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By Patrick Mayoh
There is so much to read nowadays; even more to write about. I am just about to finish a newly released master piece by Richard Rumelt, Havard Doctor and Chair at the Anderson School of Management UCLA, on “Good and Bad Strategy[1]”. The book as the titles suggests initiates managers to the art of successful strategising.
Richard Rumelt himself has been dubbed the “Strategy’s strategist” by the Mc Kinsey Quarterly. He has consulted with the big names in the world and his book is actually very deep and deals with key questions on strategic building for organization. Much could actually be said about strategy but for this post I will just focus on visioning and why this is bad for your organization when it is done recklessly. Here I am going to share what I learned about the dangers of visioning.
Pop unto the website of any organization and go to the “about us” section where you are almost always likely to find:
- · A Vision
- · The Mission statement and
- · Values
While there is nothing wrong with those concepts, do you not actually feel that sometimes they can be devoid of meaning? Not just for outsiders but even more for insiders. Most of the time what people call “strategy” is usually a combination of those three elements. Visioning has nothing to do with strategy.
Visioning is actually a brainchild of the “new thought movement” advocated by such managers as Jack Wech with quotes such as “ reaching for what appears to be the impossible”, or more recently with people like Peter Senge with his concept of “shared vision”. In a nutshell mobilizing people around a common goal unleashes tremendous potentials that will likely propel the organization to success in its industry. There is actually nothing with that; this can be confusing, unspecific and fluffy.
Confusing because making grand statements like “we will be the best company in the world” is actually useless, virtually everyone thinks the same. Those statements will never tell your workforce what you are aiming at. The big picture is actually a series of details that build up to give an organization a concrete image of where the company is headed. When you cannot as a manager or a leader offer a clearer path than visioning, you run the danger of making it difficult for your employees to understand your philosophy.
Unspecific because visioning does not actually tell your employees what you are trying to do, how you plan to beat your competitors, what avenue you want to follow to be the best or how you plan to achieve profit. Visioning only states goals or intentions without actually demonstrating how your organizations will meet the targets. Visioning is often as well a list of things to do but this does not amount to strategy either. Presenting a bullet point series of slides on a nicely designed power point document will not clarify what you plan to do as a business.
Lastly visioning can be quite fluffy. By that I mean those organizations that usually state the obvious as strategies. Take the example of this bank whose strategy is” our fundamental strategy is one of customer-centric intermediation”. Ok let us stop there a moment. Intermediation actually means receiving deposits from customers to lend them to borrowers; do you not think this is pretty much what all banks do? Fancy words on a document do not amount to a strategy. In a nutshell according to Richard Rumelt bad strategy is either one of those following:
- · Fluff
- · Failure to face the challenge
- · Mistaking goals for strategy
- · Bad strategic objectives
Which brings us to the next question; what is good strategy or how can you lay down a successful one? See you next week for that. I cannot wait to read your comments.
[1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Strategy-Bad-difference-matters/dp/1846684803/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320246419&sr=8-1
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