This guidebook is part of the Aspirations Series on OpenView Labs (http://labs.openviewpartners.com/series/company-aspirations/)

1. Developing Your Company Aspirations: Facilitator’s Guide

7. Aspirations Defined What Aspirations Are Your company’s aspirations are what you aspire to be as a company. They are the longest-term and most aggressive goals for your company. Your aspirations can be organized in many different ways, but most frequently are organized as your company’s mission, vision, values, and priorities . The ultimate goal of identifying, expressing, and living your company aspirations is for everyone in and around your organization to embrace and act in a manner consistent with your aspirations, including the millions of small decisions and behaviors that take place on a weekly basis, thereby allowing you to truly reach your aspirations. Essentially, you reach your aspirations by living your aspirations. Your aspirations goal can be broken down into mission , vision, value , and priority goals: Mission Goal – All of the people in your organization understand your organization’s purpose and work toward meeting that purpose in their daily work. Vision Goal – All of the people in your organization understand what you want your company and customer set to “look like” longer term and they use this understanding to both motivate and guide their work. Value Goal – All of the people in your organization work in a manner that is consistent with your values and principles. Priorities – All of the people in your organization understand your priorities if there is ever any conflict between individual aspirations. Aspirations serve as a guide for everyone inside and outside of your organization for explaining who you are, where you want to go, and how you’re going to get there. What Aspirations Are Not Aspirations are confusing to a lot of people running emerging growth technology companies. Most of the time we find that aspirations are so confusing and appear so difficult to create that companies tend to avoid them altogether. Some companies think of aspirations as a poster to motivate employees. Other companies have senior managers who believe that aspirations are for the “troops” but not for them. These issues, and others, have led the vast majority of companies to have very poor aspirations practices and most people to have a general disregard for or disbelief in the practice. Clearly, these approaches do not meet the goals of true aspirations and the poor approaches used by other companies make it much more difficult for you to implement the practice of true aspirations. Company aspirations are often – but should not be – confused with “product aspirations,” “brand aspirations,” “customer aspirations,” “business unit aspirations,” “functional aspirations,” or any other aspirations that can be developed for a specific initiative. Company aspirations are different in that they are the umbrella over all the other aspirations. They should be aligned, but different.

10. The team will be creating the mission statement first, as it will serve as the guiding document for the vision, values, and priorities statements. Begin the discussion by reiterating the definition of the mission statement: The mission statement presents the broadest and longest perspective of the purpose of your organization (generally, the commitments that you are making to your key stakeholders). Explain to the team that you will begin by reviewing the questions (below) that serve as guiding considerations for drafting a mission statement and for evaluating the draft, and that you will then be evaluating three other companies’ mission statements to see where improvements can be made. After that, the attendees will draft their own mission statement, then review, tweak, and finalize it. Read aloud the questions below – read slowly to allow time for reflection in between questions. Facilitator’s Page: Creating the Mission Statement

12. It is really important that you get the participants thinking critically about mission statements so they will engage more critically in their own mission statement. It will be a lot easier for them to be critical of other companies’ mission statements than to focus on their own, so we’ve inserted a few mission statements here for you to get started with (feel free to replace these with your own examples – you can find more at www.missionstatements.com). That said, it is not really important what mission statements they use, but rather that they get some practice evaluating and re-writing mission statements. Read aloud the sample mission statement below. Then, ask each question aloud and give the attendees time to write down their evaluations based on their answers to each question. When you are finished, have each of the attendees discuss their answers. Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Mission Statements

14. Have each attendee rewrite the mission statement in the space below. Then have each of them read aloud their revised mission statement. Discuss what is different and why they made the changes that they did. Ask them what positive changes they think will occur as a result of the changes to the mission statement. Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Mission Statements

15. Can You Improve Savid’s Mission Statement? Insert your revised Savid mission statement here:

16. Read aloud the sample mission statement below. Then, ask each question aloud and give the attendees time to write down their evaluation based on the questions. When they are finished, have each attendee share their thoughts and ask them to engage in a discussion. Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Mission Statements

18. Have each attendee rewrite the mission statement in the space below. Then have each read aloud their revised mission statement. Discuss what is different and why they made the changes that they did. Ask them what positive changes they think will occur as a result of the changes to the mission statement. Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Mission Statements

19. Can You Improve Google’s Mission Statement? Insert your revised Google mission statement here:

20. By this point, you have the drill down. Depending on the group, you can do the exercise one more time with the mission statement below, or skip this last evaluation and have the attendees start to work on their own mission statement. You will need to assess the group and their interest in moving on in order to make this decision. Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Mission Statements

22. Again, you know what to do… Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Mission Statements

23. Can You Improve USight’s Mission Statement? Insert your revised USight mission statement here:

24. Now it’s time for the attendees to evaluate their own mission statement. If the company already has a mission statement, evaluate and revise it: Read aloud the questions below, pausing in between each, so attendees can reflect and write notes. After the attendees are finished with their own reflection, open up the discussion. Ask everyone to share their thoughts and what they wrote. At this point, take notes on your flipcharts for the entire group to see. See if you can discover common areas where the attendees agree. Remind attendees to be as open and honest as possible. When you are finished with this step, move on to the brainstorming phase so attendees can create their revised mission statement. Ask the attendees: What are the primary ways you can make your mission statement stronger? If the company does not have a mission statement, lead the attendees through a brainstorming session by asking the questions below. Go back to page 11 for the master list of questions to ponder while brainstorming the mission statement. Note that many participants get a bit intellectual, work from the head too much, and need to get more heart into their mission statement. They also think that there is a right and wrong answer (there isn’t). You need to get them thinking about why they are really spending the majority of their awake life at their company! It is really important to get the participants to look through their answers to the warm-up exercise questions, particularly those that focus on why they joined the company and what is important about their company. Ask the question: “If these are important reasons for you, shouldn’t they be worked into your aspirations?” Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Your Mission Statement

26. Prior to crafting the final mission statement, identify the best ideas from the group. Lead the group through the consensus-building process until they agree on all sentences (number of sentences, order of sentences, content) of the final statement. Prior to writing out the final statement, ask the attendees to ponder – and then discuss – all the ramifications of the new mission statement: What are the positive results that will ensue once the entire organization is using the mission statement to guide them in their daily activities and decisions? It is really important that the group converges on a solid mission statement over a few iterations. If they are not converging, then it is up to you as the facilitator to help them identify and address the issues so that the impediments to convergence are removed. Note that some participants will get stuck on getting every last word right, or will not be completely convinced that they have it right. You will need to push past this desire so you can get through the day. Tell them that once they have the rest of the work done, they can go back to wordsmith the aspirations; explain that they’ll want to sleep on the results and make tweaks over the next couple of days anyhow, so if it’s mostly right at this point, you need to move on to the next section. Facilitator’s Page: Finalizing the Mission Statement

27. Create Your Final Mission Statement Insert your revised mission statement here:

28. The team will be creating its vision statement next. Begin the discussion by reiterating the definition of the vision statement: Your vision statement presents a vivid image of your organization’s future; it paints a picture of what you intend your company to look like in 1 to 5 years or perhaps longer. The vivid image serves as a target to help guide overall strategy and strategic and operating decisions, and also serves as a source of inspiration for everyone surrounding the organization. TIP: Some managers tend to be very high level and esoteric with their attempts at writing a vision statement; others try to create too much detail. The best vision statements will be used to identify strategies, so they need to be descriptive enough about the long-term goals for the business, but they also should be as short and concise as possible. Encourage and guide the team to work toward creating a short and concise vision statement that has enough substance to allow people to understand the goals. Explain to the team that you will begin by reviewing the questions (below) that serve as guiding considerations for drafting a vision statement and for evaluating the draft, and then you will do a brainstorming exercise to get them thinking. After that, you will be evaluating three other companies’ vision statements to see where improvements can be made. Finally, the attendees will draft their own vision statement, review and iterate a few times, and then finalize it. Read aloud the questions below – read slowly to allow time for reflection in between questions. Facilitator’s Page: Defining the Vision

30. Have attendees use extra paper to brainstorm as many ways they can think of to make a $10 profit by the end of the day in a new venture. Then have them prioritize their top 5 ideas. Then have them share their best ideas, while you record those ideas on a flipchart. Facilitator’s Page: Brainstorming Exercise

31. Brainstorming Exercise Brainstorm as many ways as you can to make a $10 profit by the end of the day in a new venture. Insert your best 5 ways in priority order below: My best ideas for making a $10 profit by the end of the day: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

32. Facilitator’s Page: Brainstorming Exercise After the attendees have described all of their creative and crazy ideas (there should be a lot of good ones), ask them the question: Which of these ideas would make you a $100 million? They will be a bit confused, but will look through the ideas and conclude that very few, if any, can make you $100 million. Ask them what their conclusion is. They will probably not answer or will give a few ideas. Then tell them that your conclusion is that: You can’t make $100 million with a $10 vision! Tell them to think about this as they go through their vision exercise, as they need to have a really good vision if they want to build a great company!

33. What is Your Conclusion from this Exercise? My conclusion from this exercise:

34. Read aloud the sample vision statement below. Then, ask each question aloud and give the attendees time to write down their answer to each question. When you are finished, have the attendees discuss their answers. Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Vision Statements

36. Have each attendee revise the vision statement in the space below. Then have each attendee read aloud their revised vision statement. Discuss what is different and why they made the changes that they made. Ask them what positive changes they think will occur as a result of the changes to the vision statement. Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Vision Statements

37. Can You Improve Cigna’s Vision Statement? Insert your revised Cigna vision statement here – make assumptions if you need to:

38. Read aloud the sample vision statement below. Then, ask each question aloud and give the attendees time to write down their answer to each question. When you are finished, have the attendees discuss their answers. Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Vision Statements

40. Have each attendee revise the vision in the space below. Then have each attendee read aloud their revised vision statement. Discuss what is different and why they made the changes that they did. Ask them what positive changes they think will occur as a result of the changes to the vision statement. Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Vision Statements

41. Can You Improve EMC’s Vision Statement? Insert your revised EMC vision statement here – make assumptions if you need to:

42. At this point, you have the drill down and need to decide if you should have them evaluate one more vision statement. If so, you know what to do… Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Vision Statements

44. Again, you know what to do… Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Vision Statements

45. Can You Improve Microsoft’s Vision Statement? Insert your revised Microsoft vision statement here – make assumptions if you need to:

46. Now it’s time for the attendees to evaluate their own vision statement. If the company already has a vision statement, evaluate and revise it: Read aloud the questions below, pausing in between each, so attendees can reflect and write notes. After the attendees are finished with their own reflection, open up the discussion. Ask everyone to share their thoughts and what they wrote. At this point, take notes on your flipcharts for the entire group to see. See if you can discover common areas where the attendees agree. Remind attendees to be as open and honest as possible. When you are finished with this step, move on to the brainstorming phase so attendees can create their revised vision statement. Ask the attendees: What are the primary ways you can make your vision statement stronger? If the company does not have a vision statement, lead the attendees through a brainstorming session by asking the questions below. Go back to page 29 for the master list of questions to ponder while brainstorming the vision statement. It is really important to get the participants to look through their answers to the warm-up exercise questions, particularly those that focus on why they joined the company and what is important about their company. Ask the question: “If these are important reasons for you, shouldn’t they be worked into your aspirations?” Facilitator’s Page: Evaluating Your Vision Statement

48. Prior to crafting the final vision statement, identify the best ideas from the group. Lead the group through the consensus-building process until they agree on all sentences (number of sentences, order of sentences, content) of the final statement. Prior to writing out the final statement, ask the attendees to ponder – and then discuss – all the ramifications of the new vision statement: What are the positive results that will ensue once the entire organization is using the vision statement to guide them in their daily activities and decisions? As with the mission statement, the attendees should converge on a great vision statement after several iterations. If they aren’t converging, you need to help them! Also, there will probably be at least one person struggling for perfection. Remind them that there will be plenty of time to examine all of the statements together, and to sleep on things, in order to help them accept the current draft and move on to the next step of the day. Facilitator’s Page: Finalizing the Vision Statement

49. Create Your Final Vision Statement Insert your revised vision statement here:

50. In Step 3, you will lead the team to articulate their values/the values for the company. Begin the discussion by reiterating the definition of values: Values are important and enduring beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a company about what is valuable to consider when making decisions, taking action, and interacting with other people. Values exert major influence on individual behaviors and serve as broad guidelines in all situations. Values represent the priorities in a company’s culture, including how the employees make decisions and act. Review aloud the section “Why Identify and Establish Values” (below) – encourage everyone to talk about whether they agree with the rationale. Encourage them to share positive examples of other people in the company who exhibit positive values. Facilitator’s Page: Articulating Values

52. Ask the attendees to ponder the questions in the left hand column on the page below. Record their responses on the flipchart. Then, review the considerations in the right hand column – encourage the attendees to keep these considerations in mind as they begin working through the upcoming exercises and actually articulating their own values. Facilitator’s Page: Considerations While Articulating Values

54. Read through the examples below. Ask the attendees what they think about the examples. Are the value statements short, concise, clear? Is there anything that could be done to improve these statements? If so, what? Facilitator’s Page: Examples of Value Statements

55. Some Examples of Value Statements Microsoft Values As a company, and as individuals, we value integrity, honesty, openness, personal excellence, constructive self-criticism, continual self-improvement, and mutual respect. We are committed to our customers and partners and have a passion for technology. We take on big challenges, and pride ourselves on seeing them through. We hold ourselves accountable to our customers, shareholders, partners, and employees by honoring our commitments, providing results, and striving for the highest quality. The Warehouse New Zealand Values The Warehouse New Zealand is a values-based business. Our key values are: Where People Come First The culture of The Warehouse is unique and has been one of the key reasons behind the success of the company. Where Everyone Gets A Bargain We are focused on ensuring that we provide great value products for our customers every day. Where The Environment Matters The Warehouse has an extensive program of environmental and social initiatives, which we feel are improving our community and our environment. View our Triple Bottom Line Report for more information about our most recent environmental and social activities. We aim to ensure that these values flow on to our stakeholders – our team members, customers, suppliers, shareholders, and our community.

56. Ask attendees to circle the values (below) that they think are important to the company’s success. There are more than 200 values listed. Ask attendees to circle as many as they want, or at least 25. Facilitator’s Page: Examples of Values

57. List of Values to Consider Note: Partially created from www.gurusoftware.com/gurunet/Business/Values.htm. For a more complete list of values to consider, see www.humanityquest.com. Accomplishment, Achievement, Agility, Accountability, Accuracy, Adventure, All For One & One for All, Ambition, Attitude, Athletics/Sports, Authority, Beauty, Behavior (proper), Benefits to All, Calm, Challenge, Change, Charity, Civic Duty, Civic Pride, Civil Rights, Cleanliness, Orderliness, Collaboration, Collective (needs), Commitment, Common Purpose, Communication, Community, Compassion, Competence, Competition, Concern for Others, Conformity, Connection, Content Over Form, Consensus, Continuity (from past), Continuous Improvement, Cooperation, Coordination, Courage, Courtesy, Creativity, Credibility, Culture, Customer Satisfaction, Decisiveness, Dedication, Delight of Being, Joy, Democracy, Dependability, Determination, Dignity, Diplomacy (over confrontation), Discipline, Discovery, Diversity, Duty, Ease of Use, Education, Efficiency, Equality, Empathy, Empowerment (of the individual), Environment, Ethical Standards (high), Excellence, Fairness, Fact-Based Decision Making, Faith, Faithfulness, Family, Family Feeling, Flair, Flexibility, Focus, Fraternity, Freedom, Friendship, Fun, Generosity, Genius, Global View, Goodwill, Goodness, Gratitude, Growth, Hard Work, Harmony, Health and Well Being, Heroism, Honesty, Honor, Human Rights, Humbleness, Impact, Improvement, Independence, Individuality, Informality/Formality, Inner Peace, Innovation, Integrity, Intelligence, Intensity, Justice, Knowledge, Leadership, Learning, Love, Romance, Loyalty, Maximum Utilization (of time, resources), Meaning, Merit, Meritocracy, Money/Wealth, Openness, Optimism, Orderliness, Patriotism, Peace, Non-Violence, People Development, Perfection, Performance, Personal Growth, Perseverance, Persistence, Pleasure, Power, Practicality, Preservation, Privacy, Progress, Prosperity, Punctuality, Quality of Products, Quality of Service, Quality of Work, Quietude, Regularity, Reliability, Resourcefulness, Respect for Others, Responsiveness, Responsibility (taking), Results-Oriented, Rule of Law, Sacrifice, Safety, Satisfying Others, Security, Self-Management, Self-Givingness, Self-Reliance, Self-Thinking, Sense of Urgency, Seriousness, Service (to others, society), Simplicity, Sincerity, Skill, Solving Problems, Speed, Spirit in Life (using), Stability, Standardization, Status, Stewardship, Strength, Success, Systemization, Teamwork, Tenacity, Timeliness, Tolerance, Tradition, Transparency, Tranquility, Trust, Truth, Unity, Variety, Wealth, Will to Succeed, Wisdom Step 1: Circle the values below that you think are important to the success of your company:

58. Ask attendees the questions below. After asking each question, write their responses on the flipchart. Facilitator’s Page: Identify Important Values

60. Next you will work to narrow the values down to the top 20. The best way to do this is to ask each participant to narrow their list to 10 values using the form below. Facilitator’s Page: Narrow the List

61. Narrow and Synthesize Your List of Values Step 3: Narrow the lists developed in Step 1 and Step 2 to a maximum of 20 values and list them below: Initial list of values (maximum 20) Synthesize where possible Step 4: Take the list on the left and see if the values can be combined or eliminated in order to reduce the list to a maximum of 10: Synthesized list of values (maximum 10)

64. Use the example below to show the team how specific “words” for values can be brought to life. In the next step, the team will be drafting their own sentences. Facilitator’s Page: Bring Words to Life

65. Example: How to Make Words Relevant Zappos Example Note: The right hand column is Zappos’ values. The left hand column is hypothesized to show how this step works. From Original Value… To Words That Fit Your Business Quality Service Deliver WOW Through Service Change Embrace and Drive Change Fun Create Fun and A Little Weirdness Creativity Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded Self-Development Pursue Growth and Learning Interpersonal Relationships Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication Team Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit Efficiency Do More with Less Passion Be Passionate and Determined Humility Be Humble

66. Following the examples you just looked at, have the team members write out their own values and build their own sentences on flipchart paper and present them to the rest of the attendees. Try to pick the best sentences or combine sentences to fill in the form below. Facilitator’s Page: Bring Words to Life

67. Now Make Your Words Relevant Step 6: Translate the values into words and/or phrases that are meaningful to your company. From Original Value… (insert your final draft values below) To Words That Fit Your Business (convert the values on the left to your words on the right)

68. List all of the final values. Speaking aloud, ask all of the following questions (below) of each value. Ensure that there is consensus. Where there is not consensus, work through the issues until you reach consensus. Facilitator’s Page: Drafting the Final Values

70. Have attendees write in the values and what each one means to them. Brainstorm these aloud as well. Record them on the flipchart. Facilitator’s Page: Adding Details

71. Add Detail Step 8: Insert your definitions of what each of your values means to you : For a detailed example of this using Zappos, go to http://about.zappos.com/our-unique-culture/zappos-core-values. Your Values (Insert your values using the Words That Fit Your Business from Step 6) What This Means

72. Using the flipchart, lead the group through the process of using their final list of values to craft the sentences that will make up the values statement. Lead the group through the consensus-building process until they agree on all sentences (number of sentences, order of sentences, content) of the final statement. Prior to writing out the final statement, ask the attendees to ponder – and then discuss – all the ramifications of the new values statement: What are the positive results that will ensue once the entire organization is using the vision statement to guide them in their daily activities and decisions? Again, remind the attendees that there will be time to sleep on the final values statement. Facilitator’s Page: Create the Final Values Statement

73. Create Your Final Values Statement Insert your final values statement here:

74. If the team members have mentioned multiple stakeholders or have other ambiguity in their mission, values, or vision statements, they can clarify their priorities with a priorities statement. Consider the example below. In the next step, you’ll help the team determine whether they need a priorities statement. Note: The company may not need a priorities statement…it is only useful to eliminate ambiguity that might exist in the rest of the aspirations. Facilitator’s Page: About Priorities Statements

77. Do You Need to Clarify Priorities? Your Mission Statement Your Vision Statement Your Values Any Ambiguity? Your Priorities

78. Using the flipchart, help the group identify all of the company’s priorities. Get consensus on how the priorities should be ordered. Craft the final sentences for the priorities statement. Have a discussion about how having the priorities clarified is going to help employees and stakeholders from this point forward. Facilitator’s Page: Write the Priorities Statement

79. Create Your Final Priorities Statement Insert your priorities statement here:

80. Wrap up the meeting by providing the final write-ups of the mission statement, vision statement, values statement, and priorities statement. At this point, you can get a better feel for how committed each participant is (or at least appears to be) by asking each of them to get up and present their aspirations to the rest of the team. This will help ensure that the words sound right to each participant, and it will give all of them some practice in presenting the aspirations. It also will help you determine if you should get the group to iterate on any areas that don’t seem to be coming across well. Once you are comfortable, move forward to lead the concluding discussion. Facilitator’s Page: Wrap-Up

81. Your Aspirations Mission Statement: Vision Statement: Values Statement: Priorities Statement:

83. Some Final Thoughts on Aspirations Over time you will want to test both your aspirations and the words that you use to describe your aspirations. Iterating is important, as aspirations change over time. Separately, to become truly useful, aspirations must become part of your organization’s culture. You, as leaders of the company, should communicate your aspirations regularly and act as role models by referring to the aspirations when you develop strategies, set goals, make decisions, and take action. In addition, you should point out when others’ actions are in-line and out-of-line with the company’s aspirations, and encourage others to do the same. Finally, periodically, you should internally assess how well people inside your organization understand the company’s aspirations and how well they think the aspirations are being used to provide guidance to the organization.