Inside out: values, vision, strategy

It's the start of a new financial year. Time for a new business plan, people want to know what's in store, what's the "new vision"... So where to start?

“Customer focus”, “Outcomes”, “Long term strategy”, “Big picture”, “Results”...

Obvious, right?

Well.. I’m not so sure. I think there’s at least a couple of problems with starting at the end and working back.

To begin with, I don't know that we can do the best job for our customers if we're not in the right frame of mind, feeling good and thinking positively.


The other thing is future uncertainty. How can you know today what the right place, time or cost will be?

Here's a bit more on those two...


1) If things aren't right at home, your customers won’t make it better – It seems to me that things become easier when your own house is in order. If you're not happy about something before you get to work, chances are it’ll impact your work. So taking it right back to basics is, in my opinion, the starting point. One of my favourite takeways from "The Art of Happiness at Work" is Dr Wrzesniewski's interviewee comment:

"My job can't make me feel better, I have to take care of that."

Fast forward a few steps to work. Does it make sense to embark on lots of customer engagement before the team is happy? Maybe not, but I wonder how many organisations spend more time, money and energy doing customer focus exercises than they do focusing on their own staff.

Origins of Satisfaction

2) Even Nostradamus got it wrong – So why do organisations think they’ll be any different?  I can't be certain what’s going to happen tomorrow. Predicting the price of petrol next year? I wouldn't bet on it. Nonetheless, business plans are inevitably sprinkled with guesswork and wishful thinking. 


Traditional thinking assumes that in order to stand a good chance of arriving in the right place, at the right time, at the right cost you must have a clearly defined roadmap to get there. History is littered with failed attempts to predict the future as long-term plans change shape, miss their targets or simply aren’t delivered. And the ones that do meet their targets? ..have contingency built in to such a level that the truth is, they were always adaptive.


So wouldn't it be more realistic (and effective) to accept, design for and encourage an ‘adaptive vision’ - based upon collective values - that responds to circumstances as they evolve?

Here's a definition of "adaptive vision" from Jon Husband + Luis Suarez: 

"An adaptive vision is one that can change and adapt as context and landscape shifts, without losing the fundamental touchstone, or your core values"

It's a simplification, I know, but I tend to identify "values" more as internal and "vision" more as external. On this basis, I think values are less prone to change than vision, because there are less variables.  And if "strategy" is the route to a vision then, there must be infinite strategic possibilities. 

Degrees of Certainty

So whilst nothing is certain, "values" ought to be most consistent; "vision" changeable; and "strategy" fluid. If you can agree collective values and accept an adaptive vision, a strategy will emerge.


The questions that remain are: what’s going to make you happy? ...what’s going to make the team happy? And if you can’t predict the future with certainty, but you can commit to values, what values?

Here’s a few suggestions that spring to mind: 

• being helpful (and sharing)
• being honest (and building trust)
• encouraging openness (and accepting failure)
• supporting democracy (and being fair)...

Inside out.