To our shock, around 60% Of CEOS in one of our train-ing sessions were working without a company mission.
Que: Like most start-ups, we launched ourselves with a big mission that was going to change the game in our industry. Now, several years since, it appears to us that our mission is not going to deliver to the extent we had hoped. How do we come up with another? (Gerald McLaughlin, Shanghai, China)
Ans: What an honest question. And an admirable one, too.
Firstly, because so few leaders have the candor to admit, “Our approach to the market seems to be tanking. We need to change direction,” and secondly, because very few leaders actually have it in them to get to the point of forging a company mission with any real grit and meaning attached to it.
Even fewer leaders get to work with their people to come up with the short list of values that will make their formulated mission come alive. We just don’t get it! Sure, as your case seems to suggest, having a mission statement in itself does not guarantee winning, but in our experience, not having one invariably spurs the opposite.
Sound obvious? We would have thought so too, except that for each of the past three years, we’ve conducted a two-day seminar with about 100 CEOs. The first year, we thought we would simply breeze through the session on mission and values in about a half an hour, before moving onto matters that are sure to more pertinent to top executives of organisations, like mergers and acquisitions for instance.
To our shock, more than 60 percent of the CEOs in the room did not have a company mission, and 80 percent had no explicit set of company values describing how their employees should behave in order to achieve the mission. The second and third years were basically no different, except that we were prepared for several hours of discussion on these two messy topics.
Messy because the terms mission and values, hijacked by business school professors and consultants over the past few decades, have largely devolved into fatheaded jargon. Practically no one can figure out what they really mean.
And so, like the CEOs we’ve worked with, they sort of ignore them, or gussy up a vague package deal along the lines of, “Our mission is to be the best fill-in-the-blank company in our industry,” and, “Our values are excellence, integrity, and customer service.”
In other words, that’s what you call “Business as usual.” To answer to your question, then, here’s how we’d suggest you create a new mission for your company, and, as important, a new set of values.
Basically, the process starts with you, the leader. The mission is your responsibility, since you will be held accountable for it in the end. Yes, listen to everyone who has something smart to say about your market and product. Listen especially to contrarians and customers. Gather and grock data galore. But then, make a choice about how your company will win in its particular business. Don’t mince words!
Remember Nike’s old mission “Crush Reebok?” That’s directionally correct. By the same token, Google’s mission statement is not something mamby-pamby like, “To be the world’s best search engine.” It’s: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” That’s an excellent mission statement – it’s simultaneously inspirational and achievable, and best of all, completely graspable.
With your mission set, more people within the company must get involved in establishing values. After all, you are trying to describe the best behaviours of your best employees on their best days, and in such a graphic language that the behaviors are easy to emulate, measure and reward. For example, consider some of the best values we’ve heard: “Never lose a superstar. Communicate bad news quickly to each other and clients. Take personal ownership of results, not process.” Unlike the usual platitudes and drivel, those statements mean something. And more importantly, they compel action as well.
And that’s what you want, both with your mission and your values – especially now as you change course. Good luck setting sail again.
Que: Would you hire someone with an online business degree? (Robert Rodriguez, Chicago)
Ans: Sure, if the person in question was smart and talented enough. That is our answer today, by the way. If you would asked us this same question around a year ago, we would have really hesitated to say ‘Yes’.
Recently we have started to meet people with online degrees, and they tend to have quite a few traits in common. They’re older, they are working and they are unable financially to pause for two years and they are also as hungry as could be to break open new possibilities in their careers. Now, an MBA from a reputable university will always have cachet for a job application. And the entire experience of attending a campus-based program has many inimitable virtues, which cannot be altogether ignored.
But having said that, to count a candidate out just based on the knowledge that he/she possesses an online degree may be well... shortsighted. Those people who are working all day and studying online all night have just the kind of “grrr” most companies could use.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
Que: Like most start-ups, we launched ourselves with a big mission that was going to change the game in our industry. Now, several years since, it appears to us that our mission is not going to deliver to the extent we had hoped. How do we come up with another? (Gerald McLaughlin, Shanghai, China)
Ans: What an honest question. And an admirable one, too.
Firstly, because so few leaders have the candor to admit, “Our approach to the market seems to be tanking. We need to change direction,” and secondly, because very few leaders actually have it in them to get to the point of forging a company mission with any real grit and meaning attached to it.
Even fewer leaders get to work with their people to come up with the short list of values that will make their formulated mission come alive. We just don’t get it! Sure, as your case seems to suggest, having a mission statement in itself does not guarantee winning, but in our experience, not having one invariably spurs the opposite.
Sound obvious? We would have thought so too, except that for each of the past three years, we’ve conducted a two-day seminar with about 100 CEOs. The first year, we thought we would simply breeze through the session on mission and values in about a half an hour, before moving onto matters that are sure to more pertinent to top executives of organisations, like mergers and acquisitions for instance.
To our shock, more than 60 percent of the CEOs in the room did not have a company mission, and 80 percent had no explicit set of company values describing how their employees should behave in order to achieve the mission. The second and third years were basically no different, except that we were prepared for several hours of discussion on these two messy topics.
Messy because the terms mission and values, hijacked by business school professors and consultants over the past few decades, have largely devolved into fatheaded jargon. Practically no one can figure out what they really mean.
And so, like the CEOs we’ve worked with, they sort of ignore them, or gussy up a vague package deal along the lines of, “Our mission is to be the best fill-in-the-blank company in our industry,” and, “Our values are excellence, integrity, and customer service.”
In other words, that’s what you call “Business as usual.” To answer to your question, then, here’s how we’d suggest you create a new mission for your company, and, as important, a new set of values.
Basically, the process starts with you, the leader. The mission is your responsibility, since you will be held accountable for it in the end. Yes, listen to everyone who has something smart to say about your market and product. Listen especially to contrarians and customers. Gather and grock data galore. But then, make a choice about how your company will win in its particular business. Don’t mince words!
Remember Nike’s old mission “Crush Reebok?” That’s directionally correct. By the same token, Google’s mission statement is not something mamby-pamby like, “To be the world’s best search engine.” It’s: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” That’s an excellent mission statement – it’s simultaneously inspirational and achievable, and best of all, completely graspable.
With your mission set, more people within the company must get involved in establishing values. After all, you are trying to describe the best behaviours of your best employees on their best days, and in such a graphic language that the behaviors are easy to emulate, measure and reward. For example, consider some of the best values we’ve heard: “Never lose a superstar. Communicate bad news quickly to each other and clients. Take personal ownership of results, not process.” Unlike the usual platitudes and drivel, those statements mean something. And more importantly, they compel action as well.
And that’s what you want, both with your mission and your values – especially now as you change course. Good luck setting sail again.
Que: Would you hire someone with an online business degree? (Robert Rodriguez, Chicago)
Ans: Sure, if the person in question was smart and talented enough. That is our answer today, by the way. If you would asked us this same question around a year ago, we would have really hesitated to say ‘Yes’.
Recently we have started to meet people with online degrees, and they tend to have quite a few traits in common. They’re older, they are working and they are unable financially to pause for two years and they are also as hungry as could be to break open new possibilities in their careers. Now, an MBA from a reputable university will always have cachet for a job application. And the entire experience of attending a campus-based program has many inimitable virtues, which cannot be altogether ignored.
But having said that, to count a candidate out just based on the knowledge that he/she possesses an online degree may be well... shortsighted. Those people who are working all day and studying online all night have just the kind of “grrr” most companies could use.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
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