create an effective envisioned future a level of commitment is
required.
The Weve Arrived Syndrome A complacent lethargy that arises once an
organisation has achieved one BHAG and fails to replace it with another. Eg.
NASA post the moon landing. An envisioned future is helpful to an organisation
only as long as it has not been achieved.