Fang Shengtao: How Does Anyone Truly “Realize” Why Mission, Vision and Values Matter?
This article is an English translation of 「房晟陶：怎樣才能真正「認識到」使命願景價值觀的重要性？」, originally published in Chinese on Future Organization Lab 未來組織實驗室 on January 19, 2020.
Source: Chief Organization Officer (WeChat ID: COO-STRATEGY). Author: Fang Shengtao.
Many organizations talk about mission, vision and values. Jack Ma, in particular, talks about them constantly (for example, it’s the lesson he teaches in every cohort at Hupan University).
This article tries to explore one question: how does a person truly “realize” the importance of mission, vision and values?
Can you “realize” their importance through “indirect experience” — reading books, attending training or talks, observing what successful organizations do, and so on?
The alternative to indirect experience is “direct experience”: gradually forming your own real understanding through personal practice.
My view is that, when it comes to mission, vision and values, the vast majority of people have to truly “realize” their importance through direct experience.
And what makes it challenging is that there are very few “situations” that provide direct experience of mission, vision and values.
When someone is in a startup, they often feel the conflict between “mission and survival.” Not only do they think mission, vision and values are empty talk; some even see them as a poison that will get the company killed.
When someone is in an organization that has mission, vision and values (for example, one that has already become enduring), they often take them for granted, as if they came effortlessly. A fish in water hardly notices how important water is. At such times many people feel mission, vision and values are just correct-sounding platitudes, far removed from them and not very important. Some can admit they’re important, but don’t truly understand why.
Note that by “has,” I mean really has — not just on paper.
Only when someone moves from an organization that truly has mission, vision and values to one that doesn’t, and sees the stark contrast, do they begin to “see” and “feel” their importance.
But “seeing” and “feeling” still don’t mean truly “realizing.”
If that person is at the front line or in middle management, where “goals and strategy” are relatively clear, the daily work can still run in an orderly way; it’s easy to find a sense of achievement, and there’s still plenty of room to develop personally.
At that point, even if they can “see” and “feel” the problems with mission, vision and values, they usually think those are “their” problems — not much to do with them right now. And crucially, there’s no real pain.
Only when someone is in senior leadership, and the organization lacks mission, vision and values, can they truly feel the pain that absence causes them. What’s more, being in senior leadership, they can’t shirk one fact: they bear some responsibility for the organization’s lack of mission, vision and values. Only this kind of direct experience, carrying both pain and responsibility, can make them truly realize the importance of mission, vision and values.
Especially when someone is in an organization that once had proud mission, vision and values that are now slowly but inexorably collapsing, they realize even more deeply that mission, vision and values aren’t just very important — they’re urgent.
Think of how painful and desolate it must have been for Confucius, more than two thousand years ago, to lament that “the rites have collapsed and the music has decayed.” Without that kind of visceral pain, how could anyone truly realize the importance of mission, vision and values? No wonder Confucians revered sages and enlightened rulers so much.
Of course, if the organization has already collapsed, been destroyed by competitors or trampled by outside enemies, people at the front line and in middle management will generally realize the importance of mission, vision and values. But by then, the game is up and the building is about to fall; most people are busy protecting themselves or escaping. Talking about mission, vision and values at that point is a bit too late.
When someone in senior leadership senses that an organization lacks mission, vision and values, or that they’re slowly collapsing, but it hasn’t yet collapsed or been trampled, the organization can still be “saved.”
What do people in senior leadership feel and do in this situation? Let me guess, and readers can compare with their own experience.
• Everyone falls silent; the place feels lifeless.
• A sense of powerlessness in the face of wrongdoing: the guilt and humiliation of seeing employees harmed by wrongdoing and deceived by lies, while having to pretend not to see or hear.
• No standards of right and wrong — only the unpredictable preferences of the leader.
• Time and again, you start to speak and then hold back.
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• For your own safety and interests, you have to swallow your anger in silence.
• Behind forced smiles and clinking glasses, the obvious reality that people share a bed but dream different dreams.
• Watching those who fish in troubled waters, fake their way through and chase short-term gains have a party.
• Watching the power players, opportunists and those who “read the times” thrive like fish in water.
• Occasionally, you yourself feel the pleasure — and the baseness — of going along with it.
• Choosing “goals and strategy” by any means necessary, taking shortcuts.
• Feeling acutely how “goals and strategy” that look unified on the surface, without mission, vision and values as their foundation, fall apart in spirit when actually carried out, even while keeping their form.
• Getting drawn into petty palace intrigues that even you find disgusting — and having to play along.
• Showing up without really working; going through the motions; earnestly performing empty rituals; being two-faced; feeling torn apart.
• Finding it hard to feel joy inside; being overwhelmed by meaninglessness.
• Deceiving yourself; going numb; thinking about escaping.
• Those who can’t escape secretly pray for the storm to come soon and destroy it all.
Only when someone in senior leadership has felt these things and this pain can they truly “realize” the importance of mission, vision and values.
Some readers will ask: does your “senior leadership” include the top leader — the number one?
When it comes to mission, vision and values, the top leader and the senior team feel very differently.
Mission, vision and values are an essential need for senior leaders, but not necessarily for every top leader. As long as the organization is still growing, or hasn’t yet collapsed, the top leader can find plenty of reasons to argue that their rule is wise and justified.
One very important function of mission, vision and values is to check and balance the top leader’s power. And much of that check can only come from the top leader voluntarily ceding power — to mission, vision and values — and voluntarily limiting their own room to play power games.
You could say that mission, vision and values are the single most important product and service a top leader provides to the senior team. Without them, there are no basic rules among senior leaders (including between them and the top leader). Senior leaders are the key users of this product.
Of course, middle managers and frontline staff need mission, vision and values too, but not as an essential need: the top leader can silence them with targets and rewards, and even use their short-term satisfaction against the senior team. And they have little influence over this issue: even if they vote with their feet, it hardly causes a ripple.
What’s the purpose of revealing this pattern of realization?
First, to remind top leaders: how senior leaders feel and act is an important measure of whether you’re providing a satisfactory product and service when it comes to mission, vision and values. Goals and strategy are the short-term measure of a top leader; mission, vision and values are the medium- to long-term measure. Talking only about goals and strategy, and never about mission, vision and values, is the beginning of collapse.
Second, to remind senior leaders of their responsibility and role when it comes to mission, vision and values. If, as a senior leader, you already recognize some of the feelings and behaviors above, don’t take it lightly or let things drift. You are the first to test whether the organization lacks mission, vision and values; what you feel today is the organization’s reality tomorrow. You bear major responsibility for the organization’s lack of mission, vision and values. If you don’t try to influence this, frontline and middle-level staff can only look on helplessly. Do you think it’s just the top leader’s business? The top leader also needs a lot of help, influence and structural pressure. So you can make some positive efforts.
Of course, at this point you’ve only addressed your sense of role, willingness and courage. Your positive efforts are only the beginning of a new round of “deepening your understanding”; the next challenge is how to deepen it further through practice. It’s easy to judge others and hard to do it yourself. Under pressure to grow and compete, and with an imperfect top leader, how do you change and shape an organization’s mission, vision and values?
Only after many rounds of effort — some successful, some not, some disastrous — can you further “realize” what mission, vision and values really are.
Finally, let me leave readers with a famous prayer: grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Shaping an organization’s mission, vision and values takes serenity, courage and, above all, wisdom. It’s a required course for every “true executive.”
