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Growth strategy | Advisory | Force multiplier

Organization

What is Your Core Ideology?

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“Only a clear definition of the mission and purpose of the organization makes possible clear and realistic business objectives.” – Peter F. Drucker

Many well-intentioned strategic planning processes go sideways because they are written from a stratospheric “Ivory Tower” perspective, complete with aspirational mission statements and esoteric values. They miss the mark because there is little thought given to how these tools can help to align the team and provide guidance for tactical on-the-ground execution of strategy.

This is unfortunate, because your business, and your team, they don’t live behind closed doors. No, they live outside of the company boardroom, with their feet on the ground delivering products and/or services to your customers in the marketplace every day. Corporate puffery and lofty statements just don’t provide much utility for the front-line team members who must make real-time decisions in today’s unpredictable and harsh VUCA environment.

There is a better way. It takes a bit of work, but for growth leaders it is well worth the effort.

In order to create an effective VUCA strategic plan it is important to clarify and nail down the mission, values, and purpose of your organization. When done well, these declarations articulate your core ideology, and become a powerful planning foundation from which you can envision a future, and then develop the appropriate objectives and a plan to get there.

The rest of this article explores the three core ideology elements that form the required foundation to build an effective and useful VUCA plan: Mission, Values, and Purpose.

Defining Your Core Ideology: Mission, Values, Purpose

Much like the hull of a ship, or the foundation for a building, your core ideology creates a strong and durable platform to align the whole organization behind your purpose, and from which you can then build an effective strategy and plan.

Many planning exercises are set up to fail from the start because the leadership teams creating them are not clear on the intention of key elements, or they should fit together. Another common challenge is a failure to write them from the perspective of helping to guide the daily activities of the organization.

Fortunately, both of these challenges are easy to address with clear definitions. Here is a quick overview of each of the three components that create your core ideology:

  • Mission – A mission statement defines what your company or organization does and for whom. It should be specific enough that people understand what you do and how it may differ from your competitors, but also aspirational in that it may never be fully achieved. Ideally it will be short and easy for your team to memorize. It will provide a sense of direction to guide future decision-making and strategy formulation.
  • Values – Your core values support your mission, define the culture, and should reflect how your organization will fulfill its purpose. They are the operating principles, beliefs, or philosophy of values embraced by your entire team. Be careful to focus on core values (those on which the organization will never compromise and is willing to pay a price to uphold) versus aspirational values (those that the organization espouses, but has yet to live up to in day-to-day operations). To be meaningful, values should be described in clear behavioral terms. Ideally, your values can be presented as a short and impactful list (i.e. no more than 5-7 total).
  • Purpose – This concept has been popularized by Simon Sinek as “start with why” – it takes an outward focus by defining why the business exists, its larger purpose for being, in the context of your customers. In order to inspire your team to do their best work and fulfill your mission, you want to find a way to express the organization’s impact on the lives of customers, clients, students, patients – whomever you are serving. Purpose shares the benefit or benefits provided by your organization, and articulates them in the context of the customer. Great purpose statements are motivational, because they connect with the heart as well as the head by putting managers and employees in customers’ shoes and defining “this is what we’re delivering for someone else.”

Note: It is not unheard of to see organizations use mission, vision, and purpose statements interchangeably. Or, even to combine them. And that’s okay, so long as it works for you, there is no right answer. In my experience I’ve always found it is easier to have them exist separately because then the intent for each is pure, they are easier to create and share, and it is simpler to revisit one and update it. You’ll know you’ve got it right when they support and build on one another, and one doesn’t work without the other.

Future articles will explore each element in detail, including guidance on how to craft them, and some real-life examples.

The Value of Having a Solid Foundation for VUCA Planning

In order to be successful with strategic planning we need to know the core cultural elements (mission, values, purpose) that define the organization. Together, this core ideology is the foundation for effective VUCA planning, becoming the “true North” guideposts your team can use for making strategic decisions.

In a VUCA environment, where unpredictable and disruptive events can happen very quickly, we need to embrace an agile approach to making decisions in real-time. We must always balance the objective, or goal attainment, against our corporate mission, values, and purpose. If they are not in alignment, we have a problem. It is imperative that we “keep our eye on the prize” so to speak, there must be a vision for the future and knowledge of the ultimate objective(s) we are trying to achieve in order to get there.

Knowing what you’re doing and for whom (your mission), how you’re going to go about it (your values), and why you’re doing it (your purpose) are the glue that holds an organization together. Your core ideology is an essential part to building your strategic foundation and developing a strategy. You preserve these fixed elements while your vision of the future, strategies and objectives can change and flex with the market or VUCA impacts. In other words, you may modify your vision and objectives over time, but your mission, values, and purpose should remain relatively unchanged.

Conclusion

To summarize, before any strategic VUCA planning can begin we must have two foundational parts in place:

  • Core ideology – defining the mission, values, and purpose of the organization. As this article shared, these elements explain why the organization exists and what it stands for. With this framework you will have complete clarity when making critical business decisions that impact the future of your organization.
  • Envisioned future –a clearly defined future vision for what the organization aspires to become, and your goals. These elements explain the desired future state of the organization, and long-term goals.

With a core ideology planning elements of mission/values/vision/purpose in place, the organization now has a very helpful alignment tool, and a strong foundation from which to create effective strategy and objectives in the form of a VUCA plan. More on that next time.

-Onward

Envisioning the New World of Work…

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“Close scrutiny will show that most ‘crisis situations’ are opportunities to either advance, or stay where you are.” – Maxwell Maltz

There is little doubt that every organization in every industry will be permanently altered in some way from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

In prior articles, I’ve shared that crisis can create opportunity, and we now live a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world. There are still many things we don’t know and need to figure out, however there is also a growing realization that we have a very limited capacity to keep things locked down.

Against this backdrop, local and federal governments around the world are making urgent plans to loosen shelter-in-place restrictions and re-open their economies. Organizations are also considering how they can resume operation and safely bring their workers back to the workplace. Many of these considerations are centered around the world of work: the nature of work itself, the workforce, returning to work, the workplace, and the organization.

Having spent the past 20 years providing human capital management solutions to enterprise clients, and having a front-row seat to the evolving world of work, here are my thoughts on what the new normal might look like:

The work

  • Work from home. It’s here to stay. Forced by mandatory shelter-in-place orders, organizations quickly figured out how to provision and enable large numbers of formerly office-bound workers to work remotely from their homes. There are many crisis-related reasons why this hasn’t been perfect (for example, children at home due to school closures, internet bandwidth, etc) but the bottom line is it has largely worked, and will grow in prominence.
  • Remote work. Moving forward, more organizations will leverage the work-from-home experience and embrace remote work. The enlightened ones will realize it can also deliver many productivity and psychic benefits to the worker, the less altruistic might do it purely for cost savings and access to cheaper labor.
  • Projectized work. A related thread is the very nature of work itself will change. Once you start to revisit where work gets done, you can also revisit who does it, and how it is packaged. I think more work will be structured as projects (new verb: projectized!), with a focus on outcomes and deliverables, versus the traditional role based work output.
  • Videoconferencing. Obviously, videoconferencing technology adoption (thanks Zoom!) has been greatly accelerated. As more of us learn how to manage our days remotely and more of our business interactions through video, it will be natural to continue doing so even when we are able to meet in person again. This will have interesting long-term implications for business travel and traditionally heavy travel dependent professions (hello management consulting!)
  • Technology-enabled. Another aspect to working virtually will be broader and deeper adoption of software to improve collaboration for distributed teams, store and share work artifacts, and manage remote workers. In parallel, with so much work being done outside of the traditional secure office environment, spending on security software will definitely grow in volume and importance in order to protect the organization.

The workforce

  • PTSD. I’ve heard people joke about the impending COVID baby boom (we’ll have to wait and see!), but on a more serious note I think there will be a wave of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from this crisis. Very few have lived through anything this stressful and impactful in our lifetime. There will likely be lingering effects that require assistance from mental healthcare professionals, and accommodation from employers.
  • Non-employee labor. The growth of the contingent workforce has been a long-term trend over the past two decades. It will take a huge hit in the short-term (temp labor is always the quickest and easiest thing to cut first), however in the long-term it will grow due to a number of the trends cited in this article: more project-based work, more remote workers, better technology to manage work, and the need for more flexibility by organizations.
  • Worker protection. With the dramatic growth of the “gig economy” over the past few years there has not been enough attention given to the pervasive issues around protecting the self-employed, independent contractors, or gig workers. Access to affordable healthcare, unemployment insurance, wage and hour protections are just some of the issues. Ironically, the CARES relief package that Congress passed might actually break new ground on this issue and lead to better legislation. Could it ultimately lead to the mythical “third class” of worker sitting in between employee and independent contractor status? We’ll have to wait and see!

Returning to work

  • Re-start sequencing. Here in the US it appears that individual states and counties will each craft their own re-start plan. It will likely be done in successive waves of workers re-entering the workplace, defined by geography and industry, with the most essential given priority. I’m wondering if this process will set precedent for a new “class system” within the economy. For example, who defines what’s essential? Are dog groomers more or less important than hairdressers? Dentists versus dermatologists?
  • WFH. It has been estimated that 42% of US workforce could work from home (i.e. they’re not tied to a location specific factory or service job) – what if all of them don’t want to go back to the office? Once the economy picks back up many professionals will be thinking of this. This will be complicated because the decision probably depends on many factors, including their family and housing situation, commute, role, age, mobility. A recent survey of HP employees indicated 87% would like to keep remote working. Wow!
  • Commuting. Related to working from home, this deserves a special call out. Many have seen their daily commute radically changed from several hours a day to just a few steps from the bedroom to a home office. We’re already seeing that these extra hours can have a profound impact on productivity, work-life balance, and the environment. NYC has reported a decline in subway ridership of 90%, you have to wonder how much it will come back.
  • Living patterns. Technology-enabled remote working will likely drive an exodus out of historically job-rich urban areas. It has been reported that more Americans would like to live in rural communities than would like to live in cities.
  • Work schedules. Changes to commuting patterns, travel patterns, and living patterns may lead to changes in work schedules. Will we see more flexibility around days worked, and schedules?
  • Immunity certification. Widespread testing is a key component of managing the pandemic and safely restarting the economy. It makes sense that workers should have a clean bill of health in order to set foot in an office, factory, or airplane. But, how will this work? Will there be health certification cards? Who will issue, monitor, certify them? How will your personal health information be protected? Many questions, few answers so far…

The workplace

  • WFH policy. Working from home will be an option for some but not all workers. Some organizations must have workers come in (for example, healthcare, factories, distribution, retail) others might not need to (most white-collar professions). Organizations will need to think carefully about the implications of their policies, carefully balancing the needs of the business with what workers want. Providing options and flexibility will be an important talent attraction and retention tool.
  • Workstations. One likely outcome is that the much-hated “open office” workplace will revert to more traditional cubicles or enclosed offices. Companies will need to provide more flexible “hoteling” options for their workers. One positive benefit is there will be less capital intensive real estate needed for the organization to operate!
  • Work rules. It is likely that social distancing will be a new norm. How will this be accommodated in a work setting? The impact could be huge when you think about the physical challenges of hallways, meeting rooms, restrooms, elevators, and cafeterias.
  • PPE. Will workers have to wear masks and other forms of personal protection equipment? Will the type be mandated? Bring your own, or provided by the organization? How will the organization ensure a properly sanitized and “safe” working environment?

The organization

I’ve saved this section for last, because organizational issues will likely prove to be the most difficult.

  • People first. They say that great leaders are forged in battle, and this pandemic has proved it. For me it has re-affirmed what many exceptional leaders already know – it is all about the people. Demonstrating empathy, compassion, and clear communication to workers will hopefully become part of every leaders toolkit moving forward.
  • The value of HR. Organizations will need to re-invent themselves and focus more on “the business of the business”. This is an excellent opportunity for corporate HR and legal teams to rise up and really demonstrate their value as change agents, protectors of the enterprise, and designers of the future organization.
  • Policy updates. Organizations will be forced to revisit (or, more likely, develop entirely new) policies that address such vital new issues as COVID testing, social distancing, who can or cannot work remotely, travel, expenses, etc.
  • Workforce planning. In a new and more uncertain (VUCA) world of work, many organizations will begin to revisit their structures, and workforce composition. Needing greater access to talent, and more flexibility, organizations will seek to better optimize the mix of employees and non-employees of all stripes (temp labor, contractors, gig workers, etc.)
  • Remote management. Organizations will need to re-think the physical logistics of how they manage the entire worker lifecycle, developing new ways of interviewing, onboarding, training, managing, and offboarding workers who are now working remotely.
  • Legal minefield. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce shares that businesses are anxious about a wave of lawsuits from customers and workers who contract COVID-19 in the workplace. Customers and employees can sue a business for lost wages, medical expenses, and other damages if they prove negligence, recklessness, or intentional disregard for their safety. Some recommended precautions could run up against workplace protection laws, such as: Telling other employees when someone is sick (privacy violation), Requiring workers to test negative before coming back (discrimination and health privacy) and, Prohibiting at-risk populations like the elderly from coming to work (more discrimination)

Wow! That’s a lot…

A crisis of this magnitude will surely create and accelerate dramatic change in the broader world of work. It could easily take 12-18 months, or more, for the full post-pandemic picture to emerge – a status likely determined by the widespread availability of testing, no major new outbreaks, and a vaccine.

An important component of strategic planning is to start with what you know (both good and bad) as the foundation for planning a path forward. I hope that this article has provided some perspective for you and your organization to start planning for the new world of work. With this foundation in place, you can begin to consider contingencies for various scenarios that may or may not become reality once things get moving.

Much, much more to come…

-Onward