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Growth strategy | Advisory | Force multiplier

Strategy

Great Strategy Requires Situational Awareness

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“The difference between being a victim and a survivor is often a low level of situational awareness.” – Barry Eisler

With the amount of change and disruption in the world and in our current business climate, it has never been more important for leaders to be aware of their surroundings, and thoroughly understand the internal and external forces that can have an impact on their organization.

Effective strategic planning requires an honest appraisal of your starting point and operating environment. This is called “situational awareness,” and it is vital to have it before creating a VUCA strategic plan. A thorough and honest assessment of your current reality will not only help inform your strategy, but it will also help to identify potential pitfalls and alternative scenarios to consider and prepare for.

The Foundation for VUCA Strategic Planning

Before geting into the details of situational awareness, here’s a quick review of the two foundational elements that should be in place for effective VUCA strategic planning to take place:

  • Core Ideology – defining the mission, values, and purpose of the organization. These elements describe why the organization exists and what it stands for. They create a “true North” guidepost for making strategic decisions and are the foundation for any VUCA plan. With this foundational framework you will have greater clarity when making critical business decisions that impact the future of your organization.
  • Envisioned Future – defining a clear vision for what the organization aspires to become or achieve, and your long-term goals. Together, these elements explain the desired future state of the organization, and the long-term goals you and your team are working towards achieving in order to get there.

With this solid planning foundation, leaders are ready to begin thinking about their strategic options. This requires the identification and understanding of their current environment, and the ability to project that into the future.

First, Put It All on the Table

To craft an effective VUCA plan, we have to know exactly where the starting position is. You need to know your current reality. Because if you don’t know where you are, then how will you know when you get there?!

Much like sailing a ship, in order to plot a course forward we have to know where we are, where we are going, but also what the environment around us looks like.

Warning: This stage of the strategic planning process is difficult for many organizations. Not because it is inherently “hard” to do, but rather because it requires honesty and deep inquiry, something that many leaders (and their leadership teams) are just not willing or able to do.

Why do they resist? Oftentimes it is because the truth hurts. Or, because challenging sacrosanct beliefs is difficult, and may bring into question prior executive decisions. Or, because they just may not know how to go about gaining market clarity.

Please pardon the expression, but for this reason I often refer to this stage of the strategic planning process as finding and putting all the crap on the table.

It is not easy. Nor is it always fun. However, it is very necessary…and by giving it “heat and light” you can drive productive outcomes.

Gaining situational awareness helps to inform strategy, clarify your direction, and leads naturally to developing a plan.

What is Situational Awareness?

The phrase “situational awareness” comes from military aviation and is defined as “the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status.” The ability to gain situational awareness quickly is essential for combat pilots if they are to survive an encounter with enemy aircraft.

Here is a strategic planning definition: Situational awareness involves knowing where you are and being aware of what is happening in your environment, in order to better understand how information, events, and one’s own actions will impact both immediate and future outcomes.

Put another way, situational awareness is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is occurring or is about to occur. Every leader has the responsibility to know what is happening within their organization and the world it operates in.

While gaining situational awareness sounds fairly easy in a stable and simple situation, it becomes significantly more challenging in a rapidly changing and disruptive environment because it is not a static snapshot, but rather a real-time capture of a dynamic environment. This makes situational awareness especially relevant for situations or environments characterized by a high level of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA).

That sure sounds like today’s business environment!

The Three Levels of Situational Awareness

In strategic planning, there are three levels of situational awareness to consider. They build on one another sequentially, and there are important elements of VUCA planning that take place in each so we need to consider them all:

  • Level 1 – Perceiving
  • Level 2 – Understanding
  • Level 3 – Predicting

Following is a quick overview of each:

Level 1 – Perceiving: Perceptions of data and the elements in the environment

The first step in gaining situational awareness is to be able to identify the state, characteristics and dynamics of all the relevant elements in your current operating environment. This is sometimes called the “as is” view.

There are two important implications. First, the individual or organization must have access to the relevant information. Second, once this access is in place, the individual or organization has to recognize it. Consequently, one of the key requirements for Level 1 situational awareness is the communication and proper visualization of data.

Gaining situational awareness for organizations often involves internal analysis of the company and an external analysis of the marketplace or economy. There are many proven analytical tools and techniques to accomplish this, such as SWOTER and PESTLE analyses, which will be covered in future articles.

However, it is not enough to be able to perceive all the factors in certain situations. One needs to learn to make sense of the connections between these elements, hence the second level of situation awareness: understanding.

Level 2 – Understanding: Comprehension of the meaning and significance of the current situation

Understanding goes beyond simple awareness of the elements that are presented. The second level of situational awareness refers to the requirement that we must properly comprehend the relevant information. Comprehension of the current situation is based on thorough analyses of all Level 1 elements. As a decision maker, one not only needs to draw a holistic picture of the situation with sufficient knowledge first level elements — but also have the ability to understand the significance of those elements in relation to each other, and to the achievement of the goal.

Depending on the specific situation, Level 2 understanding requires the right knowledge to deal with the acquired information. This is where mental models and strategic frameworks can play an important role. By taking the Level 1 information and interpreting it through a new or existing mental model, or strategic framework, we can be begin to stress-test possible approaches based on what we know.

This works because when we create a new model or update an existing one based on how we’ve interpreted the information, if something important is missing, the information is incorrect, or the information doesn’t make sense, the model fails to work. It either means we don’t have all the information we need, or the approach is not the right one.

For business planning there are many well-known strategic frameworks that can be considered depending on the situation, including internal/external considerations, vision, long-term goals, VUCA environmental factors, etc.

After this analysis, and initial consideration/formulation of strategic frameworks, we will then come to our next level of situation awareness: the ability to predict the future status based on our understanding of the current situation.

Level 3 – Predicting: Projection of future status and events

You achieve the third level of situational awareness by applying the information and insights perceived and comprehended in the first two levels. This knowledge is then used to project forward and begin to predict potential future actions or outcomes of the elements in the environment.

This level is especially important in dynamic VUCA environments, because the ultimate goal of building situational awareness is to utilize the information collected to predict the most likely potential outcomes as a result of these elements, and to then use this information for decision making.

For strategic planning we do can accomplish this through the development and consideration of scenarios. This “what if” level of planning is crucial for dynamic VUCA environments because it allows leaders and their teams to consider a range of possibilities and then think through how they will react ahead of time. This has obvious decision making and execution benefits. Much more on this in future articles.

It becomes even more important in complex systems or environments, which are characterized by many interdependencies, because it is much more difficult to predict how changes in one variable might influence those around it and the whole. As a result, we must constantly re-evaluate and adjust our mental models or strategic frameworks as we gain new information.

Situational Awareness Connects the Person (and Team) to the Environment

A key foundational concept behind situational awareness is the distinction between an individual (or a team, or an organization) and the environment they operate in. The environment refers to everything that is going on around the individual, team, or organization. The reason we focus on important elements of the environment is to emphasize that situational awareness is ultimately about enabling an individual, team, or organization to get something done. This can be a task, a project, an initiative, or anything else that requires interaction with, and reaction to, relevant elements of the environment.

Ultimately, no strategic plan ever survives contact with the market without some change.

But the true value is not in having an ironclad plan that doesn’t change, but rather in having thought through potential challenges to achieving the long-term goals of the organization, so that individuals, teams, and the organization can react quickly and decisively. This leads to the final stage of strategic planning, where a decision is made and the plan is broken down and delegated to those responsible for achieving it.

In the end, strategic planning is completely useless unless some action is taken by an individual or team.

Conclusion

There are three levels of situational awareness:

  • Level 1 – Perception of data and the elements of the current environment, ideally taking an internal and external perspective on the starting point.
  • Level 2 – Comprehension of the meaning and significance of the current situation, including some consideration/formulation of a strategy framework or mental model.
  • Level 3 – Projection of future status and events, including some prediction of potential scenarios and consideration of their likelihood and potential response.

Situational awareness is the starting point for strategic planning – Simply, it is knowing where you are, what is going on around you, and how you might react to any impacts that might prevent you from achieving your objective.

For business success you need internal perspective on your organization’s strengths and weaknesses, and external perspective on your market position and strength, how customers view you, competitive landscape, etc. It is far too common to see leadership teams developing comprehensive strategic plans without looking at what is happening outside of their organization. Furthermore, many organizations never consider potential threats or destabilizing forces, or their potential response to them.

Investing in gaining situational awareness is the solution.

Hopefully you can see that these situational awareness steps — perceiving the elements in the environment to know your starting point, understanding how the environment might impact your goal, and being able to use this information to predict future events and possible strategic responses — can help you, your team, and your organization achieve success.

Stay tuned; in an upcoming article I will discuss the value of setting “SMARTER objectives” when creating a VUCA strategic plan. This is a key ingredient to getting results.

-Onward

The Emperor Has No Clothes

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“The strength of any organization is a direct result of the strength of its leaders. Weak leaders equal weak organizations. Strong leaders equal strong organizations. Everything rises and falls on leadership.” – John Maxwell

We are living in a strange and challenging era. As the global pandemic continues to have a profound economic and social impact, two things have become very clear – this level of VUCA disruption is not going away, and the need for strong leaders has never been greater.

The virus in some way has affected each of us – Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives; tens of millions have lost the jobs; billions have been inconvenienced or stressed.

Against this catastrophic backdrop, there is no question this has also been a challenging period for leaders of organizations of all types: government agencies, public and private companies, and non-profits.

Times of crisis are an inflection point, providing an opportunity for true leaders to reveal themselves. Many have stepped up and demonstrated their true leadership attributes, while others have stumbled.

Crises can also reveal weaknesses in organizational alignment or teams that are often hidden, or conveniently ignored, when times are good. It is exactly at times like this that we can witness real leaders, showing their true characters and capabilities.

There isn’t an established playbook for leaders to follow in this type of disruptive and chaotic environment, but there are some timeless leadership principles that still work. In this article, I’ll share a few observations and some guidance for leaders as we slowly begin to re-start the economy.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

I was thinking the other day about some of the business leadership failures I have either witnessed, or heard about from my network, in the past few months. For some reason this topic reminded me of one of my favorite childhood stories, The Emperor’s New Clothes, by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Even though this folktale is almost 200 years old, it still has relevance.

CAVEAT: Although the parallels to some of our current political leaders are obvious, and it would be far too easy to pick on them, this article has absolutely no political aspirations or intent. My focus is purely on the world of business.

In case you have not read the story, or it has been a long time since you last heard it, here is a quick summary:

A vain emperor, who cares only about his status and appearance, and has a penchant for wearing fancy clothes, gets enchanted by two scheming weavers who promise to make him a new set of clothes unlike anything else in the kingdom. They bluff him with promises of an outfit made of fine and rare fabric that has the special power of being invisible to anyone who is unfit for their position, stupid, or incompetent. This proves to be too big a temptation for the emperor, who engages them immediately. In reality, the weavers only pretend to make the clothes. As a result, no one, not even the emperor nor his royal court can see the alleged “clothes” when they are finished, but they all play along lest they appear unfit for their positions. And the public has the same reaction when the emperor parades with his new clothes, lest they appear stupid or incompetent. Finally, a child, completely ignorant of the ruse, cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”

As a child, I found this tale, in its profound absurdity, to be very amusing. As an adult, I am coming to appreciate some of the applications to the modern business world.

Over the years, literary scholars have noted that the phrase, “Emperor’s new clothes”, has become a standard metaphor for anything that smacks of pretentiousness, pomposity, social hypocrisy, collective denial, or hollow ostentatiousness. Others have suggested that the real moral of the story is in having the courage of one’s convictions – to speak the truth and challenge authority, no matter what the repercussions or humiliation to the recipient.

All pretty relevant to effective leadership and today’s disrupted business environment.

Some Recent Examples

This got me to thinking about some of the lapses I have seen in the world of work over the past few months:

  • Companies with predominantly white male executive teams and boards, claiming they care about diversity and inclusion…
  • Organizations undertaking massive RIFs while simultaneously recruiting for “exciting career growth” job opportunities…
  • Public companies securing huge CARES relief loans at the expense of small ones who didn’t have the resources to apply quickly…
  • Leaders who claim they “lead from the front” yet have never visited their teams, or major clients, out in the field…
  • Tone deaf celebrities and business leaders sharing pictures of their swanky shelter-in-place digs (from mountain retreats to yachts)…
  • Companies who claim to be high-touch and people-centric in their recruiting firing people by email or group conference call…
  • Companies that have been hell-bent on growth and retail outlet expansion to gain market share, now demanding rent relief from property owners…

I’m sure you’ve probably seen a few notable examples as well.

Takeaways for Today’s Business Leaders

Of course, not all of the bad behavior examples above are attributable to vain or out-of-touch leaders, but I think many are. A few of them have garnered media scrutiny and negative publicity. Deservedly so.

Being the leader of an organization is a privilege. One that comes with responsibility.

It is appropriate to hold leaders accountable for what happens within their organizations. Depending on the example, individual leaders may not have done anything egregious, but they do craft organizational strategy, they do own the culture, they do set the tone, they should care about the well-being of their people, and by default every good leader should take full accountability for the actions of anyone in the organization.

In this new VUCA world, this time of turmoil and stress, it is time for leaders to step up.

Do the right thing.

Be a leader.

In that spirit, here are a few takeaways for today’s business leaders, which I think are also good values for any organization to embrace:

  • Display empathy. Run every decision and communication you make in regards to your workforce past this filter: In the past 3 months, nearly 40 million Americans have lost their jobs. Over 100,000 have lost their lives. Unemployment is now at historic highs. Is your decision empathic to those affected already, or those who are worried they may soon be?
  • Practice humility. It is not a time for grandstanding or braggadocio, it is a time to get busy, and do the hard work. The concept of servant leadership has great application here. Leaders should serve those on the front lines who are doing the work of the organization. Helping to solve problems and remove obstacles. Be a visible leader, but don’t take the credit for it.
  • Be honest. Nobody expects leaders to have all the answers. However, lies and deception always catch up to the owner. If leaders do not have the answers, then they should promise to work through it and find solutions. People don’t always expect you to have to have the final and definitive answers, they just want to know that leaders care and are working towards a solution.
  • Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. In fact, you cannot over-communicate to your organization in an environment like this. Practicing the above traits (empathy, humility, honesty) while providing frequent and transparent updates to your team. They will appreciate it, and you.
  • Lead by example. Great leaders lead from the front, and they walk the talk. If leaders are going to open a plant or office back up, they had better be the one opening the door and greeting each worker who enters. It would not hurt to be the one serving them coffee or lunch too!
  • Be human. I left this for last because I think it is the most important. Remember, business is all about people. Focus on them. Act with integrity. If all else fails, follow the golden rule: do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. Be human.

Conclusion

Organizations and their leaders show their true colors in the difficult times. In this new and unpredictable VUCA business environment, I hope more leaders step up and lead.

The world needs it. Now more than ever.

-Onward

What is Your Envisioned Future?

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“If you don’t know exactly where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?” – Steve Maraboli

In today’s disruptive VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) business environment it is critically important for organizations, teams, and individual contributors to have clarity on their vision of the future and what their long-term goals are.

This clear direction becomes a guiding beacon for building an effective VUCA strategic plan, one that clarifies your strategic intent and enables your organization to quickly make decisions and then take action in order to get there.

The Foundation for VUCA Strategic Planning

There are two foundational elements required effective VUCA strategic planning: Your core ideology and clarity around your envisioned future. Your long-term goals should be based on, and in alignment with, your mission, values, and purpose. Together these become the core ideology for your organization.

  • Core Ideology – defining the mission, values, and purpose of the organization. As a previous article explained, these elements describe why the organization exists and what it stands for. With this foundational framework you will have greater clarity when making critical business decisions that impact the future of your organization.

However, before any strategic VUCA planning can begin we must also have clarity around the envisioned future state of the organization:

  • Envisioned Future – defining a clear vision for what the organization aspires to become or achieve, and your long-term goals. These elements explain the desired future state of the organization, and the long-term goals you and your team are working towards achieving in order to get there.

Defining Your Envisioned Future: Vision and Goals

Articulating the envisioned future of your organization has two main components: a vision statement, and long-term goals:

  • Vision – Your vision statement defines what the organization aspires to become or achieve. Based on the current status of your organization, an effective vision will articulate where you want to take your organization in the future. Because of this future focus, your vision statement often sounds much different from what the organization is today (mission statement).

A specific and compelling vision statement can and should help drive decisions and goal setting. This description of what the desired future state looks can be extremely powerful for strategic planning because it provides inspiration and direction, and a focal point for the mission statement and an overall goal or destination for the organization. A clear vision will also help to identify and define potential strategies; and clarify what is within or outside of the organization’s limits.

  • Goals – The goals for your organization are brief, clear statements of significant outcomes to be accomplished within a longer timeframe, typically 3-5 years. A goal is defined with a broad, general, tangible, and descriptive statement – It does not say how to do something, but rather what the singular end-result will look like.

Goals are sometimes described as outcome statements that define what an organization is trying to accomplish both programmatically and organizationally. Some common examples of business goals are, grow profitability, maximize net income, improve customer loyalty, increase market share, etc. Note the brevity of these statements.

Goals are critical to your company’s success. Ultimately, your organization’s goals need to align with your vision, and support your mission, values and purpose. Together this planning foundation will propel each team member’s individual actions and decisions.

Goals Versus Objectives – What’s the Difference?

Business consultants love to develop complex models and invent proprietary terminology for each element of their frameworks. Strategic planning practitioners are no different. This often creates unnecessary confusion.

My bias is to keep things simple, defaulting to the most commonly used terms and definitions, and in the process hopefully making it easier to understand and adopt the VUCA strategic planning framework I’m proposing.

It has been my experience that most organizations, both large and small, public or private, do not understand the difference between a goal and an objective. As a result, they do not effectively communicate them to their teams. This has obvious negative ramifications when you think about the lost opportunity to cascade goals and objectives, and gain buy in, throughout an organization.

Here’s an explanation of the difference between goals and objectives to make sure there is no confusion or ambiguity when it comes to your long-term and short-term plans.

  • A goal is a broad and long-term desired result you want to achieve. You might use company goals to inform yearly strategies and guide the direction of all your efforts.
  • An objective, on the other hand, defines the specific, measurable actions individual employees or teams must take to achieve the overall goal. It is at the objective level that the ownership of the strategic plan shifts from organizational leaders to teams and individuals. This is where the actual work gets done!
  • A goal is where you want to be, and objectives are the steps taken to reach the goal.

Timeframe-based View of Vision, Goals, Objectives

In strategic planning, all the elements need to fit together, and build from one to the next. In other words, your vision statement should inform your goals, which should then inform your objectives. To eliminate any lingering confusion about the differences between vision, goals, and objectives, here’s another way to look at it. Since all strategic plans are time-based, that becomes the key differentiator between these sometimes contradictory and synonymous terms.

  • Vision – this is an aspirational statement that is not time-bounded. In fact, your vision may never actually be attained, but rather serves as an imagined picture of the future.
  • Goals – these are broader and longer-term, typically 2-5 years in timeframe. Your strategic VUCA plan will undoubtedly have several goals.
  • Objectives – the short-term, tactical action items to be accomplished within the next 12-24 months max. Each of your goals will have multiple objectives behind them, and they become a key component of the organization’s VUCA plan. Much more on that topic in future articles!

Next Step Towards Creating a VUCA Plan

In summary, your mission statement focuses on the present, and clarifies what the organization does and for whom. Your values define the core beliefs and provide moral guidance for the organization, becoming the operating system that determines how you get there. While your purpose defines “your why” to provide market-facing clarity on the value you deliver to your constituents.

Defining this core ideology for your organization creates a solid foundation and starting place for overall strategic planning to begin. It comes to life when you combine it with your envisioned future, to articulate a vision for what the organization aspires to become or achieve, and then defining your long-term goals in order to get there.

Organizations achieve their goals by creating strategic plans, within which they define the strategy, and key objectives the team must accomplish. Many organizations struggle with setting up actionable objectives. Next time I’ll share a methodology that I have successfully used for years – the SMARTER framework for setting objectives that get done.

-Onward

Hope is Not a Strategy

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“Hope is not a strategy.” – Vince Lombardi

I was speaking with a company leader earlier this week about the scale of disruption she was seeing in the industry, and the significant impact it was having on her organization’s financials. She then stated, “I just hope we get back to normal soon.”

I took a deep breath and, as delicately as possible, shared my view that this was not going to happen.

Why? The dramatic shock we have experienced in the global economy is already causing widespread changes in almost all aspects of the business world, both on the buy-side and sell-side. For both B2C and B2B businesses across almost every industry.

Nobody is immune. And things are simply not going to revert back to where they were.

I then observed that hope is never an effective strategy for solving problems. In this unpredictable and chaotic new VUCA business environment, we need to think strategically and take decisive action to overcome the challenges we are facing.

We ended up having a great conversation about all the changes that will likely happen in the broader world of work, and a few in particular that are very likely to impact her industry and organization directly.

It is super interesting to note that several of the trends we discussed have already been creeping into her market over the last 12-18 months, but have not gained much traction yet. I suspect the post-pandemic business environment will accelerate these changes…it will be like pouring gasoline over a lit matchstick.

BOOM!

By the end of our conversation we had uncovered and brainstormed a few great ideas for new solutions that her company is both well positioned to offer, and highly capable to execute on.

The shift in energy was dramatic. In just a few minutes, the conversation had morphed from downtrodden “hope” about something that was, if we are being honest, completely out of her control to tangible excitement about actions she had her team could take, all within her control.

As it turns out, the new normal (whatever that turns out to be) actually brings with it many new opportunities if you are paying attention and start looking for them!

Bottom line: It is okay to be hopeful and optimistic about the future, but we must also act today.

Sitting and waiting, hoping we get back to normal, is not how you succeed. Hope does not make or produce anything. Believing in something, setting goals, creating flexible VUCA plans, and taking focused action, is the only proven path forward.

-Onward

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