So why (according to their customers
and staff) are so few businesses operating in this manner? In this blog I’ll be drawing on my 25 years
of consulting experience to offer a rationale for why the quixotic dream of creating
a powerful, uplifting and inspiring vision and value set so often evaporates in
practice to be replaced with the energy sapping corporate flannel and mealy-mouthed
doublespeak that is the daily diet of most employees.
Now before we all jump to
conclusions and belabour the shortcomings of our corporate leaders I’d like to
suggest that in order to deliver the kind of organisations we crave we have to
be honest about the organisations we have and the visions and values that
actually drive employee behaviours and customer outcomes.
The common mistake when looking to
reenergise an organisation with a new vision and values is to assume that the
organisation does not already possess a very powerful raison d’etre and a dominant
set of pervasive values. They do. The thing is that these incumbent elements
are not usually the ones that have been developed as part of an executive away
day and published in the annual report. They are the “shadow” vision and values. These shadows have real teeth and are the
real behavioural drivers behind most of our organizational lives. They are not written down and are most often
illuminated on the drawing boards of the corporate satirists. They are almost universal and are rewarded
and encouraged in almost all organisations.
So, to be able to put in place the compelling vision and values we all
want to see, we first have to shed light on the shadow vision and the shadow
values, expose them for what they are and embrace them or change them where
appropriate.
So let me deal first with the
“shadow” vision. The shadow vision is
pretty much the same for all organisations and it is really simple. It is as follows: “Make more money for the
shareholders each month/quarter”. Not
surprising is it, nor is It complicated or difficult to understand. How do I know it’s the real vision for the
organization? Simple - It is the subject
that is discussed for the vast majority of the time in the vast majority of
Boardrooms up and down the country. It
gets massively more executive airtime than customers, employees or any other
corporate element and it is the subject of the greatest number of Board
reports. It’s also what executive
reward packages are usually linked to.
Now leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the shadow vision, the
failure to recognize it as the real vision of the organization is likely to
create all manner of organizational inefficiencies. Misguided employees will occasionally try and
act in line with the “published” vision statements that often encourage
innovation, courage, customer centricity etc and this will cause corporate
chaos. So to drive out the
inefficiencies related to having two potentially misaligned visions (shadow and
published) the organization needs to either be honest and declare the shadow
vision to be the “published” vision or it needs to tackle the shadow vision and
reengineer the workings of the business to better line up with the elements of
a compelling “published” vision.
So let’s move onto the “shadow”
values. There are four main “shadow”
values (although you can always find others) and they are well suited to
supporting the “shadow” vision. Again
they are pretty universal in larger organistions and represent the concepts and
behaviours that are truly valued by the organisation. They are as follows:
- Profit – This organisation values profit and encourages all its employees to make decisions and take actions that deliver the greatest level of profit this month/quarter
- Predictability – This organisation values predictability and encourages all its employees to only make decisions and take actions that are in line with what was expected of them and previously forecast
- Prudence – This organisation values prudence and encourages all its employees to make decisions and take actions that require no extra investment of resource and carry no risks that may adversely affect the delivery of predictable outcomes.
- Propriety – This organisation values propriety and encourages all of its employees not to challenge the status quo and established ways of working as it can cause corporate embarrassment or attract adverse PR. It particularly encourages all employees to ensure there is executive plausible deniability for any “off piste” actions they may wish to take in pursuance of the corporate vision
Again, leaving aside the rights and
wrongs of the “shadow” values the fact is, that from observing the behaviours
of employees in large organisations over the last 25 years, one has to conclude
that they exist and are well supported by the corporate performance management
systems. They are also highly likely to
be at odds with the “published” values.
So again, as with the shadow vision if we are to reduce inefficiency and
direct our employees far more clearly then we have to admit they exist and
either embrace them or reengineer the organization to support the delivery of
different values. Either way I’d like to
make a plea that organisations stop confusing their employees by publishing
values and visions that are not aligned to the behaviours that they would
really like to see as it really cheeses me off.
And before you right me off as a
tree-hugging lunatic, I for one would be delighted to see “profit” as a value
for most organisations. Let’s put it out
there and be honest – we value profit.
There I said it. Now let’s work
out what else we value.
To conclude, if you want your
programme of re-envisioning the organisation and overhauling the corporate
values to go well you will need to identify and deal with the shadow vision and
values with as much passion and rigour as you employ to generate the new vision
and values. To fail to do this is to
doom the programme to failure. It’s the
equivalent of putting on your finest designer suit or dress, all ready for a
glamorous evening out, over the top of your gardening clothes. Not a good look and a bit mad.
