Vision: how leaders develop it, share it, and sustain it - includes related articles

Business Horizons, Sept-Oct, 1994 by Joseph V. Quigley

The debate seems to be engaged. But it is not a case of one or the other, vision or running the business day-to-day. To be outstanding, a company needs both a vision and a high level of attention to running the daily business. They can be embodied in the same person, the CEO, or as a CEO/COO combination. In fact, it is even better if the corporate vision is a product of the whole leadership group. That way they all own the vision and have a high degree of commitment to it.

Some executives seem to have difficulty wfith the concept involved in the word vision. Bob Eaton, Chrysler's chairman, alludes to it as "some esoteric thing no one can quantify." Tidal is understandable. It is a softer worct than some like. Many of these same executives see coporate reengineering as good, hard stuff with measurable results. But three important points can be made about the relationships between vision and reengineering:

* Reengineering focuses on operations. Only vision and strategy dictate what operations matter.

* Reengineering without vision or strategy is simply cost cutting. It can maim. If the only goal is cost cutting, you will not energize the work force. Dramatically increasing value must be the goal.

* The power of reengineering is that it can turn vision into fact.

In short, vision precedes reengineering in time and concept. Vision guides reengineering, and some element of the vision must be the goal of reengineering.

I define a corporation's vision as the most fundamental statement of its values, aspirations, and goals. It is an appeal to its members' hearts and minds represents a clear understanding of where the organization is today and where it wants to be tommorrow, and offers a road map of how to get there. A firm's vision is the foundation of its culture. It must be simple, understandable, and desirable. and must motivate the firm's members.

In the final analysis, a high level of skill in running the business is required for survival to keep the business alive and w*ell. At the same time, sustained vision is required to achieve continuing grow and renewal, and to make a real contribution to the local, national, or global economies.

For the highly successful CEO. vision and running the bnsiness are complimentary, not opposing, skills.

Frequent Questions Regarding Vision

Since publication of the author's book, Vision: How Leaders Develop It, Share It. and Sustain It, be has been asked certain questions in interviews or following speeches. Below are some of the most frequently asked questions and his answers to them.

1. Why should an organization or a corporation have a vision? What difference is it going to make?

The leader's vision is the pnmary source of organizational energy, both the energy that empowers others and the energy that results in superior performance.

Empirical evidence of this performance has been supplied by Harvard Business School professors John Kotter and James Heskett in their next book. Corporate Culture and Performance (1992). In a four-year study of nine to ten firms in each of 20 industries, they found that firms with a strong corporate culture based on a foundation of sharect values outperformed the other figures by a huge margin: