Vision by Ray Pelletier

What Is Vision?

A vision is a long-term goal. It is an objective. It's not the same as a set of core values, although those can be part of a vision. A vision identifies where the company should be headed. If a vision is a football team's goal line, then the core values outline how the team plans to reach that goal — playing fairly, respecting their opponent, and other issues.

But a vision to many companies is the same as a football game can be to the fan in the stands. If a spectator watches a well-executed timing pattern, he praises the quarterback's throw and the receiver's discipline and focuses on being able to catch the ball with half a ton of defense bearing down on him.

But, to the team, that play is far more complex than that. It involves calling the right play at the right time, knowing the nuances of the defense and how they're likely to react in that given situation. And, since it's a timing pattern, the ball is thrown before the receiver is in the spot to catch it. It's thrown to where he's going to be, not where he is at the moment the ball leaves the quarterback's hand.

That's vision. It's complicated, takes a great deal of thought, analysis, and introspection, and, most important, identifies where a company will be, not necessarily where it happens to be at the moment.

Unfortunately, few organizations have vision. As I analyze organizations in depth on consulting assignments, I help companies identify root-cause problems — deeply imbedded mistakes and misfires that consistently undermine those companies' successes. And, inevitably, those problems circle back to the reality that people really don't know where they're going or don't know where the company is going. Some don't even know there's at least in theory — a direction to the company at all! And that's nothing more than a Titanic in search of an iceberg.

Elmer Fudd and Backdraft

Why don't more companies have a real vision in place? Far too often, it's an issue of time and the pressures of the moment. Everyone from CEOs to department heads are just so stressed. They are strung out trying to deliver the next quarter's results and trying to make sure that sales are increasing. They're so focused on all the immediate issues that they don't ever get a chance to address the question of vision.

They're constantly chasing rabbits — the quarterly sales mark that needs to be hit, the vendor who's consistently late. These are all justifiable issues, but far too often, that's all many companies worry about. They're like Elmer Fudd, always chasing that wascally wabbit! And, you'll notice that Bugs Bunny always manages to outwit Elmer Fudd in the end.

Another way to look at it is through a firefighter's eyes. Backdraft was a great movie — -very visual, very exciting. And a central focus was the firefighters who were constantly being called in to put out massive blazes.

It is sad but true that 80 percent of the organizations that I work with are terrific firefighters. They are very, very good at putting out fires. The trouble is, they're not very good about operating their business. Because all they do is put out fires and respond to crises, they're distracted from what they actually should be doing to build their business into a champion. And that's where vision comes into play.

There's another way to gain the perspective of vision and what it truly means. Stephen Covey wrote an extraordinary book called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Free Press, 1990). One of the keepers that I found from his book is that most people spend the majority of their time concentrating on urgent issues. This is true of most organizations that I visit. They're not working on the important things like vision and a mission for them to execute. They're like Elmer Fudd and the firefighters from Backdraft — dealing with urgent issues, but never addressing the really important issues. And, to develop championship customer service, you need to turn that around!

A Champion's Choice

Wayne Gretzky had it right when it came to vision. The Great One said the reason he was so successful is that he never skated to where the puck was. He skated to where the puck was going to be.

Think about that as visually as possible. As three or four players are scrumming in the corner fighting among themselves, Gretzky knows that they're just chasing rabbits — that the puck is going to be somewhere else very soon. And that's where he goes. Shoots. Scores. Game over.

That's what visioning does — -always knowing where you're going and have to be, not where you've just been.

Breaking Down Vision

For a number of years, there's been this tremendous emphasis on strategic planning and other aspects of developing a global strategy for your business. But, in most ways, people missed the point, because the question of what you're really building as a business was never really addressed. That's a question of vision.

So what do you need to ask when trying to build a vision? Here's a sample checklist to get your vision ball rolling:

• What are you trying to accomplish with your business?

• What are the trends in your industry and what can you do to anticipate and even beat them to the punch rather than just putting out yet another fire?

• What are your market barriers?

• Are you focusing on the issues that really matter? Right now you may be focused on building widgets, but the widget market is bound to change. How? How can we change as the product and the marketplace as a whole change as well?

• What do you want your customers to feel?

• What do you want you and others in that organization to feel?

Not only are these critical questions unto themselves, if you dig just a bit deeper beneath the surface, you realize that they all inevitably come back to customer service. Rephrasing those questions just a bit, what are you really going to be providing for your customers in the years ahead? How are your customers themselves going to change? And how can you foresee what changes are on the horizon and position your company so that you're there to greet that change rather than having it flatten you? That's what builds championship customer service.

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Ray Pelletier is founder and President of The Pelletier Group, as well as a consultant and professional speaker.

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Excerpted with permission of the publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. from It's All About Service. Copyright (c) 2005 by Ray Pelletier. This book is available at all bookstores, online booksellers and from the Wiley web site at www.wiley.com, or call 1-800-225-5945.