Picture the scene:
There is a bus sitting in your company car park. The engine is running and many of the seats are already taken.
People are sitting enthusiastically and there is a sense of excitement about the journey ahead – just like when you went off on a school trip as a kid.
You take a walk around the front of the bus to try and take a look at where the bus is off to, only to find out that there is no destination displayed on the front of it.
- Where is the bus going?
- How long will it take to get there?
- Are we all on the bus for the whole journey?
Surely we would all agree it would be ridiculous to get onto a bus if you didn’t know where it was intending to go.
Sadly from our observations towards the end of last year it would appear that far too many owner/managed businesses are failing to clearly articulate what they are actually trying to achieve – where their ‘bus’ is heading. So much so that in a recent meeting one MD proudly stated that he didn’t want his staff to know what his aspirations were for the business so as to try and ‘keep them on their toes’. What exactly is this supposed to achieve?
Why is it that so many business owners have not documented their objectives and prefer to rely on the rather unhelpful ‘do more’, ‘get better’, ‘try harder’ methods of strategic signposting.
I’d love to have a pound for every time for every time a boss told me they fired people because they ‘didn’t get it’ or ‘weren’t up for the job’ only to find out that the business in question didn’t have a documented vision for the business.
We all want the best talent in our business, but the real truth is that really good people have often got a pretty good idea where they are going. Therefore it stands to reason that you’ve not got much chance of hiring them if you’re unable to tell them what the journey will look like.
Going back to that bus… interestingly enough there happens to be an identical one parked outside your competitors offices but it has a few notable differences:
- It has a big bright sign on the front saying where it’s going with a map of the journey ahead
- It has lots of bags neatly packed with all of the necessary items that are needed for the journey
- Finally – It has all the right people sitting in the right places with big smiles on their faces
Food for thought?
