Vision casting can be a powerful approach for aligning people and processes within a business. A powerful vision guides employees toward a common aspiration. For smaller companies, the vision may often be informal, communicated through the words and actions of the owner or local management team. As companies become larger or more complicated, however, a more formal approach to creating and following a company vision can prove to be a profitable undertaking.
When a Formal Vision is Needed to Change Direction
Sometimes when a business struggles, a new and unifying vision can help it get back on track. This was the case when Richard Garneau became the president and CEO of the now highly respected Resolute Forest Products after it came out of credit protection in 2010. Early in his tenure he worked to create vision and value statements for the company to help propel it forward.
Seth Kursman, vice president of corporate communications, sustainability & government affairs for Resolute Forest Products stressed the importance of living and breathing the vision. “What I have learned is that if you are doing vision and values, and you really want it to take, if you really want it to be adopted throughout the organization, it’s got to become part of the DNA of who you are as an organization,” he said. “You have to have the leadership from the top, because you are talking about cultural change, and cultural change is not something that percolates from the bottom up.”
“Richard is absolutely resolute about that vision and those values,” Kursman continued.
“When you look at what the vision is, and what the values are of the organization, it is really clear this isn’t just a company that says what it is going to do, it is a company that is doing exactly what it said,” Kursman stressed.
Vision Casting to Keep the Company Focused on What is Important
At other times, the need for a vision statement isn’t to refocus commitment but to ensure that the vision and spirit of the company continue to flourish. As companies become larger and the lines of communication from the owner to local decision making become longer, an informal vision can be in danger of getting lost. Pallet and lumber companies may increase their number of shifts, expand to new locations, or diversify into other operations ranging from colored mulch to plastic recycling and more.
As such changes are absorbed, it can get harder to keep everyone pulling the same rope. Pallet Consultants is one growing pallet company that recently decided to proactively formalize its vision to ensure that things remain pointed in the right direction. Gus Gutierrez, company CEO and his management team are creating a document to help maintain their alignment toward their “true north.”
Since the time Gutierrez bought his first plant several years ago, he has instilled a company philosophy of outstanding customer service, even if that means saying “Yes” to a customer request and then figuring out afterward how to make good on the promise. With company growth, the group saw the need for a guiding document that would help inform decision making. “Our people know what to do. But we decided we need something like that to make sure that everybody’s compass is pointed in the same direction,” he explained.
“Creating a vision statement will provide the heading and direction you want your business to take,” added Justin Bennett, president of Ongweoweh Corp. “It sets the tone for all aspects and functions of your business. At times you may find yourself working too much in your business and not enough on your business. The vision statement will be a built-in reminder to help get back on track when struggling through busy and tough times.”
Gutierrez offered an example of how short-term goals can become out of alignment with the success and growth of the company if there is no guiding vision. Several years ago, he had one customer who kept on buying new pallets despite having thousands of damaged pallets which could be more inexpensively repaired. It turned out that the customer did not have a budget for pallet repairs, only for new pallets. In the absence of an effective vision, Gutierrez noted, the customer’s budgeting and goal process had been set without reference to the bigger picture of profitability and growth.
Articulating a Vision to Help Your Trading Partners Understand Your Aspirations
When it comes to vision, it is also important to think about how you signal your intentions to the broader business community, as well as internally. “As most business owners know, a fluid and truthful vision statement helps your business in many ways,” observed Bennett. “If an internal or external stakeholder can get the idea of what you support and how you function as a dependable company, they are more likely to want to do business with you and help keep the company accountable. We based our vision statement off what we believe and how we treat our stakeholders.”
“Your vision statement might be the piece that gets you a second look from potential clients, so spend some time on this,” he advised.
Vision, Mission and Value Statements: What’s the Difference?
If you get confused by the differences between the various terms, you are not alone. According to the Society for Human Resource Development (SHRD), a vision statement provides a picture of the company as it would be in a successful future state.
The vision statement is created by capturing the vision in a form that can be easily stated and communicated. As Susan Ward, one business expert writes, “a vision statement is sometimes called a picture of your company in the future but it’s so much more than that. Your vision statement is your inspiration, the framework for all your strategic planning.” She emphasizes that the vision isn’t tied to the details of how to achieve it.
A mission statement explains what the organization does and its intentions. It outlines the priorities and methods the company will take to eventually achieve its vision.
A value statement, on the other hand, spells out what the company believes in and how it will behave. “In a values-led company,” SHRD explains, “the values create a moral compass for the company and its employees.”
Gutierrez of Pallet Consultants and his team have recently decided upon their core values: ethics, excellence, can-do, integrity, people and teamwork. “It sounds kind of long but those are the things we value,” stated AJ Cheponis, director, sales and marketing for the company. “And as we identify each one of those topics, it creates an incredible true north for the company. If you have to make a tough decision about anything, you can refer back to that document.”
Ethics, one of the core values, is a critical one for the pallet industry, noted Gutierrez. “There is a lot of shady stuff that goes on that is totally not above board,” Cheponis added. “So, we are talking about ethical conduct in all that we do.”
It is not enough to create vision and value statements, industry insiders stress. It is also crucial to ‘walk the talk’ in living up to them. For example, Kursman cited Resolute’s international award-winning safety record. A similar improvement has taken place in its sustainability performance.
“Sustainability wasn’t a differentiating characteristic of our organization and, in fact, you could make an argument that it was a big concern,” said Kursman. Since 2000, however, Resolute has shaved its greenhouse gas emissions by 73% and is now recognized for its world class sustainability record. The company is also forging partnerships with aboriginal people that Kursman stated “are not just consultative, they are actual business partnerships.”
What Is Vision Casting and Why Is It Important?
Vision casting is simply communicating the vision, so others can make the organizational vision their own. And this is important because your vision determines your actions and the outcome.
Research supports the benefit of having an effective vision. Companies with a vision statement enjoy significantly higher market-cap growth, top-line and bottom-line growth compared to competitors which are not guided by a vision process. They were found to be twice as profitable as the S&P 500 average.
How to Ensure the Success of Vision Casting
Creating a vision is one thing. Having it put into practice is another matter. For example, one 2015 report found that 60% of employees didn’t know their company’s vision. Similarly, a 2016 Gallup study reported that only 40% of Millennials felt connected to their employer’s mission.
According to experts, there are several aspects of getting vision casting right. These considerations include:
Making the Vision Relevant
The vision should be one that is compelling, one which will be easy for employees to embrace.
Keeping the Message Simple
Keep the vision statement simple and avoid jargon. IKEA’s vision statement is simply, “A better everyday life.”
Making the Vision Challenging
While the wording of the vision should be simple, the achievement of the vision should be a significant undertaking. It should motivate team members to strive for its accomplishment.
Communicating, Relating, Reinforcing
Communicate through every possible means to all levels of the organization. Take the time to share organizational success stories that serve as example and motivation for others.
Checking Short-Term Objectives.
Review short term objectives and decisions to make sure they are compatible with the longer-term vision.
Ongweoweh worked to make its vision relevant through involving employees in its creation. Engaging employees in a process to find common aspirations is an increasingly popular approach to creating an organizational vision that employees will embrace. “We based our vision statement off our employees and departments and their dedication to providing good reliable business practices,” Bennett said. “The fact that our employees are excited and wanting to do community service whenever we have the availability is inspiring. It keeps Ongweoweh on the path we have chosen to conduct our business and keeps us successful.”
For its part, Resolute Forest Product takes more of a top-down approach to vision casting, emphasizing the importance of focused executive leadership throughout the organization to achieve alignment and create energy in support of the vision.
“We are a very determined, intense organization, where people are held accountable, but likewise they are recognized for their collaborative work,” Kursman stated. “We are blessed that we have really good people, and really nice people who work in the organization. What we have experienced in terms of vision and values is real cultural change.”
Given how people can drive the process, Pallet Consultants recognizes the importance of getting commitment for the vision from its employees. Once vision and values are in place, how they get cascaded through the organization is critical to success. “In larger companies, the important thing is how you get that message down to the people who interact with your customers,” Cheponis observed. “That’s magic.”
“You can have documents and information online, but if you don’t talk to people, it all falls apart,” he cautioned.
“People want structure,” Cheponis summed it up. “They want direction. They want to know where true north is. They don’t want to just show up 9 to 5 and do a job. They want to know what is important. People want to do good. And that just doesn’t exist in some companies, for whatever the reason.”
