If you do any work on developing vision, mission…or purpose, it would be a good idea to pick up a copy of It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For by Roy M. Spence, Jr.  I first ran across Spence when I read Mavericks at Work and GSD&M, the Austin based marketing and advertising company he serves as chairman and CEO, was highlighted more than once as an example.

I asked for a review copy when I noticed the subtitle: Why Every Extraordinary Business is Driven By Purpose.  Believe me, I was not disappointed.  This is a great read and packed with lots of ideas, principles and practices you can use right away.

There are several very important features with this book.  First, it opens with three very important chapters on distinguishing purpose from mission or vision, how to discover your purpose and how to articulate your purpose.  I loved the fact that all three of these chapters were very practical and included tips and exercises designed to make it happen.

Second, going far beyond discovering and articulating purpose, in Part II and III Spence wrestles with building an organization that makes a difference and becoming a leader of great purpose.  One of the coolest things about these sections of the book is that they’re heavily seasoned with stories from some of the most dynamic purpose-driven corporations (including Walmart, AARP, Whole Foods, Southwest Airlines, and Charles Schwab).  You’ll come away with many, many stories that will inspire you to think differently about the task at hand.

Finally, Part IV provides a detailed examination on the subject of bringing purpose to life in the marketplace.  Covering corporations (Walmart, BMW, etc.), membership organizations (AARP), nonprofit organizations (American Red Cross), higher education (Texas A&M), and sports (PGA), the case studies in this section provides extensive detail of the strategies (marketing, human resources, business objectives, etc.) that brought purpose to life.

While Roy Spence is clearly a brilliant and very successful marketer, It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For is not a book about marketing or advertising.  In fact, in one of my favorite quotes from Part IV he writes that ”the more an organization understands its purpose, the more it can create products, services, and experiences that will create a strong brand in the marketplace.  Truth be told, advertising is very far downstream in the process of building truly great brands (p. 156).”

This book is about discovering and learning to articulate purpose.  It’s about building an purpose-based organization.  It’s about becoming a purpose-based leader.  Sounds like the kind of thing all of us could use more of.  This is a great book and I’ll be recommending it to many of my consulting clients.

Can’t speak for you, but I love the way Granger is communicating their new vision. Watch this video for a hint:

Our Story from Granger Community Church on Vimeo.

If you’ve been along for the journey here at StrategyCentral, you’ve heard the phrase “life-change” many times.  It’s the thing we exist to deliver…and that’s true whether your organization is a church or a non-profit.  Our organizations are in business to do more than make products or create experiences or operate programs.  We exist to do something that will ultimately change lives!

Yesterday I saw a Tweet from my friend Will Mancini (@willmancini) and it got my attention.  His Tweet read: “Ikea out-articulates the church. Isn’t “Life Changes Available” a better golden tomorrow than the nebulous “life change” we talk?”

I have to say, the addition of the word “available” presented such an intriguing twist on the well-worn phrase “life-change” that I had to check into what IKEA is doing.  Life Changes Available is a great tag line, but it’s more than a tag line.  It is a great story.

At the same time, it is a great illustration of the kind of thinking that can create an appealing and memorable invitation designed to catch the attention of our customers.

Back to Will’s Tweet.  He was making the point that our frequent reference to life-change is colorless.  It’s vague.  Who really knows what it means.  I guess we know what it means.  But when we use that phrase in a marketing piece or in a message, doesn’t it slip right by our intended audience?

Example: “Small groups are important here at ___________ Community Church because we believe that life change happens best around a coffee table.”

What?

The Takeaway:  The addition of the word “available” takes the phrase “life-change” from camouflaged fuzziness to an appealingly clear offer.  It shifts the phrase from the body of the marketing piece to the headline.

For me, it now fits in the same category as another tag line I’ve used for years: “Feel like a face in the crowd?”  That line perfectly fits the sensation that many people have when they’re walking into a large crowd week after week and no one knows them.  No one knows their struggle.  No one knows their loneliness.

Can you see how “Life Changes Available” will catch people’s attention?  It sure caught mine.

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I had a jaw drop moment while reading Bill Taylor’s most recent HBR blog post, Brand Is Culture, Culture Is Brand.  Although the article is about brands and organizational culture, the story he told about the way USAA employees learn to meet the needs of their customers was very compelling and I realized right away that you’d want to hear about this.

His article highlights USAA (the insurance and financial-services firm that only does business with active or retired members of the U.S. military and their families) and their intense drive to meet the needs of their customer.  They do that by building a culture that seeks to understand the life that our military and their families live.

This is where the article brought me to a jaw-drop moment.  USAA employees are known for their empathy.  They develop that empathy through a series of immersion activities.  For example, when they’re about to start training USAA team members:

• “Get a ‘deployment letter’ like the ones real soldiers get: ‘Report to the personnel processing-facility’ tomorrow, the letter reads, and get your affairs in order beforehand.’”
• “Eat MREs (meals ready to eat) on many occasions during their training, to get a ‘taste’ for the life of a soldier”
• “Walk around in 65-pound backpacks.”
• “Read actual letters from soldiers in the field to their families back home.”

All of this is part of a strategy that “USAA calls it ‘Surround Sound’ — immerse employees in the real life and emotional needs of customers.”  One consultant said, “There is nobody on this earth who understands their customer better than USAA.”

Wow!  Isn’t what we all do worth that kind of immersion?  Wouldn’t we all like to be known as the organization that understands their customers better than anyone else!

What would it have to look like for our teams to really understand our customers in this way?

Bob Sutton is one of my favorite authors.  His newest, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best…and Learn from the Worst, is just the latest in a long line of thought provoking (and just plain provocative) works and is a great follow-up to his New York Times bestseller, The No A#%&ole Rule.

If you’re a boss, if you lead a team, this is a very good resource to add to your toolkit.  Where The No A#%&ole Rule focused on “the damage done by workplace jerks, what it takes to survive a nasty workplace, and how organizations can screen out, reform and expel demeaning and destructive creeps,” Good Boss, Bad Boss “reveals the mindset, measure and actions of the best bosses–along with lessons gleaned from mistakes that even the best bosses sometimes make (p. 9).”

Consistent with Sutton’s pattern, Good Boss, Bad Boss is a blend of research and rigorous study with true stories…and lots of them.  His earlier efforts (with Jeffrey Pfeffer), Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management and The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action are two of the most readable (and most marked up) books in my library.  Good Boss, Bad Boss has the same feel from cover to cover.

Working his way through some challenging topics, Sutton provides great insight into how to take control, how to link talk with action, and how to do the dirty work in a way that takes advantage of four antidotes (predictability, understanding, control and compassion).  As expected he also includes a chapter on how to squelch your inner bosshole.

Every chapter includes a set of takeaways or a prescription that allows immediate application.  Whether you’ve already been sensing the need to sharpen and improve your performance or you learned it in your most recent review…this is a resource that can help you as you take steps to correct your trajectory.

If you’re looking for a highly readable and very practical leadership handbook…this is a good one and I highly recommend it.  You can order your copy right here.

Like many of us, I am a student of the language of ideas. How to say it in just the right way is the essence of great communication.  Without the right language it can never be more than directional.  For anything to be inspirational…language is an essential element.

Need an example?  Take a moment to read this manifesto.  It was developed by GWP as part of their pitch to secure the ING Direct account as they prepared to launch in the United States.  This kind of pitch must show that the branding company absolutely gets the core idea.  As you read it, listen for how it might apply to your organization:

We are new here.  There has never been a time like this before.  Our name is ING Direct.  Our mission is to help people take care of the wealth they make for themselves in ways that fit this new time.

We will be fair.  We will constantly learn.  We will change and adapt and dwell only in the present and in the future.

We will listen.  We will invent.  We will simplify.  We will never stop asking why, or why not.  We will create wealth for ourselves, too.  But we will do this by creating value.

We will tell the truth.  We will be for everyone, except those who are truly served by the old way (I love that line!)

Because we aren’t conquerors.  We are pioneers.  We are not here to destroy.  We are here to create.

We will never be finished.

We are not a bank.  We will never be a bank.  But we will be what a bank would be if it began tomorrow and asked simply, “What if we started over?” (I really love that line) (p. 77, The Orange Code)

I can’t speak for you.  I don’t know about your organization.  But I do know this…there is an aspirational element in this that’s at the heart of what needs to be rediscovered in many, many organizations.

“We will be what a ________ would be if it began tomorrow and asked simply, “What if we started over?”

By the way, this concept is related to the Andy Grove idea referred to here, here, and here.  And if you’re new to StrategyCentral…you can sign up to get my updates right here.

My friend Will Mancini wrote and interesting article in mid-December and challenged all of his readers to learn to drip vision.  He followed that post up with a challenge to drip vision every day.  Today Mac Lake, leadership guru/practitioner extraordinaire, entered the game with his own 5 visiondrip ideas…actually saw Mancini’s 5 and anted up 5 of his own.

I like the way this game is shaping up!  I’m in.  Here’s my 5:

1. This is more permanent, but I love the way crossroads in Corona, CA, has used a combination of faces and scripture in their worship center lobby to call out their vision for people everyday.  I know PlainJoe Studios played a role in the design.  Very cool…and always on.
2. Speaking of always on, I love the way Gateway Church in Austin, TX, has integrated their slogan “no perfect people allowed” into their website.  At the same time, the line “come as you are” appears prominently above the fold on the home page.
3. When you find a quote that really resonates with your vision, type it out, change the layout to landscape, and enlarge the font.  A little fold near the top allows you to hang it where everyone who visits your office can see it.
4. Point your leaders to online messages that drip your vision.  I love this Andy Stanley message that was done at LifeChurch.TV in 2009.  I’ve never heard a more insightful look at Acts 15.  Powerful.  Watch for Andy’s quote near the end of his message.  “We need local churches that have all the rungs on the ladder.  Because church is for everybody.”  Awesome…and right at the heart of what North Point is about.
5. Make it a daily practice to send an email or write a note that points out a way that the recipient is living out the vision.

Actually, I want to see Will and Mac’s 5 and raise them 1.  Here it is:  Use upfront time and casual conversation as opportunities to make heroes out of those who are living out the vision.  We all get to choose who will be the heroes in our organization.  Choose wisely.  And do it everyday.  Always on.

Do you know what the mission of your organization is?  Maybe you don’t know the exact verbiage…but do you know the mission?  Could you explain it if asked?  What about your teammates or the newest members of your organization?  Could they explain what your mission is?

If not…are you ever troubled by that?  If you can’t clearly explain what you exist to do, are you losing any sleep?

My sense is that nothing is more important than clarity about the mission; clarity about the business you’re in (as Peter Drucker said it).  And yet, so many organizations miss this fundamental truth.  Oh, they have a mission statement.  It just doesn’t have anything to do with what they’re really about.  Or it’s a relic from a time when they were focused.  Or maybe they just borrowed their mission statement from another organization.  Worse still, maybe their mission statement isn’t really about their mission.  Maybe it’s more of a value or something that sounds good.

Is it really all that important to have a mission?

Yes…a mission gives a reason for being.  A mission gives purpose.  And you might be thinking, “Duh!  Already there!”

What about being clear on what the mission is?  Is it essential to be clear?

Absolutely.  In fact, without clarity, without focus, your organization will wander, your organization will never really flourish.  You may experience growth, but it won’t be lasting.  You may have seasons where things seem to work, but it will be unsustainable.  The first difficulty may not flatten you, but eventually a lack of clarity will stall you.

I loved Peggy Noonan’s end of the year Wall Street Journal article.  She pointed out the fact that perhaps “the most worrying trend the past 10 years can be found in this phrase: ‘They forgot the mission.’ So many great American institutions—institutions that every day help hold us together—acted as if they had forgotten their mission, forgotten what they were about, what their role and purpose was, what they existed to do.”

Hmmm.  They forgot the mission.

Sound familiar?  Does your mission, the mission of your organization, come immediately to mind?  Or do you have to hem and haw to explain what your organization exists to do?  If you asked random members of the organization would they have the same idea?  Or would they be more than a little vague?

If there is not clarity, you’re heading for a stall or you’re in it now.  You’re heading for disarray or you’re in it now.

Want things to change?  You’ve got to get clarity on the mission.

One of the most important ongoing conversations a leader has is the one that keeps the mission on the front burner.  As this critically important conversation becomes less frequent or more muddled the likelihood that the mission is accomplished decreases.  How do you have the conversation?  I say “all the time and in as many ways as possible.”

My default way is to find stories or metaphors that graphically illustrate the mission.  I loved this paragraph from Will Mancini’s Church Unique:

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that the church is only the church when it exists for others.  What keeps your church focused externally?  Who do you think the most important person is to the Coca Cola company?  The consumer?  Which one?  The coke drinker?  Nope.  It’s actually the Pepsi drinker (p. 123).”

That is a great way of thinking about mission.  Unless you’re in the business of caring for the already convinced you’ve got to be focusing on the unconvinced.  If success has anything to do with reaching new customers…you better keep that mission in front of your team all the time.

By the way, one of the earliest posts here at StrategyCentral was about carbonation in churches.  Like the line here about the most important person being a Pepsi drinker, the story in this early post is one I’ve told a thousand times.  It’s all about mission.

One of the highlights of Drive ’08 was Andy Stanley’s talk, Random Thoughts On Leadership.  I’ve referenced it before and it is a great talk.  Really one of those talks that the audio hangs in the consciousness for years.  The basic gist was that Andy took 5 memorable quotes that had affected his thinking and riffed on how they were impacting his leadership and North Point’s front-of-mind decisions.  I highly recommend that you purchase it and listen to it over and over.  Great insights to be had.

In the 18 months since it was delivered Andy and the North Point crew have taken the talk and dealt it out in its 5 key ideas, the random thoughts, in 5 podcasts that were part of their Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast series.  You can find out how to download the most current additions right here.  Unfortunately, the podcasts aren’t archived permanently.  Being an enthusiast…I’ve archived them right here.  Here are the quotes and the audio:

What no one else is doing.  “To reach people no one else is reaching we must do things no one else is doing.” Craig Groeschel, Senior Pastor, LifeChurch.tv

Become a Student:  “The next generation product almost never comes from the previous generation.”  Al Ries, Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It

Breaking Paradigms “What do I believe is impossible to do in my field but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business?”  Joel Barker,  Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future

Assumptions “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he do?  Why shouldn’t we walk out, come back in and do it ourselves?”  Andy Grove, Former CEO, INTEL

When memories exceed your dreams:  “When your memories exceed your dreams the end is near.”  Chuck Bentley, President of Crown Ministries