Values, Vision, and Purpose
There is a saying in business that “before you do anything, you have to do something else first.”
In strategic planning, what you have to do first is think about and agree on the foundation principles of your business.
The starting point is your thinking through the values that you stand for and believe in. What are they?
Your values are the foundation principles of your business. They tell you what you stand for and what you will not stand for. They give you guidance and direction in decision making and in everything you do in your business.
The Fortunate 500
When Norman Vincent Peale and Ken Blanchard put together what they called “the Fortunate 500” in their book, The Power of Ethical Management, they reported that those companies that had clear, written values and principles that everyone knew and shared were consistently more profitable than companies that may have had values but didn’t write them down or widely share them.
Most successful companies in America are those that are crystal clear about their values. The most successful men and women in the world seem to be those whose values are clear to them. They refuse to compromise them for any short-term gain or advantage.
IBM is an excellent example. It has consistently been rated as one of the most admired companies in the world. From the founding of IBM by Thomas J. Watson Sr., the values of IBM have always been “excellent products, excellent customer service, and respect for the individual.” The company has been organized around those three principles since 1928. Its success and esteem in the world marketplace is testimony to how closely it adheres to those values.
What Are Your Values?
When we conduct a strategic planning session, the first thing we do is to get agreement or consensus on the values that the company believes in, the order of those values in terms of priority, and how those values are actually lived out or practiced in the day-to-day activities of the business.
Some of the most common values espoused by companies are integrity, quality, customer service, innovation, entrepreneurship, and profitability, among others.
Ask yourself: What are your company values? Do you value quality? Do you believe in product or service excellence? Do you believe in taking care of people? Do you believe in market leadership or innovation? What are your fundamental beliefs about what is right and wrong?
What Would Others Say?
If you were to survey the people in your company and ask them what values your company stood for and believed in, what would people say? Would there be clarity and unanimity among your employees about your company values? Or would there be contradictions and disagreements?
What if you surveyed your customers and asked them, “What are the fundamental values of this company?” What would your customers say?
Your values are only and always expressed in your actions, your behaviors on a day-to-day and minute-to-minute basis, especially under pressure. You can really tell what a person or an organization believes in and stands for by looking at what they do and how they behave in a crisis, large or small. This is the “testing time” of the values of a person or an organization.
Values Create a Strong Foundation
One of my clients, as a start-up, needed to decide the values upon which the company would be based. The executive team came together and selected five values, starting with integrity and ending with profitability. They then agreed on a one-sentence statement of how each value would be practiced throughout the company. These value statements were then printed on plasticized cards and handed out to everyone. They became the basic operating principles of the company. Every time the executives in the company had to make a decision, they would take out their “values cards” and discuss how they should act based on the values that they had committed to.
Within a few years, this company became one of the leading organizations in the industry, even though it faced tremendous entrenched competition.
What Is Your Vision?
Once you are clear about your values, you then take some time to project into the future. You develop a vision for what your company would look like if it was perfect in every way. I sometimes like to talk about vision as a “five-year fantasy.” What is yours?
In its simplest terms, the most effective overall vision for a company is to “be the best.” It is to be excellent in products, services, and customer relations. It is to be the top company in terms of leadership and management, the people who work in the business, and its reputation with customers and the market in general.
Peter Drucker once said that even when a business is starting out at a kitchen table, if the business does not dream of world leadership, it will never be a big success. Your dream should be of world leadership as well. If this were true, what actions would you have to begin taking immediately to achieve this exciting vision of tomorrow?
What Would Customers Say?
What is your ideal vision of your customer toward you? How do you want your customers to think about your company? Looking at your company from the outside, from the perspective of customers working with you, being involved with your people, using your products and services, and then turning around and talking about you to other people, how would you like them to describe your company? This is an excellent starting point for determining what your values and vision should be.
Theodore Levitt of the Harvard Business School said that the most valuable asset a company has is its reputation. A company’s reputation is defined as “how it is known to others.”
Your reputation is determined by what customers, competitors, suppliers, outside vendors, and the general public say about you when they discuss your company, your products, and your services among themselves.
What are they saying about you today? What would you like them to be saying about you and your company in the future? What could you do, starting today, to ensure that people both outside and inside your company think about you and talk about you in a particular way?
Be a Fly on the Wall
Imagine the people in your company describing your business to other people. What would your staff tell others about the kind of company they work for? What kind of working climate do you provide? What kind of people work in your company? What kind of an organization have you developed? What would be your ideal view if you could have your company described with any words at all?
Finally, how do you get from where you are now, the way you are currently perceived by other people, to the way that you would like to be perceived at some time in the future? Especially, how would it be useful for you to be described to others? What kind of description of your business would be most helpful for growing your business and working toward market leadership?
Determine Your Purpose
Your purpose is your reason “why.” Why do you do what you do? What purpose does your business serve in the great scheme of things? What difference do you make in the lives of others, especially your customers and staff?
Nietzsche wrote, “A man can bear any what if he has a big enough why.”
Your purpose in life or business is almost always defined in terms of what you do to improve or enrich the lives or work of other people.
Your purpose flows naturally out of clarity about your values and your vision. It enables you to explain to yourself and to others what is important to you and what motivates you in life.