CI Delivers the Big Business Vision

What is your business’s Big Business Vision?

If leaders cannot answer that instantly, then the business really does not have an effective Business Vision. I am talking about a real live vision, when you close your eyes you can see it, you can feel it in your gut, triggering desire and motivation to get on and achieve it no matter what.

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”— Warren Bennis,

Most Business’s don’t have an effective Vision

Would you be surprised if I told you most businesses don’t have a vision? Well one that’s any use anyway. I have asked many leaders what the vision is, and around 90% of the time, they cannot articulate it or retrieve straight away. It may be in the quality manual or up on the reception wall. Move down the chain of command and it is extremely rare that people know or are even familiar with the Business Vision and to be honest, I say it’s rare, I have not yet walked into a business, where the vision is understood throughout the organisation. 

A Vision that is rooted in the organisation will inspire and can be achieved

“Good leaders have vision and inspire others to help them turn vision into reality. Great leaders have vision, share vision, and inspire others to create their own.”― Roy Bennett

I am an absolute believer that a clear vision, should not only sit at the top of all business strategy, planning and decision making processes, but like the purpose or The Why a vision should go deeper and be rooted within the organisation culture. "The Why", as discussed in my previous article CI Activity Stalling, Did You Start with Why

Objectives and plans may get missed, and different directions may need to be forged, but if people have a clear vision and purpose they will be able to flex, adjust and still keep on track to delivering that Big Business Vision.

When a Big Vision is ingrained within the organisation, all activity can then be aligned to support delivery. Any activity that isn’t moving your business towards the vision, is not adding value, its waste and should be stopped.

Continuous Improvement is the Most Power Vehicle to Reaching a Vision

Continuous Improvement can be the most powerful vehicle for driving you to that vision. With policy deployment and a CI programme, a business vision can be achieved. When a CI programme is aligned with the greater business Why & Big Vision and is communicated throughout the organisation, it invokes the most powerful drive and motivation to achieve. People can connect with the CI programme on an emotional level, it inspires that spine-tingling motivation that all leaders seek. That is why before planning any CI programme I will always ask, what is the Big Vision?

Get Creating that Vision

1.      Choose the Team – be creative perhaps invite people outside the leadership team (remember this vision needs to be able to resonate with everyone).

2.      Choose the Location – It is better to get away from the business, somewhere where people can detach from daily stresses, provide a safe environment.

3.      Clear the Mind - Ban daily shop talk, no checking and responding to emails. Start with an activity to reset the mind perhaps a creative activity, mindfulness, or an active activity.

4.      Run the Workshop– Remember it is about building a clear vision of the future. This is not about objective setting or KPI’s, stay well away from acronyms and buzz words.

A Good place to start is to dig out the business Why or purpose (see my previous article), consider legacy what do you want to be remembered for.

A method I use is The Perfect Day Method (Author Natalie Sisson, writes about this in the Freedom plan) pick a day in the future could be 3 years, 5 Year imagine it from start to finish. Imagine and that day in detail, what will it be like what will your workplace look like? Who will the people be? What equipment technology will you be using? What markets will you be serving and what will your employees be like, will there be a social aspect to the business? Create a vision board.

Another tool you could use is the BHAG, Big Hairy Audacious Goals method (Collins and Porras 1994), Answer the following 3 Questions

•  What are you deeply passionate about?
•  What can you be best at in the world?
•  What drives the economic engine?

5.      Communicate, Communicate, Communicate, and keep on Communicating Forever (and ever)!!

As you may have gathered, I think communication of the vision is rather important. Seriously it rarely is communicated effectively. The Why and the Vision needs to be ingrained within the psyche of all your employees, if they can live and breathe it, they will deliver it.

Now that you have communicated Why & Vision, people have a clear sight and purpose and will be raring to go and deliver it. Keep that momentum and start Continuous Improvement planning. Luckily in a few days, next post will guide you through that. So Please connect with me on Linked In, Subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

This article is from this series of posts on how to run a successful Continuous Improvement Programme. If you want a Continuous Improvement program that will help you to reduce costs, reduce waste, save time, improve quality, whatever your operational objectives are this series can help you.

Through the series I will using my 3 core pillars, the 3 P’s. This post is part of the first P, Planning the second P is Programme, which is a framework, process and templates for delivering improvement and the third P is Perform, this will help you to inspire people and guide you through how to get people to deliver results.

A bit about me

I help Manufacturing and Engineering Businesses achieve their operational performance goals, eliminate performance issues and save time and money.

Our programme will empower teams to drive improvement and deliver results, whilst saving time, money and delivering a ROI.