Vision Decisions
Feeling the pressure to prove they have what former President George H. W. Bush famously termed “the vision thing,” they drag their staffs through formal visioning sessions. The resulting empty exercises yield “vision statements” to which employees periodically genuflect, but they have no operative meaning. The net result is anti-inspirational.
The purpose of vision, after all, is to inspire: vision provides motivation through inspiration. As discussed in a previous post, inspiration is one key element of the “why should people get excited about this” dimension of establishing strategic direction (the other is incentives). An effective statement of vision provides an inspiring portrait of what it will look like and feel like to achieve the organization’s mission and goals. It crystallizes an emotional connection between employees and the business. Critically, a formal statement of vision is not an end in itself. It is both the product of and a symbol of a process of generating shared understanding and shared commitment among employees.
When shared visioning sessions work, the results can be powerful. My favorite example of a great statement of vision was developed at a unit of Johnson & Johnson that designs, manufactures and markets orthopedic implants, such as artificial hips and knees. The company’s statement of vision is “Restoring the Joy of Motion.” It’s an evocative encapsulation of the values the company creates for people suffering the debilitating pain of severe joint disease. It brings to mind great athletes who can return to competition and grandparents who can play with their grandchildren again. (Disclosure: Johnson & Johnson is a client.)
But there are instances, and lots of them, when formal shared visioning is better avoided. It could be that the organization is simply not an intrinsically inspiring place. Or it could be that the timing is wrong. Don’t try one when a business is in the midst of a painful restructuring, or when you are planning to make major changes in your team.
Then there are the situations where you are leading a part of a larger organization that already has a vision statement. Here it rarely makes sense to create a separate vision statement for your own unit because layers of vision statements rarely add up to something that inspires. You can decide not to create a shared statement of vision and still be a good leader (this is heresy, I know). After all, when visioning is an empty exercise it fools no one.
Also there is much you can do to inspire the people who work for you without trying to formalize it in a vision statement. You do this by living the vision and values that you believe in. Think of it as creating a vision-in-action. My favorite example of this is Herb Kelleher at Southwest Airlines. So far as I can tell, Southwest has no formal vision statement. But would anyone argue that Kelleher isn’t a visionary and inspiring leader?
:: Source: Michael Watkins @ Harvard Business
How is Top Talent Dealing with Tough Times on Wall Street?
Top female talent is particularly skittish.Eighty-four percent of women in this study are considering leaving - compared to 40% of men.
Sarah Palin, Working Moms, and an Opening for the Democrats
In another interview a woman threw out an angry question: "Who's looking after baby Trig? I don't see how a mother-of-five can run for national office and not neglect her children."
Down with the Bad Guys – and Up with the Good
Suffice it here to say that whatever your opinion on animal rights, and on how far they should be extended, it’s worth recalling that some non-human animals are not so different from you and me. Great apes in particular are biologically very close to humans – chimpanzees and humans have in common fully 98 percent of their DNA.
Musharraf’s Fall Shows Power Ain’t What It Used to Be
Pervez Musharraf was the object of his affection, but George W. Bush could not save his skin. The president of the United States could not save the president of Pakistan because leaders of even large and powerful countries — or, for that matter, of large and powerful companies — ain’t what they used to be.
Gone forever are the days when those at the top made the decisions and made them stick. The world has changed and those too myopic to see it pay the price.
Musharraf’s fall from power was described by the Financial Times as being “swift.” But it was not. For well over a year there have been clear and obvious signs — which the Bush administration failed fully to recognize — that Musharraf’s political life was in danger. The threat came from below. It came from citizen-activists who, beginning in March 2007, took to the streets immediately after their president overreached. Arrogant and overconfident, Musharraf made the mistake of unilaterally suspending Pakistan’s chief justice and firing some 60 other judges.
From that point on, it was all downhill. The Pakistani people continued to protest — while Musharraf’s support continued to dwindle. In November he declared a state of emergency, and in December his top political rival, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated. Though it took until now to get him formally to resign, by the end of last year Musharraf’s reign had, in effect, come to an end.
Why was the decline and fall of his Pakistani counterpart so difficult for the American president to accept — even after the handwriting was clear on the wall? Because George W. Bush prefers to deal with his own kind, with other men in positions of power. This is not an aberration; it’s not uncommon for leaders to seek out other leaders, on the assumption that they can settle things between them.
But the incumbent president has relied on personal diplomacy more than most, a disposition that has not served him well. Even in the last few weeks it’s clear he was a fool for having supported to the nth degree Georgia’s careless, reckless head of state, Mikheil Saakashvili. And he was far more the fool for having declared the first time he met him that Russia’s bloodless strongman, Vladimir Putin, was “straightforward and trustworthy.” As Bush described it at the time, “I looked the man in the eye . . . . I was able to get a sense of his soul.”
It is easy enough to understand the temptations. Not only do leaders assume that between and among them they can control the ways of the world, there’s all that bonding and camaraderie, and all that pomp and circumstances whenever they meet and greet.
But the cold truth is that personal diplomacy never has been failsafe diplomacy. Moreover, at a time when leaders are more vulnerable than they were in the past, putting all your eggs in their one basket is strategically stupid.
Falling in love is easy. But breaking up is hard to do.
:: Source: Barbara Kellerman @ Harvard Business
Resilience: What Neil Young Can Teach Microsoft, And Us
On the plane back to Philadelphia, I reflected on the workshop I'd just conducted with a group of senior women leaders at Microsoft's Redmond, WA headquarters.
