Is your vision a vestige?
Are you in business to make a buck?
Silly question, I know. Without profit, businesses cannot long survive. Even not-for-profits have to be managed so they operate in a fiscally responsible way.
But when the business' strategic vision is "profit," the business has nowhere to go and no way to grow. It's a dead end because the "profit vision" offers no road or guidance to activity that can over time result in the very profit that is being sought.
Declaring the target to be "profit" is like saying the object of living is to be alive. Indeed, it is. But what one does with the privilege of living is how one learns, grows and prospers. It's no different for organizations.
Most organizations would claim a strategic vision beyond "profit." But can those associated with the organization see it? Are they captured and driven by it? Is this vision widely shared and understood? Is it relevant to today and the future?
Far too often when I have asked organizational participants why their organization is in business, the answer I get is either "to make money" or something fuzzy and vaguely associated with what the business has historically done or the products and services it has developed. I call those fuzzy statements "vestige visions," like the appendix or a prehensile tail, something that does describe the organization but is not necessarily relevant to today and the future.
(Parenthetically, I find that mission statements as typically construed have the same problem as "vestige visions": They tend to be descriptive and focused on what has been rather than prescriptive and motivating.)
For it to have great value, a strategic vision needs to be center stage in the organization and owned by the participants in a way that intensely focuses the organization. An organization with a "vestige vision" is like a boat that is lost at sea. It may still be going somewhere, but the direction may not be relevant to a successful landfall in a desirable port.
Be honest. Is your organization's strategic vision neither strategic nor visionary? Does the organization really have the "profit vision" or is it stuck on a "vestige vision"?
If so, then it's high time for the organizational leaders to get on with creating a compelling shared vision of the organization in the future that gives the organization the motive and means to change and become more successful. By doing so, you likely will make a buck or two more than you would otherwise, as well.
