Vision, Mission, Culture and Leadership

By A. Abeku Haywood-Dadzie

One of the few vocabulary words I learned from my Dad at a very young age was "mission and vision." As I sat in his study flipping through pictures in his encyclopedia, he would pass by and gently ask, "What is your vision and mission in life?" My response was usually a smile, since these words were alien to me.

Globally, high-performing organisations have some qualities that separate them from their peers. Most of these qualities are organic and are often below sea level, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, for their peers to see and copy. Their mission, vision, and culture are usually captured in their core values and vital behaviors, which equip them to embrace any form of diversity.?

It’s also imperative to note at this point that what holds all these qualities together is leadership, which works like a frictionless pivot on a pendulum, and facilitates the weaving of these qualities into a nice tapestry within the DNA of the organisation so that it can swing back and forth in today’s VUCA [volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity] world.

"A high-performance organisation is an organisation that achieves financial and non-financial results that are exceedingly better than those of its peer group over a period of time of five years or more, by focusing in a disciplined way on that which really matters to the organization." André de Waal, HPO [High-Performance Organization] Center.

Although often used interchangeably, vision and mission statements are distinctly different and each has its own distinguishing characteristics and purpose.?A mission statement defines what an organisation is and why it exists. It captures "organizations-today" and responds to three key questions: What do we do today?For whom do we do it? And what is the benefit? A mission statement explains the overall purpose of an organization.?A vision statement, on the other hand, defines where an organisation intends to be in the future. It snapshots the "organisation-tomorrow" and also answers three key questions: what do we want to do going forward? When do we want to do it? And how do we do it??

Managers of high-performing organisations appreciate the fact that the success of their organisation is not only based on the organization's mission and vision or products and services but also on the culture of the organization. An organisation is a "culture" in itself, and it can only survive as long as its norms and values will allow it. Culture is one of the sustainable competitive advantages that is completely within the control of the managers of an organization.

Culture "refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving."- Culture according to www.tamu.edu

Corporate culture is a "Genus Equus", a wild horse that must be tamed at all cost. Culture remains an important consideration in the implementation of any strategy. Whereas a strategy remains an inanimate creature on paper, corporate culture possesses an invisible personality that can be identified by members of an organization. It's a moving target and very difficult to get right. Cultural intelligence picks up where emotional intelligence ends. It's important to note that what holds the galaxy of the McKinsey 7-S framework, that is: Strategy, Structure, System, Shared Values, Skills, Style, and Staff, is nothing else but culture. Shared values, or "superordinate goals," are the core values and vital behaviours of organisations that are evidenced in the corporate culture and general work ethics.?

Once again, although leadership and management are used interchangeably, they are two different concepts that influence the 5M’s; man, materials, machines, methods, and money. Leadership is about influencing and inspiring an organisation to increase its performance, efficiency, and effectiveness by following the best practises in human resource management. It also involves the selection and monitoring of materials used by an organisation to significantly increase productivity over the entire process... and perform at their peak. "?

Leaders everywhere, especially those managing globally high-performing organizations, are facing an unparalleled pace of change in today's VUCA environment. They face numerous challenges quite different in their systematic nature from those before. They can no longer rely on strategies that worked yesterday or even those that are working today. To survive in today’s environment, they must learn to manage today. To succeed, they must learn to manage tomorrow today by consistently scanning their environment and positioning their team to solve tomorrow’s problems today.

Excelling in today’s environment calls for leaders to possess extrasensory perception, second sight, and a sixth sense. They must have sensors that can scan their environment, detect trends, and proactively define innovative strategies to combat them. They must be able to anticipate new trends, seize opportunities, and execute flawlessly with pinpoint accuracy and acute precision. They cannot afford to exhibit the persona of the old cyborg robot. Instead, they must display the traits of the newly improved, more advanced android robot, with liquid metal shapeshifting features. This is the impact of leadership on high-performing organizations.

In conclusion, globally high-performance organisations are?organisations that achieve financial and non-financial results that are exceedingly better than those of their peer group because they possess a great vision, excellent mission, well-defined culture, and competent leadership.