BUILDING YOUR

COMPANY’S VISION
COLLINGS AND PORRAS
SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES

• Have core values and core purpose that remain fixed while strategies
and practices adapt to endless change.
• How to preserve core while stimulating progress.
• Great companies understand the difference between what we should
never change and what should be open to change.
• Difference between what is sacred and that which is not.
• This understanding is tied into the ability to develop a vision.
VISON

• Overworked and over used.

• Yet least understood.
• Means different thinks to different people.
• Need to develop a framework to clarify and define vision – objectify.
• Collins and Porras offers such a framework after 6 years of reseach.
• A well-conceived vision consists of two parts: core ideology
and envisioned future.
CORE IDEOLOGY – PART 1 OF VISION

• Defines the enduring character of an organization – consistent identity.

• Transcends product and market life cycles, fads, changing leaders, and
so on…
• Provides the glue that holds an organization together as it grows,
decentralizes, diversifies, expands globally, and develops workplace
diversity.
• Enduring ideals and principles.
• Fundamental reason for its existence.
• Ideology relates to that which is cognitive – the role of ideas.
CORE VALUES

• Essential and enduring tenets of an organization.

• Small set of timeless guiding principles – require no external validation.
• They are intrinsic and important to those within the organization.
• Central to this is that companies make the decision for itself what
values it holds as core.
• This process is largely independent of circumstances and events taking
place outside the boundary of the firm.
• Key to have a set of core values, not necessarily what the specifics of
core are.
CORE

• Companies tend to have only a few.

• Need to achieve by relentless honesty and must pass the test of time.
• A company should not change its core values in response to market
changes, rather it should change markets.
• In summary, values relate to culture, so we are dealing with elements
of organizational culture – shared values, beliefs, and attitudes.
CORE PURPOSE

• 2nd part of ideology.

• Reason for being – rationale underpinning existance.
• Idealistic motivations for doing the company’s work.
• Soul of the company.
• More than dealing with company’s outputs and targeting of customers.
• Should last 100 years.
• Not to be confused with specific goals or strategies.
• Not instrumental but ideals.
METHODOLOGY FOR DISCOVER CORE
PURPOSE
• Ask why – five times.
• After a few you will be begin to discover the purpose.
• None of the core purposes fall into the category of maximizing
shareholder wealth.
• Role if to guide and inspire.
DISCOVER CORE IDEOLOGY

• Do not create it.

• It is discovered.
• Do not deduce by looking at the external environment.
• Needs to be authentic.
• Cannot fake it.
• What core values should be hold?
• Guide and inspire - not to differentiate.
CORE COMPETENCE

• Not to be confused with core ideology.

• Deals with specific goals.
• Capabilities.
• Need to be aligned with core ideology.
• Changes with the times.
• Managerial logic – Chandler.
CORE IDEOLOGY

• Needs to be meaningful and inspirational.

• Repels those personal values that are organizationally incompatible.
• Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals aid long-term vision.
BHAG

• 10 to 30 years goals.
• Envisioned Future.
• Tangible, energizing, highly focused.
• Vision.
• Must translate the vision from words to pictures with a vivid description
of what it will be like to achieve your goals.
• Passion, emotion, and conviction are essential fuel dreams.
BEHAG

• Core purpose and BHAGs are not the same.

• A BEHAG is a clearly articulated goal – means to end – instrumental.
• Mountain to climb.
• Achievable.
• Accomplishments.
• Objectified.
HOW TO?

• The basic dynamic of visionary companies is to preserve the core,

stimulate progress.
• Vision and mission provide the context.
• Seldom do the soft words translate into realizable objectified goals –
this is the problem.
• See Johnson and Johnson credo.
• Key is to create the culture to get synergism and alignment.
• Integration is difficult to achieve – maximizes efficiency.