George Bernard Shaw
I've been trying to figure out the "corporate vision" thing.
It's trendy. And it certainly makes sense as a way to communicate the Motivation behind the Moxie. But making it real, and useful, is no mean feat, I think.
Being a faithful member of the global internet community, I started my figure-it-out quest by invoking the world's favorite search engine. That proved to be an interesting and time-consuming exercise, but not very helpful. My wanderings turned up lots of "vision statement" references and a few "methods" for creating them - both corporate and personal. But I did not locate a definitive path to a tight grip on the process or on the presumed outcome of the process.
Abandoning the search engine method of intellectual inquiry, I decided to test a pre-electronic alternative. Reluctantly, I admit, I concluded that my only hope was to turn away from the screen and to think about it, alone.
Upon reflection, it now seems to me that a presumed requirement for a good vision statement is verbal conciseness. It has to be tweetable. That obviously places arbitrary boundaries on the opportunity to deliver a rich description of a preferred future state. The greatest writers of all time have routinely agonized over the inadequacy of even the most well-crafted prose to capture the fullness of what can be observed, let alone what might be imagined. Where, therefore, could an entrepreneur possibly obtain such linguistic wizardry as might evoke corporate inspiration in only 140 characters?
Where, indeed?
So - now I'm thinking with my keyboard. Somebody once told me that extroverts often think with their mouths. I guess a keyboard qualifies as a mouth, of sorts. This is fun, actually.
Suppose I get crazy and switch from "statements" of vision to "stories" of vision. If I were to wake up inside my company three years from now, what would I see? A vision, after all, is what I see. Is it OK to add what I would hear, what I would feel? My sources say yes. To tell the story of my future I'll still have to write excellent prose, but at least I can break the single sentence barrier.
OK, I'll search again - this time on "corporate stories."
Visualize me typing madly right now. I think I may be on to something, and I really want to see the outcome of my search.
Bingo!! Success on the first un-sponsored entry. And I quote...
Help me hire a hit man...
Reads the sign of a panhandler outside a subway station in San Francisco. Apparently, she does quite well.
In Olympia, Washington, a guy gets similar results with motorists by holding up a placard that says: "Why lie? I need a beer."
A man in Times Square offers this only-in-New-York service: "Tell me off. One dollar."*
These three entrepreneurial panhandlers succeed (in their own way) because they know something many business people have yet to discover: Nothing's more powerful than a good story.
Bingo #2!! And I quote...
Reading Bruce Temkin's "Use Storytelling To Define Your Culture," I found this article useful because Bruce suggests telling stories about corporate achievements will have more success in cementing employee passion for customer service than management telling people not to do something. I believe stories are so important because when attempting to motivate people to follow an idea its less about pure facts, and more about how people relate to those facts.
I, Jim Flowers, am now a happy man. I can post this little dissertation feeling comfortable that I have, at least for myself, moved past the "vision statement" roadblock.
Of course, that brings me face-to-face with what-should-come-next. But I'll tackle that one later.
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