When Steve Jobs launched Apple Computer in 1976, he essentially brought the venture a single asset: his then-novel vision of consumer-friendly personal computers, accessible to every home and office. From his garage to Wall Street, Jobs built Apple around that concept. And Apple—the upstart company fighting the entrenched giant IBM—reflected that vision as well. As long as Steve Jobs passionately reinforced that vision, the Apple organization thrived.
Apple—but not Jobs—subsequently lost its way when the company grew too large to be run by a solitary visionary. As professional managers were brought in, the vision and the passion of Apple’s Macintosh culture were diluted by the divergent visions of Jobs’ successors. Jobs left the company, and Apple lost its market share. It has emerged, again successful, with the return of Steve Jobs as the driving force behind Apple’s Macintosh vision.
Apple’s roller-coaster saga is hardly unique. By imposing his singular vision throughout General Electric, John Welch has made GE one of the world’s bellwether companies and the darling of Wall Street. Steve Mugar built Star Markets into one of the dominant supermarket chains in the Boston area on a simple vision: “I don’t want to be the biggest. I want to be the best.” The result: Star’s average store volume was twice that of its competitors even though Star had fewer stores.
Many emerging family companies usually have a very dynamic, visible leader who created and built the company. His ethos permeates the organization. Every employee knows what the company stands for and what’s expected of each of them. Even the customers know what the company stands for, the type of product they’ll purchase and how they’ll be served and treated.
And of course the notion of “vision” applies to much more than business. Bill Parcells has successfully transmitted his particular coaching vision to three different National Football League teams—and to their adoring fans. Arturo Toscanini, perhaps the 20th century’s greatest orchestral conductor, possessed a clear vision of how each piece of music must be performed and how an orchestra should sound. Wherever he conducted, his vision united the musicians behind his standard of excellence, and his audiences knew what to expect at each performance. (In his early 80s, when he was no longer able to achieve his vision at each performance, Toscanini retired.)
Like Apple, many small, emerging businesses enjoy the strong leadership of a founder with such a vision for her company. One of the hidden advantages of healthy business families is their ability to transmit a clear vision from one generation to the next with minimal conscious effort. But as a company grows or is passed on to subsequent generations, the vision is often diluted, lost or, in the worst cases, discarded by vying management factions with different visions. Frequently visions are re placed by economic strategies to please Wall Street, shareholders or consultants to garner better bottom lines, to the detriment of the company’s long-term health.
A vision can be a feeling, a gestalt, a mission, a passion. It’s what drives one to be the best, to excel or to survive. Some individuals have it and some don’t. Often organizations suffer from divergent visions at the management level that cloud their ability to remain competitive. Most companies can tell you what they are. But a company, as an entity, needs a singular vision to define who it is.
Who has the vision? The leader, the employees, the entity, the consumer and the investors, to name a few. That is, each of them thinks he understands the purpose, intent and direction of the company. The problem, all too frequently, is that each of these factions holds a differing view. Management creates clarity or confusion through its day-to-day business practices. Inconsistent behavior is the greatest threat to a single company vision.
Colonel Harlan Sanders had a vision back in the ’60s. It was his product: his “secret” recipe of herbs and spices, his gravy and his mashed potatoes. He built Kentucky Fried Chicken, took it public, saw it sold and resold and sold yet again. But long after the colonel officially left the KFC management team, he could still be found in locations sampling the gravy and chastising managers if it wasn’t right. He stamped his vision on the company (and the chicken-eating public) so thoroughly that to this day, even after his death, Sanders’ vision survives him at the restaurant level. Kentucky Fried Chicken remains a leader in its segment, based on its product quality and consistency. His gift to KFC was his passion for doing little things right every day.
The Sizzler steakhouse chain, on the other hand, sought to change the dining experience and its bottom-line returns. Focusing on menu item profit rather than the customers’ expectations and needs, Sizzler essentially changed its identity, adding higher-quality products at higher prices. But the consumer still expected Sizzler to be a great place to get a reasonably good, protein-rich meal at an affordable price. When Sizzler failed to meet its customers’ price expectations or their vision of the experience they would have at Sizzler, the chain’s once-loyal customers stopped coming. Sizzler ultimately filed for bankruptcy protection.
It’s no coincidence that the change at Sizzler followed the change of its top two executives. The shared vision of Tom Gregory, Mike Minchen and their management team had propelled Sizzler to the top of its segment. But the chain’s success slowed under subsequent CEOs as the continued expansion of the non-steak menu items diluted their once-clear vision for Sizzler. Now franchisees, store-level management, middle management, senior management and, most important, loyal Sizzler customers began to develop divergent visions as to what Sizzler was all about.
Don’t confuse visioning with strategic planning. Visioning is the overarching philosophy—the company’s answer to the question, “Who do we want to be when we grow up?” Strategic planning is the game plan for achieving the vision. Visions are simple, clear and unambiguous. Strategic planning is detailed and comprehensive.
All too often in the age of MBA gurus, strategic planning replaces the visioning process. Visions are more concerned with setting the tone for how the business is handled, not how it’s managed—how people (customers, employees, vendors and investors) are treated.
Often partners or co-owners don’t even realize that their visions differ. The visioning process seeks to identify any individual disconnect and realign the dissident components under one organizational vision. This may be painful: The negotiated vision may be such that one of the key players in the organization might leave. This is often the case in small family businesses passed down from generation to generation. But it’s a healthy and necessary process to keep the company functioning and vital.
When Collins Foods sold its Kentucky Fried Chicken holdings to Pepsico Inc. in 1991, one of the assets included was Collins’ people—strong, independent-minded, accustomed to thinking for themselves and taking risks. Pepsi soon found Collins employees resisting Pepsi’s top-down culture and leaving for other opportunities. Soon thereafter Pepsi began divesting itself of its restaurant holdings. Both Pepsi and Collins were good companies, well-managed and profitable. But their corporate visions were different, and consequently each attracted a different type of executive.
At a small, entrepreneurial company that had been passed from the father to the second generation, we were brought in to establish parameters for the company’s expansion. Our visioning process revealed that the owners of the company each had divergent personal objectives and, as a result, their decision-making process was stymied. Among other things, they couldn’t even agree on where to locate their proposed new plants.
Negotiating a vision at such a company requires the full participation of those who control the company and set its business goals and objectives. The facilitator—in this case, us—needs to involve everyone in the process. Once everyone understands the forces pulling at the company, it’s possible to start to identify the options available for the company. At this particular company, the issue was resolved with the departure of several members, after which the remaining relatives openly and honestly negotiated a company vision that could satisfy their individual needs.
Note that they did not compromise their individual visions. In each case—whether to leave or to embrace the new company vision—each individual made the choice to follow his or her respective vision.
The outcome of the visioning process is a redefined or refined company passion that can be embraced by key management, congealed into a company attitude, promulgated in policies and procedures, fostered through consistent management practices and ethics, reinforced up and down the chain of command and marketed throughout the organization and to its customers. In the best scenarios, it can rekindle the founder’s passion.
For companies destined to survive their founders, there can be only one answer to the question, “Whose vision is it?” It’s the company’s vision. If the people involved feel they share that vision, they will be valuable assets. If not, they should rekindle their passion elsewhere.
William Scarpino is principal of Associates For Success, an Oxnard, Calif., consulting firm specializing in assisting small and emerging companies in growth or repositioning (www.afscs.com). David Sher is president of David Sher & Associates, an AFS Affiliate based in Fayetteville, N.Y.