How do you foresee your destiny? What
are you aiming for?
Vision statement provides a
rallying point for an organisation to march in a coordinated fashion towards
its desired destiny like a guiding star.
Indian National Movement for
freedom is a classic example of how a
Vision statement properly worded, communicated and followed with right
strategies could galvanise ordinary people to achieve improbable actions.
"Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it", said Balagangadhar Tilak in the early part of
1900s.
In
September 1920, Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi, known as the Father of the Indian nation
prevailed
upon congress to adopt ‘Swaraj’ as the
vision for the organisation.
The
Vision of a Free Indian State,
ignited the Indian masses in due course
leading to the well know Indian Freedom movement and subsequent release of the subcontinent
from th clutches of the British Rule.
INC
took upon itself the mission of educating the masses through a series of
activities and to sensitize them about the importance of freeing the country
from the clutches of the empire.
While
Gandhi used Non Violence and Non cooperation as the strategy to evict the
British rulers, what he used was a series of tactics and activities like Quit
India Movement, Dandi March and a series of civil disobedience movements to galvanise
the masses and keep up the momentum till the eventual end result is achieved.
In
the same way, a Vision Statement that resonates with the stakeholders in an
organisation has got the ability to galvanise and motivate the members and
provide a powerful unifying force that guides people at all levels to strive to
achieve seemingly impossible things.
Vision
Statement reflects the organisation’s wish for achievement for the long term.
A
clear vision could be broken down into a series of sub-visions that would lead
to the development of mission and strategy of an organisation. This should
adequately capture the future position of an organisation with respect its areas of operation, technology adaption,
customers, stakeholders, business partners, vendors, products, services,
positioning w.r.t competitors etc.
For example:
A
vision statement for an Indian airline could be:
To be the largest carrier of choice in
Indian Subcontinent.
Subsets
to this could be:
To delight the customers and be the airliners of
choice by the majority of air passengers
To be a partner of choice to the
travel agents across the country and hold a majority
share
of their earnings.
To be the most profitable of all
the airliners and reward the shareholders with more than
Double the market rate of
return.
To be the employer of choice and
delight the employees through highest level of earnings
and job satisfaction.
To be the partner of choice for
all business associates like airports, banks, lenders and the
like through consistent win-win transactions.
To
be the best corporate in the country in the eyes of Government and Society by
complying
With all the rules and regulations of the land,
highest contribution the society and exchequer among all the airline companies.
Once the vision is laid out, the company could lay out
appropriate strategies, define the values, set up performance benchmarks along
with corresponding timelines, reporting and reward structures to gradually inch
towards the stated vision. This process of reaching the desirable future
position as enunciated by the Vision statement becomes the mission of all the
leaders of the organisation at various levels.
The march of an organisation towards its Vision will
lead to implementation of strategic decisions, tactical actions, operational
priorities at all levels.
The vision statement should be sufficiently
communicated and carried through every level in the organisation. This would
involve the process of creating a number of leaders in the organisation who are
thoroughly convinced about the vision of the organisation and carry the message
through a systematic effort across various levels until the entire organisation
shares the vision & resonates with one goal, then the success indeed becomes
probable!
In the case of Indian National Movement, a number of
leaders like including C.
Rajagopalachari, Jawaharlal
Nehru, Vallabhbhai
Patel, Subhash Chandra
Bose and
others- became the prominent voices of the Indian independence
movement and carried the messages to the masses.
Leaders at various levels should strive to keep the
entire organisation focussed on achieving the inspiring vision by excelling at
their respective roles which are designed as a part of the framework to work in
synergy to achieve the overall goal while they achieve to strive their
individual goals in a focused manner. This
will ensure that there is an environment in which people are empowered
to take ownership of their actions while the leaders perform the role of
aligning the actions of various departments and ensure there is harmony, synergy
and a shared sense of achievement.
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References: Wikipedia, Leveraging the organisation’s vision to align leaders and unlock potential by
Grant Freedman
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