A recent Citibank survey found that 81% of respondents voiced uncertainty about how their business will do over the next 12 months? With all this uncertainty and changing perceptions, should companies just take a wait-and-see attitude? Or should they realize that the world has changed and, the sooner they embrace it, the faster they will recover.

Our belief is that today is a new day. While eight out of 10 competitors are afraid to make moves, we insist the time is now to move forward. Sitting still is falling behind.

The key is to move ahead in a strategic, bold and definitive manner so the entire organization operates with precision and focus. Unfortunately, most organizations do not have such clarity or the means to achieve it. This is where a clear vision can guide your team toward a bright future.

There is not a cookie-cutter model for a great vision statement, but rather the culture of an organization is often the driving force of a new Vision. There are four basic types of vision statements. Here are some good examples of each.

Quantitative
• Become a $125 billion company by the year 2000. – Wal-Mart, 1990
• A computer on every desk and in every home; all running Microsoft software. – Microsoft, 1990s
• We will put a man on the moon and return him safely within the decade. – JFK, early 1960s

David-versus-Goliath
• Crush Adidas – Nike, 1960s
• Yamaha wo tsubusu! We will destroy Yamaha! – Honda, 1970s

Role-Model
• Become the Harvard of the West – Stanford University, 1940s
• Become the Nike of the cycling industry – Giro Sport Design, 1986

Internal Transformations
• Become number one or two in every market we serve and revolutionize this company to have the strengths of a big company combined with the leanness and agility of a small company. — GE, 1980s
• Transform this company from a defense contractor into the best-diversified high-tech company in the world. — Rockwell, 1995
• Become the company most known for changing the worldwide poor-quality image of Japanese products. — Sony, 1950s

Which style best suits your corporate vision?

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 9:57 pm and is filed under Culture Guides Vision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.