SETTING ASPIRATION

CONTENT: Introduction

Personal aspiration

Organizational aspiration

Aspiration and strategy

Framework for analyzing aspiration

Aspiration and business performance

Using aspirations

Setting aspiration

Mission

Vision

Values

Aspirations and brands

Aspirations and the strategy process

Perils of the misuse of aspirations

conclusion

A hope or ambition of achieving something Personal aspiration Organizational aspirationConnection between individuals motivation & behavior and organizational strategies

MISSION a purpose

VISIONA desired future

VALUES

,Why we exist

What is important to usWhat future we want to create

MISSIONS:

George Orewell, an animal farmer:“Making political writing in to an art”.

Patagonia:“Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crises.”

VISIONS:

Martin Luther King:“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”.

Henry Ford:I will build the motor car for the great multitude, it will be so low in price that no man making good wages will be unable to own one and to enjoy with his family the blessing of hour of pleasure GODs great open spaces..when I’m through everyone will be able to afford one and everyone will have one

Henry Ford:“I will build the motor car for the great multitude, it will be so low in price that no man making good wages will be unable to own one and to enjoy with his family the blessing of hour of pleasure GOD’s great open spaces. when I’m through everyone will be able to afford one and everyone will have one”.

VALUES:

Evelyn Hall:

“I disapprove of what you say , but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Mark Zuckerberg:

“Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing

and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all

at once . We have the words Done is better than perfect painted on our walls.”

An aspiration is a pre-requisite for a strategy.

Organizational Aspirations provide the motivation.

Organizational Aspiration emphasize the strategy.

Organizational Aspirations provided both.

Aspirations provide a valuable complement to strategy.

Patagonias aspiration is both “motivational and strategic”.

Fords aspiration is “strategic”.

ASPIRATION:

Strategy:

It is an integrated set of choices that positions the business in its industry so as to create superior financial returns over the long run”

An aspiration that is strategic will reflect some of the high levels choices the organization has made about how to compete , but it will rarely articulate the detailed strategy. If an aspiration does not contain any information about how the organization chooses to compete, it will not strategic”.

Aspiration is an important part of strategy.

Aspiration is useful when:

Shared by employees and when they complement a carefully developed strategy based on understanding of the business environment.

Aspiration is useless when:

It is poorly crafted like Enron ’s

PERSONAL ASPIRATIONS

Individual purpose is based on intrinsic desires or motivation based on deep motivation. It can be built in not by imposing.

ORGANIZATIONAL ASPIRATION:

A business is not defined by its name, status or articles of incorporation . It is defined by the business mission . Only a clear definition of the mission and the purpose for the organization makes possible clear and realistic business objective.”

It is set by managers

O.S comprised of vision, mission and values

Mission: Fundamental reason for the organizational existence

David collis and Michael rukstad:

“spells out the underlying motivation for being in business in the first place-the contribution to society that the firms aspires to nake”

Vision: It is a specific direction and a picture of intended future after getting the mission

Values: It will reflect on organizational culture.

It is all about what is important for the organization about how it conducts it self as it persues its mission and works to achieve its vision and describes the behaviors that are rewarded.

align results

not align results

results

Employees aspiration

organization MOTIVATION

Employers aspiration

organizationLose

motivation

Organizations will move towards EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION i.e pay, promotion,recoginition, incentives etc

WHY ORGANIZATION NEED ASPIRATION?

Non profit organizations can not express their purpose in financial terms.

Greenpeace:

“non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems and force solutions for a green and a peaceful future”

Profit organizations express their prpose to maximize profit or long-term share holder value.

Milton friedmon:

“there is one and only one social responsibility of business-to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game ,which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud”.

Aspiration and Strategy:

Aspiration Strategy

People, with their motivation, direction, Purpose.

Questions Address: Why do we

exist? What future are

we trying to create?

What is important to us?

Concerned with competition

Question Address: How will we

position ourselves in our industry to achieve returns superior to our competitors.

A Framework for Analyzing Aspirations:

Coherent

Motivational and strategicMotivational

Strategic (Head)

Moti

vati

on

al (h

eart

)

Aspiration specify sufficient choices about how to compete and guide all other choices and decisions

Every employees personal aspiration must align with organization's aspiration

No AlignmentNo choices specify

ASPIRATIONS AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE:

Framework about business performance and Aspiration impact

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book Built to Last said “the fundamental distinguishing characteristic of the most enduring and successful corporations is that they preserve a cherished core ideology while simultaneously stimulating progress and change in everything that is not part of their core ideology.”

well-crafted organizational aspirations have multiple benefits:

• They establish boundary conditions for strategy decisions.

• They provide a stable purpose to guide the organization through changing times.

• They help with coordination.

• They communicate to stakeholders.

USING ASPIRATIONS:

Patagonia

Environmental mission

Reduce, Repair, Reuse, Recycle and Reimagine

Tesla Motors

• Aspirations:

• Intention of business

• Translated through mission and vision of the company

• Aspiration frames strategy and both compliment each other

• Strategy without an aspiration is vague

Aspiration – Jack Welch and GE

Says; mission requires companies to make choices about people, investment and other resources and forces companies to delineate their strength and weaknesses in order to access where they can profitably play.

Jack Welch says;

“We want to be the most competitive enterprise in the world by being No. 1 or No. 2 and this is the vision of the company and this aspiration is very specific there should be no doubt about it”

Lou Gerstner and the turnaround of IBM

ELEMENTS OF VISION:• Keep company together and not spin off the pieces

• Reinvest in the mainframe

• Turn company into a market-driven rather than an internally focused, process-driven enterprise

Gerstner’s choice was strategic since it represented how to compete in the market.

He says:

We never lose sight of our strategic vision

SETTING ASPIRATION: CHARACTERISTICS OF ASPIRATION:

• Motivational and strategic

• Coherent, consistent and reinforcing

There must be:

• Shared sense of mission,

• Shared vision,

• Set of shared values

• Leadership

• Culture, consistent with organizational aspiration

•

• Communicate aspirations to all the employees and articulate them

• Aspirations should be both motivational and strategic

• Should be consistent with the mission, vision and the value of the company

• Should fit with business model, culture of the organization

ASPIRATIONS AND BRAND:

• Aspirations should be inspiring

• Motivate employees

• Inclined customers towards company’s brand, since brands communicate what the company stands for.

ASPIRATIONS AND BRAND COKE:

Coke’s mission is consistent with its brand:

• To refresh the world

• To inspire moments of optimism

• To create vale and make difference

ASPIRATIONS AND BRAND DISNEY:

Mission statement says:

We create happiness by providing the finest in the entertainment to people of all ages, everywhere

To stay consistent with their mission, Disney developed 3 basic guidelines:

• No bad language

• No uncomfortable situations

• No gratuitous violence

ANALYZE THE ENVIRONMNET

DECIDE ON POSITIONING

BUILD OUT THE BUSINESS MODEL

TRACK PROGRESS AND REFINE OR

REVISIT

ASPIRATIONS AND STRATEG PROCESS:

ASPIRATION AND STRATEGY PROCESS:

Many companies use top-down strategy development process that encompasses of the following 4 steps process:

1. What business are we in and why? (Mission, Vision and values)

2. Where are we going? (Strategic goals)

3. What are the key issues that our strategy must address? (Strategic analysis)

4. How can we best compete? (Strategy formulation)

PERILS OF MISUSE OF STRATEGY:

1. Confusing a mission statement with a sense of mission

2. Confusing aspiration with strategy

3. Assuming that visions are self-fulfilling

4. Developing cookie-cutter aspirations

5. Using aspirations as public relations

6. Creating conflict between aspirations and financial objectives