What's the corporate vision of your organisation? At Thinkergy, we've always had a clear picture of a compelling future for our innovation company. But due to changes in the wider business environment, our crystal-clear and motivating vision had somehow become hazy, lukewarm and doubtful. So what can we do to retain or regain vision clarity in uncertain times?
Corporate vision -- a picture of your organisational future: Most well-led organisations have an absorbing corporate vision of what their future is going to be like. Together with a mission and set of values, the vision statement is part of the strategic core of a purpose-driven organisation. While corporate values define the code of conduct of everyone ("How do we want to undertake our business activities?), and the corporate mission spells out your raison d'etre ("Why are we here?"), a corporate vision paints a compelling picture of how the organisation's future will look; it also provides reasons why people should try to create that future and how it contributes to the organisation's mission. But what happens when clarity and belief in your vision turn into obscurity and doubt?
The modern vision dilemma: In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, the business environment has become increasingly risky, complex, uncertain and ambiguous. Foreseeable changes in the wider political, economical, social and technological environment, coupled with unexpected surprises, make it increasingly difficult for companies to hang on to just one vision. What can you do to move beyond one vision?
Introducing scenario visions: I found the resolution to Thinkergy's vision dilemma at a seminar on future thinking. The renowned futurist Sohail Inayatullah introduced me to Scenario Analysis, a technique that invites you to first explore future trends and possible discontinuities and then to envision and narrate a set of alternative scenarios of how the future may unfold in line with some of the identified trends.
The technique was popularised in the 1970s as "scenario planning" by Royal Dutch Shell, and as "scenario thinking" in some military war-gaming exercises. It worked well in the relatively static corporate and political world of the mid-Cold War era. But nowadays, planning and analysis no longer suffice to deal with the complexities and uncertainties of a highly dynamic business world.
Moving from one vision to scenario visions: At Thinkergy, we've always envisioned setting up a world-class innovation centre. We imagined this "Thinkergy Innovation Playground" as a purpose-designed space to hold high-end innovation workshops and thought-leading innovation conferences, and also as a home base for our innovation teams serving international clients.
Right after the futures workshop, I began imagining alternate vision scenarios for Thinkergy's growth that ride on different trends and employ different business models. We complemented our original vision with four vision scenarios:
"The Premium Innovation Boutique" is the first. Imagine a boutique innovation agency with premium innovation methods and sophisticated "thoughtware" serving organisations willing to pay premium fees for our high-end solutions.
"The Thinkergy Innovation Network" is a global network of innovation partners who, as licensees of our content, help us spread our know-how. We would also use digital networks to distribute more basic entry-level content such as books, apps and tests to the general public.
"Big fish eats small fish" is our "disowned" vision scenario in the truest sense of the word. To get hold of our innovation methods and know-how, a corporation, consulting company or educational institution acquires Thinkergy in part or in full with an offer hard to turn down.
"The Intersection" is the final new vision scenario. It combines two or more of the above into a bigger, more impactful and meaningful shared vision.
So what has happened? Since I have detached from our one vision, and mentally opened up to alternative scenarios, amazing things have happened: Thinkergy will use the "innovation network" scenario to enter the North American market in the third quarter of 2016.
More surprisingly, our "intersection" vision has emerged on the radar screen too. While on a business trip to the US, I met someone who is raising hundreds of millions of dollars to set up a series of innovation centres worldwide -- and expressed interest in both our "innovation playground" concept and methods that can help him animate these centres.
Conclusion: As a business leader, consider moving from one vision statement to a set of vision scenarios to gain greater flexibility to creatively react to new market developments. Develop a game plan for each scenario ahead of time, which allows you to quickly seize emerging opportunities and go with the flow of the dynamically changing modern business world.
Dr Detlef Reis is the founding director and chief ideator of Thinkergy Ltd (Thinkergy.com), an ideation and innovation company in Asia, and an adjunct associate professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. He can be reached at dr.d@thinkergy.com