The Change Vision: the center of successful organizational transformations

The Change Vision

The Change Vision This is one of the principal elements of the 10 Elements. It is the central axis of a successful organizational transformation. It defines the why – the what for – of a strategic change that any enterprise may take on. Defining the change vision is the responsibility of the top management. In addition, it becomes the principal proof of a Committed Leadership (top management). A clear, precise change vision, that is shared by all the members of top management, will help in constructing a business case that has a greater probability of success. It is essential that top management dedicate sufficient time to agreeing on the vision (the why and what for of a transformation project). It should be made public only after the group has reached a consensus.

If the top management team is truly involved in defining the vision, this will also generate their participation in defining the how (the implementation strategy). Communicating the vision and the implementation strategy to the whole organization should be done with clarity and in terms that are easy to understand by the various audiences. It is also key to verify complete understanding. On several of the projects on which we have participated, after assessing the change readiness we have observed how little top management really shares the vision. In some cases we have been surprised to note that the CEO’s vision and growth objectives are not clear by all of his direct reports. For example, at one company in particular, when we asked the management team what the vision was, they could recite the words that made up the vision but most did not mention the great growth objectives that the CEO wanted to reach. At another organization that consists of a group of companies that report to a holding company, the CEO of each company had his own vision of what he wanted to achieve as to growth objectives. However, when you added up all of these objectives they were nowhere near the objective that the president of the holding company wanted to reach as a group. To resolve this situation, we did a job with the affiliates and the holding company to set a mega-objective that consisted in doubling revenue over a specified period of time following a series of concrete parameters.

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book, Built to Last, studied organizations that have been able to stand out over time and that have what they call “BHAG: a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal.” They include companies such as Ford, that for its founder, Henry Ford, the BHAG was to “democratize the automobile” or Wal-Mart, that in 1990 set quadrupling its size by 2000 with sales of 125 million dollars. These examples reflect the importance of having a clear, precise, concise, challenging and motivating vision. It is like the mission that Van France, professor and founder of Disneyland’s University, received from Walt Disney, when Disneyland was inaugurated: create “the happiest place on Earth.” Now, Disney has very successful amusement parks, not just in the United States but also around the world. Furthermore, Disney is now one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world.

We would like to know whether you are familiar with organizations that, having a clear, precise, risky, audacious, change vision that shared by top management, have generated an energy that led to a successful strategic change. Write and tell us about it!