building shared vision

  • Attaining alignment is not just a process of adding new things; it is also a never-ending process of identifying and doggedly correcting misalignments that push a company away from its core ideology or impede progress. If the building layout impedes progress, change the building layout or move. If the strategy is misaligned with the core, change the strategy.

    If the organization structure inhibits progress, change the organization structure. If the incentive system rewards behavior inconsistent with the core, change the incentive system. Keep in mind that the only sacred cow in a visionary company is its core ideology. Anything else can be changed or eliminated.

    — Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras

  • Our project in the years to come will be to advance a positive vision of what liberal democracy can deliver with the new tools that technology is placing at our disposal. Its pillars must be:

    • Broadly shared prosperity.
    • Democratic accountability.
    • Scientific inquiry and truth-telling.
    • Long-term thinking.
    • Universal entrepreneurial opportunity.
    • Profound investment in the public goods that benefit everyone: basic science, R&D, education, health care, infrastructure.

    We must be guided by real research into which solutions are likely to work for society’s greater good. We must harness all of the tools of human culture and creativity to this vision: the arts, rhetoric, leadership, and education. And, of course, we must embrace change and disruption. We should understand technological development as a constant source of renewal and enlarged possibilities.

    We must plant the seeds of this new vision now. “…” entrepreneurship can be part of this solution by:

    • Creating new sources of growth and prosperity.
    • Cultivating a new cohort of leaders among all generations who are not bound by convention or obligation to the ideas of the past yet are yoked through long-term incentives and mindset to the possibilities of the future.
    • Integrating scientific thinking into every kind of work.
    • Providing new opportunities for leadership to people of every background and circumstance.
    • Helping public policy become more long-term in its objectives.

    The good news is, this new organizational form is more effective, treats talent and energy as a precious resource, and is designed to harness the true source of competitive advantage in the years to come: human creativity.

    — The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth by Eric Ries

  • Envisioned future — the second primary component of the vision framework — consists of two parts: a ten-to thirty-year “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” and vivid descriptions of what it will be like when the organization achieves the BHAG. We selected the phrase “envisioned future,” recognizing that it contains a paradox. On the one hand, it conveys a sense of concreteness — something vivid and real; you can see it, touch it, feel it. On the other hand, it portrays a time yet unrealized — a dream, hope, or aspiration.

    — Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras

  • “I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being.” (Core) Purpose, which should last at least 100 years, should not be confused with specific goals or business strategies, which should change many times in 100 years. Whereas you might achieve a goal or complete a strategy, you cannot fulfill a purpose; it is like a guiding star on the horizon — forever pursued, but never reached. Yet while purpose itself does not change, it does inspire change. The very fact that purpose can never be fully realized means that an organization can never stop stimulating change and progress in order to live more fully to its purpose.

    — Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras

  • Core values are the organization’s essential and enduring tenets — a small set of timeless guiding principles that require no external justification; they have intrinsic value and importance to those inside the organization. “The core values embodied in our Credo might be a competitive advantage, but that is not why we have them. We have them because they define for us what we stand for, and we would hold them even if they became a competitive disadvantage in certain situations.” The key point is that an enduring great company decides for itself what values it holds to be core, largely independent of the current environment, competitive requirements, or management fads.

    — Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras

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