68 Leading with NLP
company – staff, partners, clients, suppliers, investors and
shareholders.
The group wrestled with producing a vision statement.
Our main work during that time was to stop it from coming
to a premature conclusion, as we wanted to keep open to
ideas. It is very tempting to go with the first reasonably good
idea to be proposed and is much harder to keep searching,
knowing that there is limited time, knowing that it is impor-
tant, yet still waiting for the best to emerge.
Eventually the group’s thoughts crystallized around a
vision statement. How we reached it was interesting. One
of the group headed the advertising department and was
acknowledged to be very innovative. We asked her how she
came up with ideas. She had a very simple strategy: first de-
fine the industry standard and then find a way to go against
it. ‘That’s how to catch people’s attention,’ she said. This
strategy became the idea that sparked the vision statement.
Several goals came from this. The first was to create an
atmosphere and environment that fostered innovation.
Their actual environment did not help – the building was
old, uncomfortable and a tangled mass of computers and
wires that had been stitched together over the years. This was
a metaphorical picture of how they used to operate! They
had already bought another building, however, and were in
the throes of moving offices.
The second goal was to develop a greater knowledge and
skills base and to ensure that their process and delivery were
flawless. The evidence for these goals would come from more
joint projects between the companies, a greater volume of
ideas, industry awards and public acclaim, better retention of
staff, a reduction in absenteeism, fewer customer complaints
and a better financial performance. All these goals had to be
measurable. It is pointless to set less absenteeism, for example,
as evidence unless it can be measured. That means there has
to be a method in place to measure it and existing figures
with which to make a comparison.
The final days of our time together were spent on project
management. The objectives were turned into projects, each