How It’s Communicated

One morning Jim and I were chatting about the length of the vision statement, which was almost two pages long.

“It’s hard to remember all two pages,” Jim commented.

“Once you really understand it, you don’t have to come up with all the words,” I said. “You can create a rallying call. Do you recall the old commercials for Ford Motor Company when they were beginning to seriously compete with Japan?” I asked.

“I sure do,” he responded. “‘Quality Is Job One.’”

“I grew up in Michigan,” I continued, “so I’m very aware of the automotive industry. I was impressed with their rallying call. To most people ‘Quality Is Job One’ sounds like they’re saying, ‘Quality is the most important job.’ And they are. But it’s also a message that conveys deeper meaning. Most people don’t know this, but Job One is the term for the first car off the assembly line. This car has to be perfect because it is used as the standard against which all of the other cars are built. When workers at Ford Motor first heard ‘Quality Is Job One,’ what they really heard was that every car they produced had to be perfect, held to the standard of the first job—the first car off the assembly line. They had a clear picture of what quality looks like. The rallying call also told them that they are going to seriously compete with the Japanese market in the area of quality. There was a lot of meaning attached to their rallying call, and it connected them to a shared vision. That was the year that the Ford Taurus overtook the Honda Accord as the best-selling car in that class.”

“I remember when that happened,” Jim responded. “The Japanese cars had dominated the market until that time. It was a huge turning point. Ford’s vision allowed it to go full steam ahead!”

“But what happened?” I wondered. “It lasted for a while, but it didn’t seem to fit anymore.”

“There was a point in time when that vision didn’t guide them anymore,” Jim replied. “And that was a problem. When people lose sight of the vision or stop acting in concert with it, the rallying call becomes meaningless and actually turns people off.”

“Maybe that’s the difference between a rallying call that guides people and a slogan that is more for marketing purposes,” I mused.

“I agree,” Jim replied. “A rallying call needs to speak to the people in the organization to help them remember the vision—not just be solely a marketing message. I think a company could get into trouble if its rallying call wasn’t shared throughout the company. Instead of exciting people, the rallying call would probably turn them off by showing how leadership is disconnected from the rest of the company.”

“Here’s a good one: Ritz-Carlton’s ‘We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen,’” I offered.

“Another good one is Steve Jobs’s vision to make computers accessible and affordable for everyone by creating a world with ‘a computer on every desk,’” Jim added.

“How important is it to create a rallying call?” I wondered.

“Well, I think it’s a ‘nice to have’ but not a ‘necessary to have,’” replied Jim. “I’m glad our company is excited about our rallying call—being in the financial peace-of-mind business. I think the most important thing is to keep the vision alive. But whether we have a rallying call or not, it’s essential to find ways to keep communicating about the vision.”

“The more you focus on the vision, the clearer it becomes and the more deeply you understand it,” I observed. “When we wrote our family vision, I knew some aspects might change over time, but the essence of the vision would remain.”

“Good point, Ellie,” Jim replied. “Vision shouldn’t be a one-time activity.”

We had uncovered another important principle:

Visioning is an ongoing process;
you need to keep talking about it.

Believing that communicating the vision was one of his most important jobs as a leader, Jim employed every means possible to do so. He spoke about it in his daily conversations with people. He included it as a topic during meetings, and he continued to refer to it in his daily voice mail. He encouraged other leaders to refer to the vision as part of their regular work so it would become integrated into the business and the way of doing business.

A cross-functional, cross-level communications team was set up to determine strategies to promote company-wide communications around the vision. They created a weekly newsletter with information and feedback that tracked our progress. They also created a social networking site where we could interact around the vision.

• • •

“All this stuff we’ve been doing has made me reconsider the role of leadership,” Jim commented one morning. “As I’ve said before, I think leadership is about going somewhere. When I first took over as president, I wanted to be a good manager. I think I became one. Then I wanted to create a shared vision. Now that we have a shared vision, I’m not so sure about my role anymore.”

I said, “So you’re wondering since everyone owns the vision, how do the leaders help us?”

“Right. My father was the ‘glue’—he had a charismatic personality that held us all together. Now we have a vision, and that is the glue. I don’t need to inspire everyone the way my father did—the vision does that.”

I offered, “Well, it’s a good idea to remind us of what’s important about the vision and help keep us on course by removing obstacles.”

Jim laughed. “Of course. Focusing on the vision is what’s important. It’s so easy for leaders to fall into the trap of thinking that their people should be focused on them. When you have a shared vision, you can’t maintain that viewpoint. The leader becomes a servant of the vision, not an important leader who needs to be served.

“I met the chairman of the board of Matsushita Electric when I was in Japan a number of years ago. He was eighty-eight years old at the time. One of the people I was with asked him, ‘Sir, what is your primary job as chairman of the board of this great international company?’

“He didn’t hesitate. He said, ‘To model love. I am the soul of this company. It is through me that our organization’s values pass.’

“I really liked that,” Jim concluded. “When you shift from a self-oriented perspective, it changes the way you think about leadership. From this viewpoint, leadership is about serving the greater good. There is no room for ego-driven leadership.”

I smiled and summarized. “So you’re saying there are some important roles for leaders. One of your jobs is to remind people about what’s really important. Another is to help them stay focused on the vision. Another is to remove obstacles whenever possible. And another is to encourage them to act and cheer them on.”

Later that morning, I wasn’t surprised at all to hear Jim’s morning message.

• • •

Communication around the vision was central to the company’s growth strategy. One of the most important aspects of communication was to help people interpret events in light of the vision. During a downturn in the economy, people were worried. Did this mean we were going under? During this period, Jim shared information with us on a regular basis that demonstrated that although we were cutting back in some areas, our vision was still the driving force for our agency. Communication around current events in relation to our vision allowed us to understand how we were continuing to move forward during adverse times and helped us stay committed. We came out of the downturn ready to continue full steam ahead.

A growth strategy was adopted to build stronger relationships with commercial customers, while maintaining the personal relationships with individual customers. The company began a phase of growth through acquisitions. Because of the open communications, everyone in the company understood how this strategy supported our vision, so they in turn supported it.

When searching for companies to acquire, leaders used our articulated values to evaluate potential candidates in order to ensure a good fit.

The mergers with the new companies went smoothly because we were able to easily and consistently communicate our vision—our purpose, picture of the future, and values.