Business
Is there a destination in your company’s journey?
A business strategy roadmap should start by defining the company’s purpose and ambition
I read Lewis Carroll’s book Alice in Wonderland and watched the movie a few times with my kids when they were little. One of the things in the story that stuck with me and stuck with me is this dialogue where Alice was confronted with a fork in the road:
‘Alice: Could you please tell me which way to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a lot on where you want to go.
Alice: I don’t really care where. The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t really matter which way you go.
Alice: … As long as I get somewhere.’
I tapped this scene to teach my children how to determine their own direction.
Fast forward to many years later, I find myself using this as inspiration to help companies find their way.
Some companies are like Alice. They go about their business and stay busy, but without long-term direction. They work from year to year. If they meet this year’s goal (assuming they even have one), well and good. If not, there’s always next year. Of course, there are companies that grow despite operating this way. They end up somewhere somehow, just like Alice. But simply following short-term goals does not open a path to more meaningful and sustainable growth and success.
One of the things we are often asked by client companies is strategic planning. They want us to help them identify their strategic priorities and develop a roadmap to guide them in the years ahead.
The first question we ask them is exactly the question from The Cheshire Cat: “Where do you even want to go?” “Where do you want to take the company in the next five or ten years?” Without a defined destination, having a plan or road map is useless. We don’t want to just end up ‘somewhere’. We want our journey to be intentional and purposeful.
We strongly recommend that a company first define its purpose and ambition (also called mission and vision) before embarking on strategic planning.
BIGGER WHOLE
Purpose and Ambition take a company to something deeper and more meaningful. They help ensure that the company’s priorities and plans are not developed in a vacuum, not tactically, not in the short term, but rather developed in the context of a bigger picture.
The Purpose Statement is an articulation of the company’s core reason for existence and how it adds value to the lives of its stakeholders. It answers why you do what you do, other than making money. For example, Google’s goal is: “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
In his book Start with WhySimon Sinek says people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. When people believe in your Why, they are often inspired to support you because you create meaning for them, whether it is your employees, customers or business partners. It has been shown that companies with a clear purpose achieve better business results than those without purpose because they generally have stronger brand equity, more loyal customers and more engaged employees.
The Ambition Statement is the desired future state of the company and the organization that the company is aiming for. It answers what the company wants to become. It is written in a way that focuses on a clear end goal and inspires employees to put in the effort to work towards it, as exemplified by Google’s Ambition “To provide access to the world’s information in one click.”
The Ambition becomes the fundamental basis for establishing the company’s financial and non-financial objectives, as well as the strategic commitments for the coming years. It is the destination that must be reached.
The Purpose & Ambition Statements can be regarded as the anchor for a Strategic Plan.
Some leaders are tempted to skip this step because they find talking about these topics too vague, too subjective, and perhaps even too emotional. They prefer to get on with the hard stuff, i.e. strategic planning. But as The Cheshire Cat replied to Alice, ‘which way you go depends a lot on where you want to go’.
So, first things first. Define your purpose and ambition – your why and what. Then you can develop your How, which is your Strategic Plan.
Acumen’s Strategy Navigator framework integrates a company’s purpose and ambition into the strategic planning process, ensuring that the resulting strategies and plans are anchored in a clear destination. Obviously, more is needed to create a good strategic plan. But in our experience, the approach of starting with Purpose & Ambition is likely to produce a more compelling, meaningful and comprehensive strategic plan that inspires sustained organizational support.
A well-established strategic plan maximizes the opportunity to achieve better business performance, motivate and engage employees, and have a deeper impact on society. This doesn’t just get companies somewhere; they end up somewhere worthwhile. — Zinnia Rivera, Client Director, Acumen Strategy Consultants, insight.com.ph.
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