If You Want to Win — Maintain Alignment Across These Dimensions of Your Business.

Ask most C-suite executives if their company’s vision, mission, values, strategy and story impact business performance and they are sure to say … “Yes, they are very important.”

However, when you look at how these critical dimensions are managed across the organization and throughout the employee experience, you would question just how important they truly are. To start with, in most cases these initiatives are developed and managed in silos.

> Human Resources most often maintains the vision, mission and value system across the company.
> C-suite and business executives define and drive the company’s strategy and core business initiatives.
> Marketing or corporate communications typically owns the corporate story.

In addition to being managed separately, they also operate on different timetables.

> Vision, mission and value systems are often put aside and only updated when major changes in the business take place.
> The go-to-market strategy may have a two-to-three year shelf life, but most companies launch new strategic business initiatives on an annual basis.
> The corporate story is refreshed sporadically as new agency partners are brought on board, market conditions change or competitive threats arise.

Combined, distributed ownership and the inconsistent timing of when these initiatives are refreshed negatively impact business performance. Why? Because they quickly get out of alignment. As a result, they no longer drive clarity and connectivity across the business … they create confusion and doubt. For instance:

> The company’s go-to-market strategy no longer aligns with the vision and mission.
> The corporate story being shared externally and internally no longer supports the go-to-market strategy.
> The leadership team’s actions and decisions no longer align with the corporate values.

When these cornerstones of a company’s culture and customer experience are misaligned, employees, partners and customers question their validity and importance. Don’t let this happen to your company. Establish and maintain alignment between your vision, mission, values, strategy and story … and you will win.

You will win … because you’ll create a unified culture.
You will win … because you will deliver a superior employee and customer experience.

That’s Your OnMessage Minute.