“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”– Albert Einstein

When Steve Jobs, founder of a small company that produced (what was generously described as) a personal computer, announced his vision of a computer on every desk, IBM executives thought he was daft. He went on to build Apple Computer into the leader among innovative and successful technology companies and today there is indeed a computer on every desk.

When Philip Knight wrote an essay in college about his plans to take on Adidas, the dominant athletic shoe supplier in the world, it is reasonable to think that few took him seriously. He went on to found Blue Ribbon Sports, renamed Nike in 1978.

Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, also wrote a paper in college. While it did not specify a particular business model, he saw then the need for an entirely new type of logistics company that could respond to an automated, fast paced world. Upon returning from his stint in the US Marine Corps he put together Federal Express by selling investors on the need for speed and the need for the company to have its own planes and trucks rather than using airlines and local delivery services.

Before these companies succeeded, the dreams of their founders were extraordinary, some would say fantasy, but we know in hindsight that they were the right ideas at the right time. So how do we know when our vision is something special and not just a pipedream?

Unfortunately, we can’t know. There is no formula that calculates whether our vision is realistic; we need to decide for ourselves. Nevertheless, there are some clues as to the likelihood of success:

1. Think about twenty years down the road. Imagine that your vision has come true. Can you imagine what it looks like? Can you see yourself at the helm? Can you taste it, smell it, feel it? William Ward is the author of the famous quote, “If you can imagine it you can create it. If you can dream it, you can become it.” If you can’t, chances are you will not make it happen.
2. Can you map it? Can you sit down now and develop a business plan that takes you from today right to the achievement of the vision? The map may change as you go along but if you can see a route to the top your vision is likely plausible.
3. Can you sell it? Can you attract others who buy into your vision? Steve Jobs created such a powerful vision that to this day there is an army of MacHeads, fans who are almost dogmatic in their loyalty to Apple products.
4. Can you commit to it? Are you willing to risk all to transform the vision into reality?
5. Do you have the skills? Be realistic. If you dream to sail solo around the world, you better know something about sailing beyond going for a day cruise in local waters.

Of course, if you really believe in your vision and if you have what it takes, you will ignore these clues and go for it even if none of them apply. I encourage you to do so. Willingness to take action is a much better indicator of success than any plan or analysis.

What do you think? Must a vision be practical or can it be over the top?

Like many people, I fell into my career. All my plans and dreams were pushed aside in favour of a paycheque and a company car.

My seduction by a good job wasn’t a bad thing; indeed, it was the mature thing to do. It only became a problem when I realized I didn’t like the job itself but continued on because I liked the money and the prestige. Despite external success, I spent thirty years feeling terribly unhappy about my life.

It took me all those years to figure out that the source of my unhappiness was my failure to adhere to my core values. My external success came from the misguided value I placed on money and appearances. I figured if I had monetary success everything else would follow. In fact I had it exactly backward. When I finally figured out in my fifties what was really important to me I was able to change my life. Now I have external success and internal happiness and the sense of accomplishment that escaped me for so long.

When I look at the wealthiest, self-made people in the world I don’t see people obsessed with money; I see people obsessed with doing things they love or that are important to them. They may be miserly or lavish with their money but they thrive on the work they do. The Forbes list of the world’s billionaires is filled with such people.

Money isn’t the only thing we get wrong. Children take up the family business rather than pursue their own dreams. Both parents work not because they must or want to but because they’ve bought into a double income lifestyle for their kids. Doctors, lawyers and other professionals struggle on even when they find out that they don’t like the job. They won’t walk away from the monetary investment in their education and the psychological investment in their career choice.

I recognize that we can’t all do what we want. We sometimes don’t have a choice. For those that do, please don’t waste another moment. Figure out what is really important to you and start doing it.

So, with that background, let’s move on to the final post in the Values series.

Core Values Part IV

This final post in my series on Core Values is written at a time when Tiger Woods is under intense scrutiny for his personal failings. Tiger Woods Inc. generates tens of millions of dollars of revenues each year. (The figure I heard most recently was $95 million annually.) The brand has been carefully nurtured and developed from the time Tiger was a two year old appearing on the Mike Douglas Show (video). For his whole life Tiger has been presented by his father and others as someone special, a man with a destiny not only on the golf course but beyond.

At this time, Tiger’s public image and his brand are in shambles. His confessed infidelities are so far removed from the persona he portrays that the world was first in shock and disbelief, then in disgust and now in confusion. He is still the best golfer in the world and his philanthropy is legendary but he is not the man his brand presents. His lack of authenticity is causing the damage to his brand. Simply put, we loathe a fake.

(One must wonder about Tiger’s recent performance on the golf course and how his hidden transgressions may have been affecting him. For the first time in his career he lost a major tournament after being tied or in the lead going into the final round (The 2009 PGA Championship in August). Also, 2009 is the first year since 2004 that Tiger did not win a major. Was he already feeling the heat from his wife, Elin?)

Tiger’s woes are an extreme example of the importance of espousing our true values. Don’t say one thing and do another. And we can only espouse our true values if we know what they are, thus my emphasis on uncovering them.

Once you’ve uncovered your values, write up a second list that identifies values important to the success of businesses in your industry. Do both lists line up? If you value excellence but you are in an industry that requires compromises on quality or service, you may struggle. If customer service is not important to you but it is for the success of your business, you will struggle. Better to identify any incongruities now than thirty years from now like I did.

If all your values line up and provided they confirm that you are in the right business, ask these key questions:

• Have you hired people who have similar values (or values that fit well)?

• Do you have the kind of customers who will respond positively to your values?

• Are your vendors compatible with your values?

• Look at your competition through the lens of your values and the list of values that are important for success in your industry. Do they have any weaknesses? Do you have any advantages?

• Do your strategies align with and build on your values?

The answers to these and other questions provide the foundation for developing strategies, goals and objectives for your business. Without going through the work to identify your true values, your strategic plan will be less sound.

The next post will be first in a series on strategy development that builds on vision and values.

Most strategic planning processes use the writing of the statement of core values as the process by which they are identified. Big mistake. Write the statement only after you’ve identified your true values. If you are focused on writing the statement you will be influenced by how your values sound to others and you will instead come up with a marketing statement (more on this later).

So how do we identify our true core values? We start by being brutally honest with ourselves. Can we admit that, for us, customer service is a necessary evil? Or that we will make promises we know we can’t keep for the sake of expediency or a temporary fix? Are we okay with mediocre quality if it gets us high profits? Being honest with ourselves is necessary so that we can then craft a meaningful and successful strategic plan. The plan will be focused on things we will really do and not on things that just sound nice.

We need to see our values clearly if we are to have functional organizations. Dysfunctional organizations are almost always caused by leaders saying one thing and doing another. While this is a drastic oversimplification, leaders mess up their organization if they don’t walk their talk.

This is not an easy or intuitive process. If we find it too difficult to see ourselves for what we are, we can go to the experts: our employees, customers and vendors. It may be useful to engage the services of an outside consultant to prepare and conduct surveys of stakeholders to determine what values are visible to others. If an outside consultant is not viable, consider the following method designed by Tom Connellan of the Connellan Group Inc. (tomconnellan.com).

1. Make a copy of your corporate value and a copy of corporate value statements from three other companies. Remove the company names from all documents.

2. Take these lists to a random cross section of your employees and ask “Which of these corporate value statements best describes our company’s actions?” “Which least describes our company?”

3. Also ask several suppliers.

4. Also ask several customers.

5. Each time, as seeming afterthought, ask each group “By the way, do you happen to recognize which – if any – of these is actually ours?”

Chances are that “none of your suppliers, none of your customers, and very, very few of your employees will be able to tell the difference between Enron’s corporate values, your corporate values, and the values of any other random company.”

What does this mean to you? “Three things,” says Connellan.

1. Most corporate value statements are virtually indistinguishable from each other.

2. Actions are what count – not what’s on paper.

3. If there’s a disconnect between what you say is important and what people do, you need to fix that right away. Rather than building a series of rules, build a series of examples. People learn from examples and role models – not from a list of words.

Tom Connellan wrote: “what you say you want, what you really want, and what you reward all have to be in alignment.  Too many companies… reward employees who perform well but don’t adhere to corporate values.” We need to be honest about what we really want.

So what do we do when we’ve got an authentic list of our core values? We’ll cover that topic in the next post in the series. Until then, I leave you with a statement from the web site of this dysfunctional organization:

‘In an era of faceless organizations owned by other equally faceless organizations, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC harks back to an earlier era in the financial world: The owner’s name is on the door. Clients know that Bernard Madoff has a personal interest in maintaining the unblemished record of value, fair-dealing, and high ethical standards that has always been the firm’s hallmark.’

– Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC website

When was the last time you saw a corporate statement of values without the word excellence in it? Companies big and small claim a devotion to excellence as one of their virtues. So, if it is a core value to so many, why are there so few excellent companies?

Values are often confused with aspirations. Companies aspire to excellence but this is not the same as a value. Many aspire to excellence; few live it. Many aspire to great customer service; few deliver it. Many aspire to best practices; few achieve them.

The distinction between values and aspirations is important. Values are at the center of what we really believe, who we really are and what we really do. Aspirations are what we wish we were. Values determine how we act in our day to day lives at work and at home. They influence our decisions, our attitudes, our sense of right and wrong, how we treat other people, even whether we show up for work on time. Aspirations are often what we wish we did.

Values seldom change and are seldom violated. They surface when we are faced with choosing between right and wrong, good and bad. We don’t think about them but we choose according to them. We give up our seat on the bus to someone older; we turn in the wallet full of cash to the police; we let customers return defective merchandise; we pay our bills on time; we hold open doors for others; we are open and forthright with our shareholders; we do what is right even when nobody is looking.

Values can’t be delegated or taught but they can be followed. Once they are articulated and embedded in the culture of the organization, those employees who may have otherwise decided differently may now decide to adopt those values (at least while they are at work). With the values of the organization identified, staff recruitment can be aligned to ensure that new employees are similarly inclined.

If the statement of values does not reflect the true values of the organization, it will be ignored. If the leaders of the organization do not demonstrate the stated values in their every day actions and decisions, the stated values will be replaced with the values demonstrated. The true values of the leaders of the organization will be inevitably passed on to the troops whether intended or not.

So, if you have the word excellence in your corporate statement of values, what evidence do you have to prove that it belongs?

Part One in a Series

I started out writing an article on the importance of uncovering our true core values when developing a strategic plan. As I began explaining why values are important I got stuck. Are values really important? Where is the evidence?

I can think of many companies that have committed crimes ranging from environmental damage to price fixing to misleading advertising. Where were their values?

Here are a few respected corporations that have admitted guilt and/or were convicted of corporate crimes: Wal-Mart, Sears, Borden, Pfizer, Warner-Lambert, Conagra, Princess Cruises, Teledyne, and too many more to mention. They got caught, got their hands slapped and continued on.

“President Bush was on Wall Street giving a speech on corporate responsibility. He called for the doubling of punishment for corporate crime. That means they will slap you on both wrists apparently.” —Jay Leno

We allow tobacco companies to sell cigarettes that are known to kill people every day from cancer. We cry out in anger but sit on our hands while health insurance companies deny payments for legitimate claims. We allow corporations and special interest groups to spend hundred of millions of dollars every year to lobby and pressure politicians so that laws are bent in their favor. What values do these actions serve?

“Earlier this week the Senate voted 97-to-0 for tougher regulations. For example, when corporations buy a senator, they must now get a receipt.” — Jay Leno

On the surface it looks like the only value that is important is making money even if that means bending or breaking the rules.

So why should we care about values? Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Companies large or small are really just groups of people who work together to conduct business. Whether a company is a handful of employees all in the same room or hundred of thousands of employees scattered worldwide, each individual employee is capable of doing right and doing wrong no matter what values are practiced by the organization as a whole. What guides that employee’s moral compass?

Corporate culture is a manifestation of the shared values of owners, managers and employees. How we act, how we treat each other (and by extension how we treat customers and vendors), how we conduct business are all manifestations of values. While even the best companies inevitably will have bad apples in their midst, and while some companies will be run by bad apples, statements of values help the vast majority of employees play by the rules.

Values and the culture they create have a huge influence on success and profitability. Having the right culture for the industry is critical. A Four Seasons style of service is not advisable for a low price business like Wal-Mart and an employee who thrives at one will not likely thrive at the other. McDonalds’ requirement of strict adherence to its methodology is not likely to work very well at Google or Apple but it is the primary driver of McDonalds’ success.

(Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. If you know of any successful companies that have cultures contrary to the norm for their industry please let me know. That could be another post altogether!)

In the end, despite the hypocrisy witnessed every day, values are important. They are indeed the soul of the organization.

Part two will be published later this week.

The essence of strategic planning is taking the big picture and boiling it all the way down to what needs to be done today. If we don’t have a big picture to guide us, or if the big picture is so big that we can’t translate it into day to day actions, then we are responding to whatever comes our way. We are relying on luck.

Over the past decade the concept of the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) has become popular in strategic planning circles. The phrase comes from a book published in 1994, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by James Collins and Jerry Porras. In it they examined the practices of 18 successful companies including Marriott Hotels and Wal-Mart.

Once a devotee, I’ve dropped the BHAG as a planning device. My problem with using a BHAG is that it is so often misapplied. Yes, many very large, very successful companies have audacious goals but a BHAG is not something dreamed up at a weekend strategic planning retreat. A BHAG comes from the core of a company’s values and aspirations. It is something that appears over time as an entrepreneur or group of executives work toward achieving more modest goals like getting the business past the point of struggling to make payroll every two weeks.

J. W. Marriott started out with a root beer stand in 1927. He grew it into a chain of restaurants by 1932. While he likely dreamed of a local restaurant chain when he opened that root beer stand, a vision of owning a worldwide chain of hotels came much later.

Sam Walton started his retail career as an employee of J.C. Penny from 1940 till 1942. After serving in the US Army, Walton purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in 1945. He and his brother, Bud built a chain of sixteen stores in Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas. The first Wal-Mart opened in 1962.  While it is known that he wanted to work in retail from an early age, Wal-Mart as we know it today wasn’t envisioned until much later.

A BHAG can still be part of our long term vision but if it is so big that it can’t be translated into a motivational and inspirational tool that drives our actions then it is not a useful planning device.

For most of us, a three year big picture vision is much more likely to be useful in our day to day activities. All of us, entrepreneurs, executives, managers and workers on the shop floor can imagine three years out. We can transpose what has already happened into what could happen.

Everyone in the organization can align themselves with a three year big picture. That makes for a useful planning device.