Читать книгу Prove It! - Barr Stacey - Страница 9

It should be easy to work out the intended impact of any company; it's stated right there in their mission statement. (After all, that's what a mission statement is for.) But that's often not the case! How seriously do you take your organisation's mission and vision, its values and strategic direction? How seriously does your leadership team take them? And your employees? In many organisations, these things exist but are empty platitudes. They exist because they are supposed to exist, and not because they serve any useful purpose. But they should.

The world has evolved far beyond the style of leadership that expected employees to do what they were told and not question managers. People give their best when they work for a cause: something they believe in, that's bigger than themselves and more than their job description. They want a compelling mission and inspiring vision. They want to know that their work is making a difference in the world, and in the future their children will inherit.

People give their best when they work for a cause.

Vision and mission statements these days have become pedestrian and clichéd – the thin and empty products of jumping through strategic planning hoops. They've lost the ability to unite masses of people in a shared cause and have imbued more cynicism into workforces. From my experience, the main reason that visions and missions aren't measured is because they are deliberately broad for aspirational purposes, and deliberately vague so everyone can find their own meaning in them. Being broad and vague means being immeasurable.

What impact do you think the organisations with the following mission statements intend to make? Can you even tell what types of companies they are, let alone measure their achievement of these goals?

• ‘To refresh the world … To inspire moments of optimism and happiness … To create value and make a difference.'

• ‘To help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.'

• ‘Families Making the Difference.'

The first one is The Coca-Cola Company. The second one is Microsoft. The third is PATH, a nonprofit organisation that provides foster care for children with special emotional, behavioural and medical needs. It wasn't obvious, was it? How can such statements be guiding lights to drive the focus, energy and activity of people throughout an organisation when they are this broad and vague? If a strategic direction is not measurable, it's not understandable and it's not recognisable in the world around us.

My purpose here is not to criticise any of these organisations. It might seem unfair to claim that PATH's mission is vague and immeasurable, given that they make such a worthy contribution to the world. If we take that principle to the extreme – that nonprofits don't have to prove their impact – it suggests that if you have a worthy mandate, you don't have to try hard at evidence-based thinking. If nonprofits want to attract more support, and produce the best outcomes possible, they need a clear vision and a measurable impact as much as any organisation.