When John F. Kennedy said that the United States would put a man on the Moon, and bring him safely back before the end of the 1960’s, he presented a strong, unifying vision.

I was only six years old at the time of the first Moon landing, but I still remember the awe I felt when I saw Neil Armstrong standing on the Moon. It was the greatest adventure man-kind has embarked upon to date, and it began with a vision statement.

The vision of a man on the Moon energized the floundering U.S. space program, but that is

only a small part of what it accomplished.

The vision united a nation, and it drove the development of technologies neces-sary to accomplish the goal, including developing lightweight electronics.

NASA did not invent the Integrated Circuit (IC), but the organization was an early adopter, and it funded research work at MIT, and spurred the imagination of scientists and engineers.

NASA has also been a driving force in the devel-opment of satellites, which are necessary for our modern communications systems. Would they have been able to do this without the prestige, power and energy generated by the Apollo space program? Maybe, but I believe not.

More importantly, our paradigms, the ideas we have about how our world works would be quite different.

The Business Strategy NewsletterIssue 1-2009

The Tempo! newsletter contains supporting material for Tempo!, a business strategy book written by Henrik Mårtensson

The Tempo! newsletter is published by HM MediaTech.

Email: self@henrikmartensson.orgPhone: +46 708 56 23 65Twitter: @KallokainSkype: rubyist

© 2009 by Henrik Mårtensson

Tempo!

Tempo!SupplementCan be read stand-alone

Vision, Mission, Principles, And the Human BrainBy Henrik Mårtensson

Would we view the world in quite the same way without images like this famous photo from Apollo 17:

Visions are as important to business organiza-tions as they are to nations. Unity and sense of mission are incredibly important, especially in uncertain times.

Vision provides guidance. Vision encourages an organization to grow in new directions.

For example, Honda defines itself as a mobility company, not a car or motorcycle manufac-turer. This has enabled Honda to diversify into building aircrafts, developing exoskeletons for elderly people, and creating one of the world’s most advanced humanoid robots, ASIMO.

Why then, are most corporate vision and mis-sion statements so bland? A vision statement is supposed to inspire, and yet, most companies have vision statements that are very similar, and of little interest to anyone but C-level ex-ecutives, and perhaps the odd accountant or two.

Many vision and mission statements are filled with phrases like “market leader” and “provide customer value”, or “products of the highest quality”. Frankly, most such statements are tripe. They have no substance. They inspire no one, and have little or no effect on how the organization conducts its business. Nor are they a useful framework for developing strate-gies for the future.

There are several reasons for companies having bland, impotent vision and mission statements:

1. Developing vision and mission statements take time. C-level managers are loath to spend the time necessary. They are often more focused on dealing with issues that are urgent, rather than issues that are truly im-portant.

2. Few people, C-level or not, know where to start. Both the purposes and the definitions may be unclear. In many corporate cultures admitting to not knowing something is seen as exposing a vulnerability. So, a bunch of C-

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"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and re-turning him back safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more im-pressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

— John F. Kennedy

level executives, all equally uncertain and confused, sit together, and focus on not revealing that they do not know how to create mission and vision statements, rather than on learning how to do it.

3. Developing a vision requires a great deal of introspection. It is important to develop true self-awareness, not only to understand ones own motivations, but to take charge of them, and even change them. While most people are able to do this, it does require effort, and may take them far away from their personal comfort zone. Thus, many people simply choose not to make the effort.

4. Few C-level executives understand the im-portance of involving the entire organiza-tion in developing the vision and the mis-sion. Thus, the statements fail to take the views of other stakeholders, including the organization’s employees, into account.

5. Few people have a process for developing vision and mission statements.

What Vision and Mission Statements Are

A good vision statement expresses a compelling vision about the future. Achieving the vision does not have to be feasible, but it does have to be desirable.

A common trap is to believe the vision has to be specifically about what the organization wishes to become. That is unnecessarily limiting. The most powerful visions describe a world that is better in some way, not only for the organization and its members, but for other people.

A mission statement describes how the organi-zation will achieve the vision.

To be compelling, a vision statement must touch the inner core of people, the center of their be-ing. There are many things we can build our sense of identity and self-worth on: Family, spouse, children, work, money, possessions,

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Coca-Cola Vision Statement

To achieve sustainable growth, we have estab-lished a vision with clear goals.

Profit: Maximizing return to shareowners while being mindful of our overall responsibili-ties.

People: Being a great place to work where people are inspired to be the best they can be.

Portfolio: Bringing to the world a portfolio of beverage brands that anticipate and satisfy peoples; desires and needs.

Partners: Nurturing a winning network of partners and building mutual loyalty.Planet: Being a responsible global citizen that makes a difference.

pleasure, friends, even enemies, or we can link our self-esteem to an organization. We all do this, to some extent.

Unfortunately, as Stephen Covey pointed out in his famous book The 7 Habits of Highly Effec-tive People, there are drawbacks to each and every one of these. They all create external dependencies. These make us vulnerable, and can make us forego long term success in favor of short term satisfaction.

Principles Are the Foundation for Vision and Mission!

A set of principles is a stronger, more enduring core for individuals. Principles can also be shared with other people, across boundaries of self, family, and organizational affiliations.

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Merck Mission StatementThe mission of Merck is to provide society with superior products and services by devel-oping innovations and solutions that improve the quality of life and satisfy customer needs, and to provide employees with meaningful work and advancement opportunities, and investors with a superior rate of return.

Merck PrinciplesOur business is preserving and improving human life. All of our actions must be measured by our success in achieving this goal. We value, above all, our ability to serve everyone who can benefit from the appropriate use of our products and serv-ices, thereby providing lasting consumer satisfaction.

We are committed to the highest stan-dards of ethics and integrity. We are re-sponsible to our customers, to Merck em-ployees and their families, to the environ-ments we inhabit, and to the societies we serve worldwide. In discharging our re-sponsibilities, we do not take professional or ethical shortcuts. Our interactions with all segments of society must reflect the high standards we profess.

We are dedicated to the highest level of scientific excellence and commit our re-search to improving human and animal health and the quality of life. We strive to identify the most critical needs of consum-ers and customers, and we devote our re-sources to meeting those needs.

We expect profits, but only from work that satisfies customer needs and benefits humanity. Our ability to meet our respon-sibilities depends on maintaining a financial position that invites investment in leading-edge research and that makes possible ef-fective delivery of research results.

We recognize that the ability to excel -- to most competitively meet society's and cus-tomers' needs -- depends on the integrity, knowledge, imagination, skill, diversity and teamwork of our employees, and we value these qualities most highly. To this end, we strive to create an environment of mutual respect, encouragement and teamwork -- an environment that rewards commitment and performance and is responsive to the needs of our employees and their families.

Vision Statement

A compelling vision of the future

Mission Statement

How the organization will achieve the vision

Vision and mission statements are logically connected: If the mission Is accomplished, Then the vision will become reality.

Even in a constantly changing world, basic prin-ciples endure. Therefore, a vision, which must also endure for a long time, must be based on core principles.

There are many principles that can serve as the basis for both personal and organizational vision and mission statements. Figuring out which principles that guide your actions, and articulating them, requires a lot of work.

Identifying and articulating the basic principles guiding an organization is the responsibility of the system owners. It cannot be delegated. However, if you are a system owner, for exam-ple the actual owner of a company, or a C-level executive, nothing should stop you from getting a bit of help.

Creating effective vision and mission state-ments by necessity involves the entire organi-zation. People will commit to a much greater degree to a vision and a mission they them-selves have helped develop.

You can involve employees throughout the or-ganization in developing the core principles too. Tempo! describes Crawford Slip, a brainstorming technique that can be used in very large groups. Crawford Slip can be an invaluable tool when developing basic principles, vision, and mission for the organization.

Remember that as the system owner, you will have to live and work according to the principles you espouse. Therefore, the final decision about which principles to follow is yours. Input from others is valuable, but at the end of the day, you are responsible for the core principles of your organization.

Discover Your Core Principles: Are You a Theory X or Theory Y Manager?

Unless you are a buddhist monk or a Barack Obama type politician, you may never have ar-ticulated the principles you live by, even if you are a person of great integrity and your princi-ples have a very strong influence on your charac-ter and your actions.

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Stephen Coveyʼs principle Based Vision and Mission statements are fully compatible with the No-ble Vision concept described in Tempo! The ideas are also consistent with behavioral research and modern neuroscientific research.

The Center of My

Life

(What gives me

security, guides my

actions, provides

life perspective,

energy and power)

Spouse

Family

Money

WorkPossessions

Pleasure

FriendsEnemies

Organization(Employer,

political religious, sports...)

Principles

Vision

Mission

The Center of the

Organization

(What gives the

organization

security, guides its

actions, provides

perspective, energy

and power)

It helps to have a starting point. One such starting point is to consider two extremes of core principles, and how they affect people’s behavior and outlook on management and leadership.

Douglas MacGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management expressed the basic extremes of management and leadership theory in the 1960’s: Theory X and Theory Y.

Theory X says that workers are basically lazy. They dislike work, and have little ambition. Therefore, extrinsic reward systems, usually money, are necessary to motivate them. Workers must be told what to do, and be closely moni-

tored. Each worker can be allowed only a small span of control. This requires a com-plex hierarchy of authority, and very de-tailed rules governing the behavior of em-ployees.

Theory X managers use what Stephen Covey refers to as Gofer (go for) Man-agement. They tell people exactly how to do things, and watch over every step.

Theory X management can get positively ridiculous when driven to extremes. For

example, I once worked as a team leader in a project where the project manager insisted

on completely reworked time estimates at least once, often twice, each day. Predictably, the

only output from the project team was esti-mates and project plans. (This experience had a lot to do with my decision to go into management consulting.)

Even though few managers publicly admit they manage according to Theory X, it is

the dominant management theory today.

Theory Y says that under the right condi-tions, workers are ambitious, self-motivated, creative, and capable of self-control. Under

the right conditions, workers are excellent de-cision makers.

Managers are by definition system owners. they create and maintain organizational structures and determine the rules of the organization. Therefore it is the responsibility of managers to create working conditions that bring out the best in workers.

Theory Y management is much easier and less stressful than Theory X management, but it does require Theory Y managers to have a skill set that is completely different from the Theory X managers skill set. (Tempo! provides a complete tool set for Theory Y managers.)

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Workers are inherently

lazy

Workers will avoid work if

they can.

Workers inherently

dislike work.

The manager must

structure the work.

Failures must be punished.

Extrinsic reward systems are necessary to

motivate workers.

Workers have little inherent

ambition.

The organization

must be hierarchical.

There must be comprehensive

control systems.

Workers must be closely

supervised.

Workers will avoid

responsibility if they can.

Workers will deliberately

under-perform.

Most companies are a mix of Theory X and Theory Y, with Theory X as the dominant para-digm among managers. However, the Theory X based command hierarchies and functional divi-sions are ill suited to high tempo and knowledge work.

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Failures that result in

learning should be rewarded.

Failures are opportunities to

learn and improve.

Failures are the result of factors

outside the control or

understanding of the worker.

Workers must be encouraged to

communicate laterally and vertically

(No organizational silos.)

Most work involves many process steps performed by

different people.

There is no need for elaborate

hierarchies of control and authority.

Managers, by definition, are responsible for

the organization as a system.

There is no need for elaborate

control structures.

Workers should have great

latitude regarding how to accomplish

missions.

Workers should have a say in decisions that affect them.

Workers are responsible

decision makers.

Workers have first-hand

information about their

working conditions.

Managers are responsible for creating a work climate where

workers can do well.

Work satisfaction is

strong motivation to do

well.

Under the right conditions,

most workers will do their best

at work.

Workers are motivated by

intrinsic rewards.

Workers are creative under

the right conditions.

Workers enjoy their work under

the right conditions.

Workers can excercise self-

control.

Workers are self-motivated under the right

conditions.

Workers are ambitious under

the right conditions.

W.L. Goreʼs Guiding PrinciplesFairness to each other and everyone with whom we come in contact

Freedom to encourage, help, and allow other associates to grow in knowledge, skill, and scope of responsibility

The ability to make one's own commit-ments and keep them

Consultation with other associates be-fore undertaking actions that could im-pact the reputation of the company

Theory Y leads to better performing organizations, partly because it encourages individual workers to perform better, but also because it creates opportunities to create organizational structures that are agile and resilient. See Tempo! for a thorough description of the organizational structures pos-sible, and how they confer competitive advantages.

What happens when you drive Theory Y man-agement to its extremes? Judging from W. L. Gore, Ltd., which is a company explicitly based on Theory Y, you get a booming success. Gore is one of the few companies that expect to grow significantly during, and to some extent because of, the current recession. Gore has no employees, only associates. Associates have four principles to guide them, and they elect their leaders by voting. See the sidebar on page 7 for the Gore guiding principles.

Theory Y organizations do not need the hier-archies of command and elaborate control structures that Theory X organizations do. Command is decentralized. This makes them agile, able to grasp opportunities quickly, and able to adapt to changing circumstances.

Most Theory Y dominant companies were cre-ated that way from the start, or at least early on, like Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. It is possible for large organizations to deliberately transform from Theory X to Theory Y though. The U.S. Marine Corps is a shining example.

The catch is that such transformations are diffi-cult, and require a lot of effort.

If you decide to move your organization closer to the Theory Y end of the X-Y continuum, be prepared for a lot of work. Remember that say-ing your company is a Theory Y company will not confer any advantages by itself. You have to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

Neuroscience and Core Principles

In Tempo! I show the structural advantages an organization can obtain by using vision, mission, and trust as cohesive forces. There is another side to the matter which I did not explore as fully:

Theory X organization’s waste brainpower, be-cause only a few people in the organization, the managers, are supposed to do any creative think-ing. This is pretty obvious, and has been lamented by many people over the past 90 years.

What is less obvious is that Theory X may also short-circuit the few brains that are supposed to think in hierarchical Command & Control or-ganizations.

The culprit is the belief that rewards should be predominantly extrinsic. That is, that people are primarily motivated by money, status, and power.

The problem isn’t that this is a false belief. It isn’t. Money, status and power are powerful motiva-tors. Very powerful.

The problem lies in how these extrinsic motiva-tors affect the brain.

Neuroscientific research has showed that we have two different centers in the brain that are active when we become motivated to do some-thing.

One of these centers is the Nucleus Accumbens, the pleasure center of the brain. The other is the Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus, a groove on the surface of the brain.

The Nucleus Accumbens is an old part of the brain. Not much thinking going on there, just the

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McDonaldʼs Vision Statement"McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding qual-ity, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile."

desire for immediate gratification. The Nucleus Accumbens is triggered by extrinsic rewards, like a promise of money.

The Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus, on the other hand, is activated when we feel so-cial responsibility. It is triggered when we are stimulated to think about the well-being of other people.

Theory X thus becomes self-fulfilling. It affects management expectations, and thus influ-ences management behavior, so that people, workers and man-agers, exhibit exactly the stupid and irresponsible behaviors Theory X predicts.

The problem is that these centers are never active at the same time! Extrinsic rewards make our social conscience shrivel up and go into a coma.

In effect, by basing organizational reward sys-tems on large extrinsic rewards, we are manu-facturing temporary sociopaths.

Theory X organizations also punish failure. Most people fear punishment and want to avoid it, so they do what they can to avoid fail-ure. That is, they take few or no risks and they try to hide their mistakes and failures. In other words, fear kills initiative, and reduces our abil-ity to correct mistakes.

Fear is to a large extent a learned response to an external stimulus. In a Theory X environ-ment, fear responses will be triggered over and over again, leading to increased sensitivity to the stimuli.

Fear reduces our capacity to reason clearly. As Frank Herbert put it in Dune: Fear is the mind-killer.

Consequently, Theory X based environments does not just engender selfish behavior, it also inhibits initiative and reduces our capacity to think.

Theory X thus becomes self-fulfilling. It affects management expectations, and thus influences management behavior, so that people, workers and managers, exhibit exactly the stupid and ir-responsible behaviors Theory X predicts.

On the plus side, Theory Y is also self-fulfilling. People adapt their behavior to positive expecta-tions too.

Even better: There is evidence that stimulating the Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus, the brain’s altruism center, leads to better perform-ance than stimulating the pleasure center. Stimu-lating the Nucleus Accumbens may even lead to worse performance than doing nothing at all. (See the book Sway in the Reference section.)

If we are looking for principles to drive a unifying vision and shaping missions people will commit to, it is clear we should look close to the Theory Y end of the X-Y continuum.

Putting a Vision to the Test: The Battle for Primus Vicus

In the summer of 2008 my family and I visited a medieval village in Halmstad. The village is called

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Virgin Atlantic Mission StatementTo grow a profitable airline, where people love to fly, and people love to work.

It is nice to get out of the office once in a while. The picture shows me while doing preliminary research for the Primus Vicus project.

Primus Vicus (First Village) and was built in 2007 as part of the celebration of Halmstad’s 700 year anniversary.

The original plan was to tear Primus Vicus down once the anniversary celebrations were over. However, a group of enthusiasts, including

the project manager and members of the team that built the village, decided to turn the village into a permanent tourist attraction. In order to do this, they formed the Primus Vicus medieval society, and obtained stewardship of the village.

10

Create an interest in medieval history

and folk life.

Be a Living History museum

Have a historically correct

environment

Be a knowledge center for medieval history and culture

Work in close collaboration with the municipality

Fit into Halmstad's 2020 vision (City of Knowledge, City of

Events, Home Town)

Be profitable to the municipality

Draw tourists to Halmstad

Have top class PR

Maximize revenue

Have excellent sponsor support

Have popular attractions and

activities the year around

Be an interesting partner for other

societies

Minimize operating expenses

considering revenue and investment

Have active and committed members

Have fun activities for members

Be well organized with clearly defined

areas of responsibility

Minimize investments considering

revenue

Make money now and in the future

The Primus Vicus medieval society was close to shutting down when they decided to express their vision and mission in the form of an Intermediate Objective Map to rally their forces. Later, when under direct attack from a PR and event arrangement company, the society fought back success-fully.

Running the village proved to be much more difficult than building it. When I first visited Primus Vicus there was talk of giving up, of closing the village and disbanding the Primus Vicus society.

I talked with some society members when my family and I visited the village, and suggested that I might help. We decided to run a brain-storming session for the entire society, and develop a combined vision and mission state-ment in the form of an Intermediate Objective Map, and a plan for reenergizing the society and getting the village on secure financial foot-ing.

I often work under NDA’s, but the Primus Vi-cus society decided to let me videotape the work we did, publish videocasts, write and talk about the project. For me, this was a rare chance to publish detailed accounts of some of my work.

I have described the two day brainstorming session in three videocasts on the Kallokain channel at YouTube, so I will skip the details here. What is interesting is the Intermediate Objective Map on page 12. It shows the vision and the mission the society members created for themselves, a vision and a mission they chose to commit to.

Some time after my work with the society, the society made a deal with the Halmstad city council to transform their stewardship of the village into ownership.

When society members went to a meeting to sign the contract, they were surprised to find that the deal was off. The city council had de-cided to close the village and tear it down.

It soon became apparent that the city council had changed its decision because of Halmstad & Co., an event arrangement company. The reasons are not entirely clear, but initially it probably had to do with getting control of the property the village was built on. Later, the battle developed into a death-match.

Halmstad & Co. expected an easy victory. They soon found they had attacked a nest of wild cats. Primus Vicus had found their vision. They now made it their mission to fight off the threat.

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All active members took part in creating the vision and the mission for the Primus Vicus society. Ac-tive participation at all levels of an organization is absolutely necessary. Without it, people will have no reason to commit themselves. Less than a year after these pictures were taken, the people here proved their commitment in the battle against Halmstad & Co.

Honda Mission Statement"We will crush, squash, and slaughter Ya-maha"

From the famous Honda-Yamaha War in the 1980’s.

The battle got pretty harsh. At one point, when I visited the village, the city council had locked

the village up, and had dogs running loose inside it to keep society members out. At another point in the war, it was the society

that occupied the village in order to stop the city council from tearing it down.

The Primus Vicus society attacked in Maneuver Conflict fashion, with attacks from multiple di-rections: They engaged a lawyer to sue for breach of contract, they occupied the village, they made public manifestations to turn the pub-lic against the PR company attacking them, they held events to prove their worth to the com-munity, and they succeeded!

In the end, the Primus Vicus society had to agree to relocate the village, but they did obtain own-ership. The CEO of Halmstad & Co. resigned in June 2009.

The Primus Vicus society is alive and well. I am definitely going to renew my membership.

Vision Check: How to Test Your Vision and Mission Statements

Use the flow chart to the left to check whether your vision and mission statements can unify and guide your company toward the future. The dia-gram is based on an article by Dr. Russel Ackoff.

If you get stuck at one of the evaluation boxes, unable to proceed further, your vision and mis-sion may be nothing more than wasted space on your corporate web site.

In the short range, this may not hurt you much, at least no more than the pain you are feeling right now, but ponder this:

A company without a vision, is a company without a future.

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Start

Can the statement be disagreed

with reasonably?

Can progress towards the

objectives be measured?

Does the

statement differentiate the

organization from other

organizations?

Is it a unifying

concept for all the diverse

businesses the company is in?

Does it suggest new directions for

diversification and growth?

Is it relevant to all stakeholders?

Shareholders, managers, employees, the public, customers, suppliers...

Is it exciting and inspiring?

A mission should play the same role in a company that

the Holy Grail did in the Crusades. It does not have to appear to be feasible; it only

has to be desirable.— Dr. Russel Ackoff

Great Vision

and Mission

All employees must participate in developing the

statement (or sub-statements), or relevance will

be lost.

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

If the statement cannot be disagreed with, it is to bland

to be useful.

If progress is not measurable, the statement is

useless.

If there is no fundamental difference between the organization and other

organizations, the organization has no value over other organizations.

Without diversification and growth, the organization will eventually wither and die.

Is it visible?Managers and employees must see the vision and

mission every day.The vision and mission must become part of everyone's

mental picture of the organization.

References and AcknowledgementsBooks:• Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman• The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by

Stephen R. Covey.

Articles on the Web:• Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience

at http://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part1.html

• Mission Statements, an article by Dr. Russell Ackoff is available at http://www.charleswarner.us/ articles/mission.htm

PhotographsThe following photos are from stock.xchng:

• Seattle Space Needle

The following photos are from WikiMedia Commons:

• Blue Marble, photo of the Earth taken during the Apollo 17 expedition.

• John F. Kennedy• Apollo 17 Moon landing• Coca-Cola advertisment• Brain with Nucleus Accumbens marked

About Henrik Mårtensson

Henrik Mårtensson is a management consultant and business advisor.

Henrik has worked for Ericsson Hewlett-Packard, Volvo 3P, Volvo IT, Wirelesscar, FMV, Sca-nia, Astra-Zeneca and many other companies.

Henrik is a prolific writer, with more than 250 published magazine articles, and several technical manuals to his credit. His blog, Kallokain, was nominated for NOOP’s list of most influential bloggers in 2008. Henrik is also a member of Ag-ileZone’s Most Valued Blogger program.

Henrik’s videocasts about management on the Kallokain channel at YouTube have been viewed more than 30,000 times.

You can contact Henrik by

phone: +46 708 56 23 65email: self@henrikmartensson.orgSkype: rubyistTwitter: @Kallokain

or, visit Henrik’s web sites:

www.henrikmartensson.org

kallokain.blogspot.com

www.youtube.com/user/kallokain

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