Defining the change vision and change story
The starting point for driving change is a compelling ‘need for change’ clearly communicated to everyone. From the workforce’s viewpoint, the first step of their engagement in the change program is when they hear the messaging around the ‘need for change’. What they hear, how they understand the message and their support of this message will define if and how they embrace the need for change and if they become fully committed and supportive of the change – or not…
However, before you can engage your workforce you need to define what the ‘need for change’ actually is.
The need for change is usually either in the form of
- A ‘burning platform’ – a major crisis threatening the organization’s existence and needing immediate action,
Or, potentially
- The organization’s vision and mission – which might be so powerful that it is sufficient to motivate employees to make the needed changes.
The ‘burning platform’ approach is probably used more often and usually used in response to a specific challenge an established organization is facing but both approaches can be extremely motivating.
This post is a guide about using these approaches in defining the need for change.
A Burning Platform
The powerful imagery of a ‘Burning platform’ has been evoked numerous times to give urgency to a major transformational need.
In early 2011, Stephen Elop, newly appointed Nokia CEO, issued a company internal memo titled “Burning Platform” likening the Nokia situation to a ‘burning oil platform’, correctly identifying that Nokia was at a crisis point requiring action.
As a side note, the ‘burning platform’ reference was actually referring to the 1988 Piper Alpha oil platform disaster in the North Sea which killed one hundred and sixty five workers. Only 61 workers escaped and survived and many of them had to make a life-or-death decision to stay on the ‘burning platform’ and wait for rescue or to make an active decision and jump into the North Sea. The burning platform has been commonly used ever since.
Nokia had been a major phone company with a 33% share of the mobile market but the emergence and popularity of new smartphone platforms such as Google Android and Apple iOS threatened to completely consume Nokia’s own ‘Symbian’ and ‘MeeGo’ smartphone platforms.
Without making a major move, Nokia risked their smartphone platforms steadily losing market share and becoming irrelevant to the market.
Instead, Nokia decided to form a ‘strategic partnership’ with Microsoft and shift its smartphone strategy to Microsoft’s Windows Phone. However, even this strategic move was not sufficient and 5 years later, in 2016, Microsoft eventually abandoned its own smartphone platform due to the overwhelming Android and Apple iOS platforms.
The burning platform symbolises an existential crisis for an organisation and a call for action to undertake a major transformation or strategic change – with the implication that not making the move risks the organization’s survival.
This approach is extremely powerful in defining the ‘need for change’ especially when the message includes both what happens if the change is made and also what is likely to happen if no change is made.
The Vision and Mission
An alternative ‘need for change’ is to provide a vision and mission laying out what the organization is aiming for.
Whilst there is no single definition of vision or mission, generally, an organization’s vision defines ‘what’ the organization is aiming for in the long term and the ‘mission’ defines the ‘how’ the organization will reach that vision…
- Vision: A vision should inspire people to work at the organization and be both aspirational and motivational. It should also be a reflection of the organization’s values and culture.
- Mission: An organization’s mission is essentially a high-level action-based road map of ‘how’ the organization is going to make the vision a reality by describing what the organization is doing. The mission statement can also include key business areas, who the company serves and the organization’s ‘purpose’
Some companies combine the vision and mission statements into a single statement.
The vision and mission statements should encapsulate the main purpose of the organization and how it is achieving that purpose – so that all employees are motivated and aligned behind that purpose.
The vision and mission statements should also provide sufficient clarity and direction that they effectively point to true North – the direction the organization is going in.
The mission statement is used to define the long term ‘breakthrough’ objectives that will drive the organisation over the next 3 to 5 years. These supporting ‘breakthrough’ objectives – also known as ‘strategic initiatives’ – are major programs requiring:
- significant changes to the organisation needing effort over the next 3 to 5 years, and
- measurable KPI(s) to define what success looks like aligning with the organization’s mission
Example Vision and Mission statements
Let’s review some example vision and mission statements from some of the best known organizations in the world – including both government organisations, retail and tech companies.
Organization
Vision
Mission
NASA
“We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.”
“Drive advances in science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality and stewardship of Earth.”
Amazon
“To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
“We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience.”
Walmart
“Be the destination for customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop.”
“We save people money so they can live better.”
Microsoft
“To help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.”
“To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”
Coca-Cola
“Our vision is to craft the brands and choice of drinks that people love, to refresh them in body & spirit. And … create a more sustainable business and better-shared future …”
“To refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions, and to create value and make a difference.”
“To make search engines so powerful that people would understand every single thing in the world.”
”To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
- Nasa’s vision statement is short but in one statement defines the reason for its existence. And the mission statement defines how they are doing with quite specific scope of the different fields and what they are seeking to do in each field.
- When we look at Amazon and Walmart’s vision and mission statements – we can see some common elements but also some major differences.
- Amazon’s vision and mission is specifically online, looks to offer ‘anything’ that can be online and stresses convenience and being customer-centric.
- Walmart’s vision and mission is much more specific on simply ‘saving’ people money.
- Microsoft’s vision and mission stresses that they are solving for both individuals and businesses – so both consumer and enterprise businesses – and both vision and mission statements are quite broad and quite similar.
- Organization’s do revise their vision and mission statements with time. The current mission statement came out in 2015 only 2 years after an earlier mission statement of Microsoft defined in 2013 which was very similar but with a little more detail – namely – ‘to create a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most’.
- Microsoft’s vision and mission statements today are quite broad compared to a famous earlier version of Microsoft in the 80’s which was ‘to put a computer on every desk, and in every home, running Microsoft software’. This was back in a world without smartphones.
- Coca-Cola’s vision and mission statements focus on brands and people’s experiences – feelings and emotions – when drinking the product. The vision statement also refers to a ‘more sustainable business’.
- Google’s vision statement is quite noticeable by being very simple, ambitious and far reaching. The mission statement is similarly short and gives some guidance on Google’s overall strategies at a very high level.
Conclusion
When defining your improvement program’s need for change, you will need to determine what message will be sufficiently engaging that the workforce will be committed to the program objectives for the lifetime of the improvement program.
From the workforce’s viewpoint, the first step of their engagement in the change program is when they hear the messaging around the ‘need for change’. What they hear, how they understand the message and their support of this message will define if and how they embrace the need for change and if they become fully committed and supportive of the change – or not…
Read further for more information on the need for change: