Visioning: Các khái niệm, bộ ba, và quá trìnhTạo ra một tầm nhìn là chìa khóa để tổ chức thành công. bởi John R. LathamWHY SHOULD YOU CREATE A VISION? For years, researchers have closely studied successful people to identify common characteristics that contribute to success. While they haven’t been able to identify specific common characteristics, they have found that many successful people “were able to picture themselves, vividly, having already attained their goals, and they retained that image in their minds constantly, assuring themselves again and again that they knew they would succeed.” 1 Organizations are no different. One of four common characteristics of Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners is that all had a vision of what quality was and how they would achieve it.2 Walt Disney always recognized the power of a vision. Paul Murphy of the American Productivity and Quality Center tells a story about the power of this vision.3 His son was chosen to be a part of the Disney World summer program, which is a program that hires college students and provides them with training in the way the Disney World theme park does business. Once while at the park, Murphy’s son saw a woman who looked upset, and, even though it was his day off, he immediately walked over and talked with her until, a few minutes later, she smiled. When Murphy asked his son why he had approached the woman, his son said, “She looked unhappy, so I went over to see how I could help. If she walks around the park with a frown, soon everyone will be frowning, and we can’t have that because this is ‘the happiest place on earth.’ ” When Murphy asked his son where he had heard that, he responded, “They teach it to us in classes held to acquaint us with Walt Disney’s vision.” When Murphy commented that Disney was dead, his son replied, “Not here he isn’t.” And he was right. Disney’s vision is alive, and that is why Disney theme parks are the first-class opera tions that they are. While there is no procedure that instructs employees to go help someone who is unhappy, they are guided by the picture in their minds of a Disney park being “the happiest place on earth,” and they simply do what is necessary to make that a reality. A vision is the essential element in organizational success. It provides direction and drives everything that is done in an organization. Without a vision, an organization is like a ship without a rudder. All types of organizations have difficulty bridging the gap between vision theory and an actual vision. The visioning concept, vision trilogy, and the eight-step visioning process bridge that gap so a vision can be any organization’s key to success. The visioning concept A vision is a picture in your mind of the ideal or utopian organization, life, marriage, and so on. Visioning, a right-brain activity, is creating a fullcolor, detailed movie in your imagination that you can recall with the proper stimulus. A vision, like a dream, is vivid; you can see, taste, smell, hear, and feel it. With the proper stimulus, visioning, or visualizing, is not a difficult process. Actually, people visualize all the time; they call it daydreaming or members, however, developing a common vision can be difficult, and the degree of difficulty is directly proportional to the number of members. Vision vs. mission Although often used interchangeably, mission and vision statements are distinctly different, and each has its own purpose, style, criteria, and components. As shown in Figure 1, a mission is for today’s goals and the vision is for tomorrow’s goals. The mission statement identifies an organization’s customers and critical processes, often with a qualifier of what level of performance the organization is dedicated to delivering. The mission consists of those things that the organization concentrates on daily to survive. A vision statement, on the other hand, is a long-range prospect or state of being that is worked on every day but will not be accomplished in the near future. The vision is that perfect state that might never be reached, but which you never stop trying to achieve. The mission-vision relationship is analogous to your personal life, in which you can categorize daily efforts into those that you do to survive today, such as going to work or fixing the car, and those that you do to prepare for tomorrow, such as attending school to obtain a graduate degree or taking on a special project to prepare for higher responsibilities. For a vision to be successful, it must empower. Empowerment is a combination of motivation to act, authority to do the job, and the enablement to get it done. Enablement requires a vivid picture of the destination. Criteria of visions Successful visions fulfill three criteria: They are timeless, inspirational, and provide clear guidelines for decision making.4 A vision is far-reaching; it describes a utopian place where everything is perfect. You might never arrive at your vision, but arriving isn’t the important part; it’s trying to get there and continually improving that matters. The progressive realization of the vision is critical to success. Inspiration is the force behind the motivation to act, and action toward the vision is what ultimately makes the vision a reality. A clear, common picture of the desired end provides criteria for decision making. This picture enables and empowers employees at all levels of the organization. The need for cumbersome organizational policy manuals is reduced because the vision becomes a flexible guide to decisions. Tim Frye of Motorola, Inc. once remarked that he used the company’s vision of six-sigma quality along with its fundamental objective of total customer satisfaction as a guide when faced with difficult decisions in gray areas not covered by company policy.5 It is impossible for a policy manual to address every situation an employee might encounter, but the picture of six-sigma capability and a totally satisfied customer enabled Frye to make sound, timely decisions that were responsive to the customer’s needs. This responsive customer focus supports Motorola’s overall desire to be the finest company in the world. The vision trilogy As shown in Figure 2, the vision trilogy consists of culture, people, and product or service. The trilogy, coupled with the criteria needed for a vision, creates a complete, vivid mental picture of the desired end. The culture of an organization is simply the way it does business. “Stories, myths, and analogies convey the organization’s shared values or culture. The stronger the culture and the more it is directed toward the marketplace, the less need for policy manuals, organizational charts, procedures, and rules. The people way down the line know what they are supposed to do because of a handful of guiding values that are crystal clear.” 6 Values, norms, and shared experiences make up the overall picture of how a group does business.7 The people component of the vision trilogy is the selfish, or what’s-in-it-for-me, part. This most often is the personal and professional growth and development that benefit the individual and, in turn, the organization. Thus, calling this the selfish component is inaccurate because it actually creates a win-win situation and, perhaps more important, it stimulates the desired visual picture. It is important to treat employees like they are No. 1 so they’ll treat the customer in the same way. Including this element not only makes employees feel valued, it also helps them buy into the vision more readily and with greater commitment. The product or service component of the vision trilogy is the ultimate reason why the organization exists. This component isn’t limited to products and services; it often extends to the organization’s role in the environment and society because, increasingly, maximizing shareholder value isn’t the only reason for conducting business. Visionary goals Visionary goals should be used to provide clear decisionmaking criteria. Visionary goals are more specific, subject-oriented statements that complement the shorter inspirational vision statement. For example, an office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs uses visionary goals to provide clarity to its concise, overarching, single-sentence vision statement (see Figure 3). Some organizations forgo the shorter statement, and their visionary goals become their vision. The visioning process The visioning process is designed to provide structure to the seemingly structureless concept of creating a vision. The eight steps of this process are: collect input, brainstorm, shrink the mess, develop a rough draft, refine the statements, test the criteria, obtain organization approval or modify, and communicate and celebrate. An affinity diagram can be used to facilitate the first few steps.8 Collecting input and brainstorming produces many ideas, and an affinity diagram helps group the numerous ideas into their natural relationships or affinities. This grouping allows you to consolidate, eliminate, and choose the word or words that best represent each group as a whole. These representative words can then be written on Post-it notes and the notes arranged to form complete ideas or visions. But first you need to solicit input from the organization. Step 1: Collect input The vision, to be most effective, should represent the ideals of the entire organization. Creation of the vision can be done most successfully with a representative group of five to seven people. With fewer than five people, energy and ideas are reduced; with more than seven people, the law of diminishing returns applies. The more people you add, the longer consensus takes. To avoid having too many people, solicit input from people outside the team by using a survey. Ask people to answer the following questions (the first three questions relate to the vision trilogy, and the fourth question is designed to open up ideas beyond the trilogy)
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