Do You Know Where You Are Going?

Stating the bleeding obvious…

When I was in my 20s I went on a course.The instructor put up a slide.  It looked like this:

His point was simple.To be successful create alignment.Make sure everybody is pulling in the same direction.  It was such an obvious point that I wondered why on earth we were paying him to make it.

Older and wiser

20 years on, I am a little wiser and more underwhelmed by the ways of the world.

Most organisations don’t create alignment.  They don’t have a unifying purpose.  At least not one that anybody with any imagination is going to get behind.  Take Barnes & Noble, the US book retailer as an example.  Their mission is:

To operate the best omni-channel specialty retail business in America, helping both our customers and booksellers reach their aspirations, while being a credit to the communities we serve.

How is that for all-encompassing and vague?  I bet it scares the guys at Amazon out of their minds…

Nature abhors a vacuum

Humans seek meaning and purpose.  If people don’t have a purpose, they will create one.  So:

• Purchasing want the lowest prices
• Operations aim to cut costs
• Sales strive to maximise revenue
• HR focus on getting the best people
• Finance try to push up profits

These goals all seem sensible at first.  And they create huge amounts of energy.  That energy powers initiatives.  But as none of these aspirations defines where the whole business wants to be, those initiatives shoot off in different directions and at cross-purposes.  The net result is zero, the business goes nowhere.

Showing now in an organisation near you…

Let me suggest a couple of scenarios:

• A sales force wants to become a “Revenue Centre of Excellence”.  The sales director hands out sales targets to all his staff who run off and drum up more and more sales.
• An operations department aims for “World Class Efficiency”.  It reduces its absolute spend and headcount, cutting out people left, right and centre.
• An HR department aims to be the “Lowest Cost to Serve”. It outsources all its learning and development capability.

Each department is pulling in a different direction.  Is it a surprise when the conversations become a little fractious?

Organisation is the art of coordinating effort

If you want to become “World class” a good first step is to agree what want to be “World class” at.

What are you about?

• Making Sustainable Life Commonplace ~ Unilever
• Helping Britain Prosper ~ Lloyds Banking Group
• Improving People’s Lives Through Meaningful Innovation ~ Phillips

Writing your purpose down is not enough, it’s worthless unless you act on it.  But to paraphrase Lewis Carol:

If you don’t know where you are going, all roads will get you there ~ Cheshire Cat