- In a rapidly changing world every organization
needs a purpose, what's often called a North Star,
which everyone in the organization can follow.
That may sound like an awfully touchy feely assertion,
but it's actually a logical, rational requirement
for strategically agile organizations.
Constant change makes it nearly impossible
for an organization of any size
to continually make quick decisions
and to have the entire organization
rapidly act upon those decisions.
As new opportunities appear, or are created,
decision makers throughout the entire organization
need to be empowered to assess
what fits the organization's portfolio of assets
and initiatives so they can move quickly and independently.
That's why a strategically agile organization,
one that is designed to continually adapt
to a constantly changing world must have a purpose.
There are three components to an organization's purpose.
These include a vision of the world you want to see,
a mission that defines the organization's goals
and a set of core values that define
it's actions to reach those goals.
Think of these as anchors, which root the organization
in a set of common characteristics
to help it stay on course
when it's buffeted by the winds of change.
The first anchor of the organization is it's vision.
What kind of world does the organization
want to help come into being.
It could be something as simple as
a world where you've made your customers ecstatically happy
or as breathtakingly huge as a world
where you've created a lasting change and scale.
It should so big a vision it's unattainable.
To a plumbing company it might be something like
a world where everyone has access to clean running water.
And to a software company it could be more like,
to help every small business manage it's finances
to maximize revenue and reduce costs.
Next.
What's the organization's mission?
What problem or problems is it working to accomplish?
A mission can be something that
might actually be achievable in your lifetime.
The plumber might want to
solve every customer's problem in a single visit.
And the software company might
hope to reduce the cost of running a business.
Workers in the organization need to feel
the mission is attainable if they work hard enough
and smart enough.
The vision and mission that help to define
the organization's core values;
those values need to describe the kinds of actions
that workers in the organization will take
as they're helping the organization
to reach those strategic goals.
It might be something as simple as
treating everyone fairly or placing the customer first.
Because everyone in the organization
needs to be able to recite them,
the list of core values should only be
about a half a dozen to a dozen long.
And each value statement needs to be specific,
in terms of the kinds of behaviors
that are tolerated and supported in the organization.
And by definition, those behaviors that aren't.
What does all of this have to do with strategic agility?
Everything.
The organization strategy comes from it's purpose.
The more intentional an organization is
about defining it's purpose in the world
and in it's markets, the better and more agile
it's strategy will be.
Having a stated purpose; which means having a mission,
a vision and clearly articulated values;
gives everyone in the organization
the same information about what success can look like.
It provides that set of anchors for the organization,
making it far easier to turn the ship on rough seas.
You'll also find that without a clearly stated purpose,
it will be increasingly difficult to hire,
retain and develop the workers you need to be successful,
especially millennials, the generation
that will eventually be leading our world
and who are increasingly demanding
to work for an organization that has a purpose
in the first place.
If you've engaged in this kind of exercise before,
you'll know that the biggest pitfall is wordsmithing,
trying to get exactly the right words
for every single aspect of the organization's purpose.
That's not very agile.
Sure, words matter, but don't make
the perfect the enemy of the good.
Give the task of defining or redefining the mission,
vision and values to as small a team as possible.
Then spread them to an increasingly larger group of people,
to get their input.
Set a tight deadline for completion.
Disseminate the purpose statements widely
then move on to the next problem to be solved.