NLP and the company's mission. How developing a vision and mission helps build the logical levels of a business organization Mission NLP

An informal conversation about the main thing.

Origins of Motivation

Sitting down at the computer, I asked myself the question: “Why do I need to write this article?” And I realized that sometimes it is too lazy to tell the same thing at almost every negotiation regarding ordering any training programs or organizational consulting services from our Center. Also today, this topic, as the most popular, is included by us in most open trainings in the field of using NLP in business. And every time, presenting it, you understand that there are no books or other materials that could be distributed to listeners as a short reference summary. In connection with all of the above, I decided to transfer onto paper (as far as possible) what we usually tell at our seminars and negotiations, thereby saving myself from unnecessary repetitions and, perhaps, offering one of the readers another point of view on description of modern approaches to the development of business organizations.

Just 5-6 years ago, a conversation about the need to define a company’s Vision and develop its Mission caused bewilderment among some training participants: “Aren’t these empty fabrications of Western business consultants who decided to offer a new “product” for trusting and solvent companies? " Such questions, of course, could only be asked by the owners and employees of Russian companies, since this topic has been developing in the West for decades. For the Western business world, Vision and Mission have already become an integral part of the thinking of company leaders and a manifestation of elementary business culture. Today you will find a section dedicated to describing the company's Mission, not only in its head office and on the website, but also in each individual division. I remember in 2000 I was struck by the fact that in two stores of the famous American supermarket chain Walmart that I visited, there were large posters hanging at the entrance describing the company’s Mission. Moreover, in each store the wording was slightly different in accordance with its specific location and specifics. And I was even more surprised by the fact that practically under this poster there was a counter in the complaints department, where a polite store employee calmly and with a smile accepted returns... No, not a defective product, but a product that customers simply did not like. But that’s another story and different consumer protection laws.

History and background

As practice shows, many (not all, of course) executives and managers of Russian companies perceived the Vision and Mission as another necessary business attribute, similar to a beautiful logo and corporate identity. This attitude has allowed some consulting companies to take advantage of the opportunity to earn good money. These organizations offered to buy a choice of one of the ready-made Missions. Thus, one large investment company ordered the development of a Mission and corporate values ​​with their subsequent implementation into the corporate culture. The entire work of the consultants consisted of surveying employees in order to determine their knowledge of the corporate values ​​of their company, after which a multi-page analysis was placed on the managers’ desk, indicating the employees’ complete ignorance of the values, and a proposal to change the situation. Next, simply unique work was done: all managers were divided into teams to participate in the training a la “Fun Starts”. During the game, the teams competed in memorizing corporate values ​​and knowledge of their hierarchy. And one of the exercises was simply a masterpiece. I don’t know if this is the know-how of a consulting company, but I’ll describe it anyway - you might want to implement it in your organization. So, print your Mission in large print on thick paper in an amount corresponding to the number of teams playing. Then cut it into individual words, mix it up and give it to the teams. Now give a start and note the time. The team that is the first to put together the correct formulation of the Mission from this puzzle will be the winner. Give her her well-deserved reward and move on to the next game for your money. The consultants' report on the results of the training was impeccable. It provided comparative data on employees’ knowledge of values ​​and the Mission before and after the training. Naturally, based on the results of such competitions, they remembered everything better than the multiplication tables. There is only one thing that disappoints: practically no one began to share the learned values ​​and did not understand why they surrendered to this Mission. Everything would be fine - only this service cost the company several tens of thousands of dollars!!! And besides direct financial losses, there were also indirect losses: after this training, many managers acquired a strong aversion to the concept of “Mission” and all activities related to it. Another case may even seem funny. Two years ago, two co-owners of a Moscow trading and manufacturing company came to me and left me speechless for a while with the following statement: “Convince us that our company needs a Mission, since we think that this is a complete mess! “Fortunately, today this company is actively developing and expanding, having gone through organizational consulting procedures. Many of its managers have received the necessary knowledge and began to perceive their activities and changes in the modern market in a completely different way.

I don’t know how relevant it is for you to move from linear thinking and perception of your organization to a systems approach; I also don’t know how you define each of the concepts used in the article - and therefore I immediately admit that everything stated below is the position of our “Business Technology Center” and may not coincide with your views.

Despite the fact that the active transfer of the laws of systems thinking to the field of business began relatively recently, you can already find in the literature different and sometimes opposing definitions of the concepts “Vision” and “Mission” (here I should note that the first to introduce These terms were used in business communication by NLP consultants, in particular, Robert Dilts - developer of the Logical Levels model).

Most of the participants in our trainings, when asked what the Mission of a business organization is, usually answer: “Making money! Making a profit! Satisfying the needs of shareholders!” - and so on. And then you understand why we still have such unobtrusive service, strange cars, poor household appliances, low-quality shoes and clothes. It turns out that many entrepreneurs still confuse the concepts of “Goal” and “Mission” of the organization. Of course, the purpose of creating any commercial company, by definition, is to bring profit to its owners. And in the “Stone Age” of Russian business, the company’s mission often coincided with its goal - to open a company, sell cheap or low-quality goods with a profit of 300%, quickly liquidate the company and “dump” from one market to another. Only 10 - 15 years have passed, and during this time we have lived a life that Western capitalism has lived for centuries. The world has changed, but not all the leaders of companies that managed to survive the period of market chaos managed to rebuild and adapt to the new reality.

In fact, systems thinking and systems management are not at all fashionable business trends - they are just the necessary navigation equipment that can help modern managers keep their companies afloat and somehow navigate the stormy sea of ​​change on the way to their goals. Even in the last century, and even more so in the year before, a systematic approach was practically not needed. Thus, the owner of a manufacture, and even a monopolist, actually did not depend on either social or technical progress. Production technologies and markets have remained stable for decades. Compared to the present, the future seemed crystal clear and clear. A large merchant or manufacturer could assume with a high degree of confidence that his business would also stably feed all his children and grandchildren. Today, as we know, no one remembers a huge number of companies that were leaders in their fields 50 years ago. If earlier an example of systems thinking could be the saying: “Don’t spit in the well - you’ll need to drink the water,” today it would be correct to say: “Don’t even think about spitting in the well, because this alone can have a bad effect on your reputation.” and irreparably change the situation on the market. If 400 - 500 years ago the extermination of the population of the entire continent of North America did not in any way affect the economic and geopolitical situation in Russia (or this influence can be considered invisible), then today there is only one intention or careless word of a political leader at that time. the same day can cause collapses on all world stock exchanges. Therefore, I believe that in our century, systems thinking is as necessary a skill as, for example, knowledge of English and computer literacy. That is, you, of course, may not know foreign languages. avoid computers - but then it’s unlikely that you will have to exist in business for a long time.

The growing civility of the Russian market and its integration with the Western market suggests that today investors and consumers trust companies that are stable and aimed at long-term existence much more. Positive image and reputation have become real assets of modern thriving organizations. Employees of many companies are already motivated not only financially. They want to work, feeling involved in the affairs and goals of the organization, and also to satisfy their values ​​such as self-development, self-realization, success, recognition, etc. Consumers have finally begun to realize their own importance in commodity-money relations, realizing that it is on them money there are manufacturing companies and selling companies. Several economic and political arguments are cited as the reasons for the McDonald's crisis (net losses for the fourth quarter of 2002 amounted to $390 million, 175 restaurants were closed, and 600 thousand jobs were cut). But one of them is the gradual awakening of people regarding the relationship between digestive problems and obesity and the characteristics of the products offered by some fast food restaurants. McDonald's, of course, knew and hid the truth from consumers for a long time about the dangers of fatty and fried foods, urging customers to eat more and more to increase their own profits. It was this reason, in my opinion, that prompted the company to begin to dramatically change its image and PR: to become an ardent promoter of a healthy lifestyle, sponsor sports competitions, introduce salads and juices to the menu, and provide a table of the energy value of each product along with the tray. And all this for the sake of regaining a lost reputation.

We can say that the familiar world has turned upside down... Yesterday's performance criteria, tools for analyzing and forecasting business development require adequate replacement. Perhaps applying Robert Dilts' logical level pyramid as a model for building a hierarchy of systems to the business world will help us find new resources to make the necessary changes in our minds and companies. You can see the entire pyramid in the figure at the end of the article, and we will disassemble it in parts.

In the 21st century, the process of building an effective organization begins not just with the realization that “all the main changes in a fish occur from the head,” but also with the fact that it is necessary to decide in advance where exactly and why this fish is going to exist. I mean the significance of developing a Vision.

Vision

Defining a company's Vision is one of the most important functions of a leader/leadership team in a modern company. People who are best at this activity are those who have systems thinking skills, have a large scale of generalization (“globalists”), a well-developed visual sensory representational system (to see well), and enjoy looking into the distant future. These are the very “forward-looking” ones who can look into the future, understand what opportunities it offers, and involve their followers in building this reality. In Russian, it seems to me, part of the meaning of the term “Vision” is conveyed by the word “foresight”. Anticipating the future, the leader begins to “predict” it. And if earlier the accuracy and likelihood of realizing the Vision was determined by the “intuitive skill of great people” (for example, Tsiolkovsky), today this process is increasingly taking on the outlines of systemic forecasting, based on the analysis of a large volume of data on the development of technologies, sciences, social, political, economic and other areas of human life. Vision is not just science fiction (although many of the ideas of science fiction writers served as the basis for the development of modern technologies), but the ability to discern, create a variant of the desired development of the system, followed by active work to translate this image into reality. It is important that the “Visionary” uses publicly available information, based on the analysis and generalization of which he builds his foresight. By this I want to say that all other people, except him, having the same data at their disposal, do not take this small and at the same time critical step, that is, they do not go beyond the framework of solving current problems and do not see broader opportunities for the development of some or ideas.

Tsiolkovsky as an example of a Visionary

Let us, as an example of all of the above, consider the genius of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857 - 1935). This great Russian scientist, the founder of the theory of jet propulsion and interplanetary communications, one of the theorists of aviation and aeronautics, science fiction writer, founder of astronautics, all his life sought to “at least a little advance humanity forward.” Looking at some dates from his biography, it’s hard to believe that one person could do so much for our modern world back then.

1895 - publication of the book "Dreams of Earth and Sky".

1903 - publication of the first part of the work "Exploration of world spaces using reactive instruments." In this pioneering work, Tsiolkovsky did the following:

• completely proved the impossibility of going into space by balloon or with the help of an artillery gun;
• deduced the relationship between the weight of the fuel and the weight of the rocket structures to overcome the force of gravity;
• expressed the idea of ​​an on-board orientation system based on the Sun or other celestial bodies;
• analyzed the behavior of a rocket outside the atmosphere, in an environment free of gravity.

1911 - publication of the second part of the work “Exploration of world spaces using reactive instruments”. The scientist calculates the work required to overcome the force of gravity, determines the speed required for the vehicle to enter the solar system (“second cosmic velocity”), and the flight time. This time, Tsiolkovsky’s article caused a lot of noise in the scientific world. For eight years he advanced almost alone, and this activity bore fruit - Tsiolkovsky gained recognition and many friends in the world of science.

Before he was 26 years old before the first human space flight, Tsiolkovsky left behind a coherent theory of interplanetary communications. He expressed the idea of ​​​​creating near-Earth stations as artificial settlements using solar energy and intermediate bases for interplanetary communications; examined medical and biological problems arising during long-term space flights. (Personally, it’s hard for me to imagine how he could so accurately describe the feeling of weightlessness if he had never experienced it in his life). Tsiolkovsky also wrote a number of publications in which he paid attention to the use of artificial Earth satellites in the national economy. Sergei Korolev and Friedrich Zander considered Konstantin Eduardovich their mentors, each of whom also made an invaluable contribution to the development of rocket science. The embodiment of this Vision, in my opinion, became possible precisely as a result of the painstaking practical work of Tsiolkovsky, whose calculations were able to convince other scientists of the reality of the future he proposed.

Apparently, due to the lack of practical calculations, the other part of the Vision of the scientist-philosopher never found real support. Tsiolkovsky was the first ideologist of human exploration of outer space, the ultimate goal of which seemed to him in the form of a complete restructuring of the biochemical nature of thinking beings generated by the Earth. Tsiolkovsky developed a “cosmic philosophy” - monism. Starting from the premise regarding the vital sensitivity and animation of all forms and stages of matter, the author built his doctrine around the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe "atom" - an immortal elemental being that undergoes various destinies, traveling from one conglomerate or organism to another. From here follows Tsiolkovsky’s “cosmic ethics,” which recognizes the processes of complexity and stratification in the Universe as “objective good,” since the bliss of atoms is ensured by their presence in complex, well-ordered organisms. In the distant future, a complete biochemical restructuring of the inhabitants of the Earth was assumed and their transformation into intelligent “animal-plants” that directly process solar energy. I mentioned this side of Tsiolkovsky's views to demonstrate that not all of the visionary's ideas need to be realized. Although perhaps we are not yet ready to follow these ideas?

Visionary of the electronic world - Bill Gates

Another example of a person who determined the development of many areas of activity can rightfully be considered Bill Gates. Regardless of the personal attitude towards this person and the sales strategies he implements, we must admit that the world is becoming the same as he saw it 25 years ago: a personal computer (or more than one) has penetrated almost every home of a modern city dweller. And just as with Tsiolkovsky’s ideas, at first few people believed that “more than two computers would be sold on the market.” Only the perseverance and tireless work of Microsoft, led by its leader, having turned the world of personal computers and their users upside down, shaped our understanding of the modern operating system.

Another important aspect that distinguishes the visionary from ordinary people can be demonstrated by the following facts: Tsiolkovsky’s work began to rapidly move forward after he read the book by A.P. Fedorov in 1896 “A New Method of Aeronautics”, excluding air as a reference environment; and Bill Gates developed his first famous operating system, MS-DOS, based on the Seattle Computer Products product, QDOS, which was purchased for pennies in 1980. Also, in parallel with Microsoft, the Apple Macintosh company was developing a graphical interface for computers. What do we see: neither Fedorov nor Patterson (QDOS developer) initiated significant changes. Perhaps they didn't want to, although I highly doubt it. In my opinion, the secret here lies elsewhere. The “ordinary” inventor or developer is motivated by the interests of satisfying existing needs. When creating a new idea or product, he starts only from pressing problems. An inventor with a Vision first “runs ahead” far ahead, clearly and in detail presents a distant systemic result, and only then begins to conduct specific research, “adjusting” them to a “given standard.” In this sense, the Visionary seems to be starting not from the present, but from the future. All his inventions are aimed not at solving existing problems, but at reducing the distance between the future and the present known to him.

Approaches to creating a Vision

So, the main thing you need when creating a Vision is to go beyond your own system (organization) and imagine the development of the larger system in which you are included. This is reflected in the Logic Level diagram using an inverted pyramid. Expanding the pyramid means that as you move away from the top of the pyramid, you move to larger systems. Vision is the development trends of a larger system in which you are an element. Defining a Vision allows your company, as an element of the system, to anticipate its possible changes in order to find an adequate place for itself in its new state, that is, to survive and remain relevant after the changes that have occurred. The last thesis can be demonstrated by the anti-example of steamship and steam locomotive manufacturing companies, many of which were unable to survive the transition of transport technologies from steam engines to internal combustion engines because they were not ready for it. One of the difficult issues when creating a Vision is determining the level of the system beyond which you will not “look.” It is logical that the larger your company (size, production volume, market share), and, accordingly, the greater the integration into other systems, the more important it is for you to have an idea of ​​​​possible changes in even very global systems. In addition, it is not easy for small companies to conduct comprehensive research, analysis and comparison of data from different systems. Typically, we suggest drawing 4 - 6 circles, where one is included in the other, and choosing the scale of systems that matches the scale of your company. For example, a "system map" might look like this:

Starting from the largest system you have chosen for analysis, you gradually approach the inner circle, that is, your company. At each level, do you imagine what major changes can occur in this system? What might be the main direction of these changes? What future development scenarios for this system can you foresee? As you move from system to system, you consider the possible impact of changes in larger systems on smaller ones. Thus, having reached the scale of your own organization, you will understand in what environment and under what conditions it will most likely have to exist. Of course, such a procedure requires fairly developed systems thinking and does not at all guarantee that the Vision presented by you or your team will turn out to be a reality. No, this work simply increases the chance of survival of your organization compared to those who do not do such things. It is also important to understand that such an action should not be a one-time thing, it should become the operating style of the company leader.

A vision can be viewed on two levels: as an option for the development of a larger system and as a better option for the development of your company.

In order to determine the Vision, at least in your own area of ​​business, you need to imagine what will happen in the system, even if you and your company are not in this area, that is, what will definitely happen in this area of ​​business with or without your participation. For example, the advent of a mass-produced, environmentally friendly hydrogen car engine or similar would have to happen independently of any particular company. The whole question is which of them will be the first to offer consumers the optimal solution.

The introduction of the concept of “Vision” into the business environment radically changes the approach to understanding marketing goals. Based on a systemic view of the interaction between consumers and producers of goods and services, we can say that now every company strives to look into the future and predict how people’s needs will change in a changed system in order to offer ways to satisfy these needs faster and more efficiently than other companies. In our opinion, this starting point differs from the option when marketers first create needs “out of thin air” and then, with the help of advertising, convince us that we (customers) simply vitally need the product they offer. For me personally, an example of the latter was the Tefal frying pan purchased by my wife with a special red circle for determining the degree of heating, which she had done without before and does not use now, although this frying pan cost a third more than the one without the circle. Also, as an example of how different companies are trying to predict the development of technology and the emergence of new consumer desires, one can cite the “struggle in the mobile device market.” Around the same time, manufacturers of handheld computers (PDAs) and cell phones came to the conclusion that customers would be interested in a product that combined the functions of both. Therefore, both those and other manufacturers rushed to fill the market with their offers. It would seem that it is enough to add another unit to the PDA, and it can be used as a telephone. But as the last two years have shown, so far the best demand is for Smartphones - phones supplemented with the functions of a pocket computer. As it turned out, the dimensions of the PDA are not very convenient for using it as a handset. Also, additional attachments were comparable in price to the computer itself. The initial costs of PDA manufacturers were significantly higher than those of cell phone manufacturers, and the number of phone users was greater. I remember about a year and a half ago, the Fujitsu-Siemens company, having invested money in the development and production of a GSM module for its PDAs, never released it for sale, realizing that at the price of half a computer, it would not be in demand. From this example, there is an urgent need to see the development of not only one’s own market, but also adjacent markets.

The following areas include mimicking companies and companies with outdated Missions. Among the latter I include, for example, tobacco companies. Introduced to Europe by the Spaniards, tobacco first gained popularity as a medicinal plant: it was used in the form of compresses and snuff. We owe much of this spread of tobacco to Queen Catherine de Medici, who around 1561, on the advice of her ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot, decided to try tobacco as a remedy for migraines. Surprisingly, the Queen's headaches disappeared. And as a result, snuff quickly became fashionable at the French court. Well, then the era of tobacco production and sale began around the world, and by about the 17th century tobacco was already in use everywhere. Today, with hundreds of thousands of people dying from various types of cancer, tobacco companies are reluctant to acknowledge the statistics they have long known. Many of them say that they are just satisfying the needs of smokers for cigarettes. But they themselves create this need. This is where mimicry lies - the pseudo-usefulness of the company.

Another way that helps such organizations stay in the system is “social indulgence.” By investing quite a lot of money in the development of cancer research clinics and paying compensation to victims, these companies are “trying to whitewash” their reputation in the eyes of consumers. In my opinion, many beer companies come out of this situation “beautifully”: by actively encouraging and engaging young people in drinking beer and low-alcohol drinks, they sponsor sports organizations and events. Such companies, of course, need a vision and mission. And you can find them in huge quantities, on almost every foreign and domestic website. One problem: for some reason we don’t believe what is written there, and, therefore, we don’t want to work with such companies. Also, for example, it is difficult for me to determine the position in the system of such organizations as casinos and gambling houses. Personally, I don’t understand their social significance.

The third area includes socially useful a company whose business can be built on truly meeting the needs of the larger system and based on the principles of service. I specifically used the verb “may” in the previous sentence, meaning that not all companies that can be fully socially recognized today are. Among the companies in the third area we include construction and transport companies, manufacturers of electronic and household appliances, food products, as well as many others, which in their activities are based on real concern for their consumers and build relationships with them on a “win-win” basis. It is these companies, we believe, that first of all need the high-quality development of their own Vision and Mission in order to build long-term and fruitful relationships with the larger system. Fortunately, socially beneficial companies, at their core, make up the lion's share of modern business.

Mission

After a short digression, we can move on to the next stage of system building of the organization - to defining its Mission. Ideally, a company is built in this order: Vision, Mission, and only then formulating goals, recruiting personnel, determining work strategies, etc. Although, if you already have a company, it is never too late to realize and formulate its Mission more precisely. By using the word “realize”, I want to emphasize that even if no one in the organization has yet been puzzled by this question, the Mission, one way or another, is or was. Most often, at the initial stage, the organization’s Mission largely coincides with the personal Mission of its creator/creators (Bill Gates, Richard Branson), so even if the founder did not formulate the Mission explicitly, then somewhere deep down there could be one.

What is a Mission, and why does an organization need it? Some books on strategic management define Mission as a strategic goal. On the one hand, this is partly true, on the other hand, this is a strong simplification that distorts the idea itself. And why then introduce a new concept if there is already an old one - “strategic goal”?

Mission in the general sense is the “ultimate” goal of the creation and existence of an organization, in other words, its purpose. One of the company's goals in relation to its creators may be to generate income and increase profits (otherwise there would be no point in creating a business organization), but such a goal cannot be a Mission. You can, of course, not fool yourself with all this research and selflessly strive to earn as much money as possible, but then it is difficult to be sure that the created business has a chance of long-term prosperity and respect. As I said above, it is difficult for me to see any other reason for the existence of tobacco companies other than to pump money out of people who become addicted to smoking.

Formation of the Mission

The purpose of a company is formed by its leader/leaders based on the Vision with the purpose of serving and creating some benefit for the larger system. That is why in the figure the Mission is directed not inside the pyramid, but outside - into the larger system, showing that when creating a company it is useful to take care not only and not so much about your own interests, but about the interests of others. Mission is your company’s contribution to the implementation of the same Vision that you created earlier. As you remember, Tsiolkovsky, Ford, Disney, Gates and others not only drew a possible future, but also made every possible effort to captivate followers, bring this future closer and make it present. The following situation can serve as a metaphor for understanding the Mission: let’s say you were able to predict that in the next 10 years the system (market, consumers) will want to live in a completely new city with a unique design and infrastructure. The city in this metaphor is a Vision, that is, something that will happen in the future regardless of you. Next, you very carefully analyze your resources (abilities, skills, knowledge, technologies) and values ​​to determine how you could be useful to the system during the construction of this city and what you personally would be interested in participating in during its construction. The area where your capabilities and interests overlap can become your Mission. Following the analogy, for example, you will say: “Well aware of my potential, for the sake of improving the convenience of citizens, I am ready to take upon myself the development and construction of unique transport routes in a new city.” Next, you develop a system of goals for the implementation of your Mission and draw up a corresponding business plan. Thus, the future of the system, in this case the new city, will be formed from the combination of the Missions of different companies. I specifically demonstrated everything using a simple material example of building a city, although the Mission also includes intangible aspects.

The main idea is that the company undertakes a Mission, a commitment to create something useful for the larger system (consumers of different levels), for which grateful consumers love and finance such a company, and the system cares about its existence. And this is the fundamental difference between a healthy business and a “not so healthy” one. A healthy business organization is one that the leader created primarily for personal pleasure and self-development, and not for the sole purpose of making a living; an organization that works not for the sake of obtaining excess profits, but for the sake of increasing the common good, and the profit it receives is just one of the forms of gratitude from consumers. And here we are not talking about altruism, but about the opportunity to be a full-fledged element of the modern system of relationships “consumer - business organization.”

Any person, understanding that the company was created to best meet his needs, will give his own money with a light heart as an adequate reward for the work done for him. And even after this, he will experience a feeling of deep respect and gratitude for such a company, preferring it to others and building long-term relationships with it.

Having defined the Vision and your own unique Mission, you can take a completely different approach to choosing a name for your organization and its stylistic features. Who does your company consider itself to be among other similar companies, what sets it apart? What is its identification, specific role in the system? How is the company's mission reflected in the name and logo? The more clearly the answers to the above questions are reflected in people’s heads, the easier it will be for them to build communication with this organization. If the personal identity of a company is in no way connected with its activities and purpose, or its name does not stand out at all among dozens of similar organizations, then the consumer will not be able to quickly identify this company in the market, and therefore, use its services. Personal identity (the point of intersection of two pyramids) is a “magic” gateway of information exchange between the macrosystem (external world) and the microsystem (internal world of the company). Personal identity is at the top of the lower pyramid of Logical levels, which demonstrates the accumulation of all the characteristics of the organization in its identification. To explain the last, rather cumbersome sentence, one can compare Personal identity to the nucleus of an atom: it seems to be very small in size, but it contains a lot of energy. That is why the name of the company is important not only to consumers, but also to its employees. People care which company they identify with. It is always nice when employees pronounce the name of their company with pride and pleasure, considering themselves a part of it.

Level of Values ​​and Corporate Culture

The next Logical level in the description of a company, fortunately, is more familiar to most modern managers, although its unambiguous understanding and competent application is still far away - this is the level of Corporate Culture. This level is very ephemeral (it cannot be touched), and at the same time is of key importance for the existence of the organization. The importance of corporate culture is often compared to water for fish and air for humans. Both fish and humans cannot live without an appropriate habitat, but they only notice the presence of this environment when they lose access to it. In other words, a person realizes that air exists and is very important for life only when it is deprived of the opportunity to breathe. Likewise, corporate culture shapes the living environment for company employees. And this environment can be different: benevolent, respectful, developing, activating, free, oppressive, infringing, stressful, unfriendly, hypocritical, etc. You can most often notice the presence of a certain culture in two cases: if a difficulty that has arisen in a company goes beyond the usual solutions, and you are forced to consider the situation from a broader perspective; and if you are a new employee and perceive the internal space and spirit of the company with an “unclouded” look.

The most important thing in understanding corporate culture is that it cannot fail to exist! Either it is formed and developed consciously, or it is formed spontaneously and subjugates people. (An example is the famous joke from the film “The Matrix” that “The Matrix has you.”) Due to its ephemerality and stability, it is quite difficult to change an established culture. Even if we introduce employees with a “new worldview” into the company, all the work may go down the drain due to the “Barrel of Pickles” law, in which any fresh cucumber thrown in quickly becomes salty. True, this same law will make our work easier when we build a culture suitable for us: we will not need to “educate” every newcomer, the environment itself will educate him. Knowing or guessing about such patterns, some companies that decided to radically change their own corporate culture first resorted to mass layoffs of the carriers of the old culture. And “some of the few” also realized that corporate culture is largely determined by the personalities of the company’s owners and top managers - and a simple change of personnel in the middle and lower echelons without changes in the “head of the fish” will not be enough. Therefore, the last of these companies (and not the least effective ones) first of all start with coaching their management top. Only by identifying the real values ​​of company leaders and central managers, their supporting and limiting beliefs, and also if there is a desire to change something in this area, consultants can offer a system of measures and activities aimed at the conscious formation of corporate culture.

Features of building a corporate culture

Although the concepts of values ​​and beliefs are quite abstract, the work of restructuring them requires concrete tangible steps, procedures and tools. Each value, each corporate law must be specifically reflected in production and functional instructions, in the forms of interaction and relationships prescribed and communicated to employees. It is this process that requires special attention and accuracy, often stretching over a long period of time. If a company decides to embody the values ​​of internal openness and attention to everyone's opinions, for example, in the form of an “anonymous feedback box for the manager,” then it is very important to accurately describe the instructions for its use, explain them to employees, and, most importantly, follow these instructions to the manager. I am familiar with cases when, despite the inscription: “All mail is read by me personally every Tuesday. General Director I. I. Ivanov,” employees began to notice that letters accumulated and were not removed from the mailbox for quite a long time. Such possibly random shortcomings cost the company dearly after employees begin to say: “Well, everything is back to normal, it was all just for the sake of formality.” If we take as an analogy the process of changing the system of values ​​and beliefs within the framework of the doctrine of a state, then we can be confident in the stable sharing of the new social order by the majority of people only after a change of at least one generation. At the same time, it is important to isolate the “new” generation from the carriers of the old worldview. If this condition is not met, and if there are deep-seated cultural beliefs that contradict the implanted paradigm, the time required for change naturally increases. Of course, this is a very simplified representation of the process of changing the political system - a separate article is simply required for a more detailed consideration of this issue. We will return to the analysis of ways to restructure corporate culture in business organizations. Since the change of generations of employees in companies occurs much faster than the renewal of the population in the state, it will take much less time to rebuild the culture, although not little. It will also be important for us to understand the following:
· who from the existing team is ready to adapt to new conditions, and who will have to part with;
· by what means we will ensure the transition period and instill a new system of rules;
· based on what criteria we will recruit new employees;
· which will help “newcomers” quickly and clearly understand the basic tenets of the corporate culture and easily integrate into it.

Quality criteria and standards

Another significant element at this logical level is the work and quality criteria adopted in the company. As disappointing practice shows, the managers of many Russian companies often themselves do not have a clear idea of ​​the criteria (expressed in specific sensory values) or cannot express them in a clear form. What then should be required from ordinary employees?

No less rare are examples of the use of “double standards” in organizations: the requirements for employees may not be observed by managers and executives of the company, or the officially declared criteria may diverge from those on the basis of which the quality of an employee’s work is assessed. For example, after in-store training, sales associates may be required to be more attentive to customers and better understand and meet their needs during the sales process.

Following the new requirements, salespeople will be forced to spend more time servicing each client, and despite increasing long-term sales efficiency, the number of completed transactions per day will decrease. In some cases, the seller may even offer not to buy the product today, but to wait until next week, when a more suitable model of the product of interest will be delivered to the store. If, at the same time, the seller’s performance continues to be measured in the old criteria, namely in the volume of daily revenue, then this will lead to a contradiction between the declared and real requirements.

Many of you may have experienced another example of poor awareness of quality criteria (in any case, I found myself in similar situations several times). Imagine a new “all glass and concrete” electronics supermarket in the center of Moscow. Everything: from the decoration of the sales floor to the uniform of sales consultants - indicates the “advancement” and modernity of the company, so one would like to expect the same “advancement” from the service personnel. Imagine my surprise when the beautifully dressed salesman standing behind the high-tech counter gave an undisguised whiff of Soviet unobtrusive service.

I also encountered similar dissonance in hotels and restaurants, explaining this phenomenon to myself as a transition period from socialism to capitalism. I also experienced the opposite vivid experiences when I first came to Ernst & Young (more precisely, to its Moscow office). This organization, although it bears the same name as all other divisions around the world, is a purely Russian company, and not one of its affiliates. I still don’t know in what labor market they select their staff and what they do with them. Given that our compatriots work there, every time I get a strong impression: I ended up in a first-class Western company. Intellectually, I understand that these people, working in a variety of positions (from technical staff to top managers), come from the same background as all other Russians, but “in their souls” and in their work they are completely different.

Examples of such companies (and, fortunately, there are more and more of them every year) give me hope that “on our street” there will be a correspondence between the stated Mission, awareness of quality criteria and the behavior of company employees.

Technologies and strategies for organization development

The next stage of a systematic consideration of a business organization logically follows from all the previous material. This is the strategic (or technological) level. An organization, like a person, must have various abilities, skills and strategies to achieve its goals. Just talking about great things won’t change the world for the better, you won’t produce worthy products or services, and ultimately you won’t earn money. Today, the technological level of a company's development is more important than ever. Those companies that master the most efficient way of production have a chance to come out ahead in the never-ending race for survival in a market economy. Even before the start of the 20th century, technology was changing at the speed of an old cart: to increase the productivity of a factory, you only had to increase the number of machines and workers. By now, we have already experienced a stage when the efficiency and prosperity of the company was determined only by the perfection of production technologies. Everyone already knows that many brands of household, electronic and computer equipment are produced in Eastern countries - often even at the same plant. Many newfangled “gadgets” in televisions and home theaters from different manufacturers differ only in their registered names, but in essence offer consumers similar functions.

Humanitarian technologies, that is, those related to people, are gaining increasing priority among world leading companies. What was previously considered art is now subject to in-depth systemic analysis and translated into the language of qualitative and quantitative indicators. Management technologies, decision-making technologies, organizational development technologies, team building technologies, technologies for introducing corporate culture, sales technologies, negotiation strategies, motivation strategies, strategies for training and personnel development, and so on - all these names are becoming familiar to company managers and top executives. managers.

The market and production technologies are changing so rapidly that today the main limiting link is not financial or raw materials, but people. We don’t have time, like 50 years ago, to wait for a young specialist to gain experience through trial and error and reach the level of profitability of keeping him in the company. In the shortest possible time, we must transfer to him not only a huge amount of new knowledge, but also, most importantly, skills. A specialist in any field can no longer sleep peacefully, knowing that he has a good higher or specialized university education behind him - in our time, practical knowledge and skills become outdated and depreciate much faster than money is subject to inflation. Over the past 10 years, the market for qualified personnel has been “scraped down to the very mud.” Just 6-7 years ago it was possible to find a salesperson or sales manager with a higher education. Today, as one of my acquaintances, the director of a large trading company, said, not only cannot a high level of sales be expected from those who come to sales positions, but some of them are simply dangerous to let into the trading floor. Therefore, the burden of “cutting potential personnel diamonds into brilliants” falls entirely on the shoulders of the company itself. It is precisely those organizations that invest in the development of their own personnel, monitor the most promising areas of their development, and have on their staff employees responsible for accumulating the company’s best experience and its competent transfer to the younger generation of specialists; organizations that create their own training and retraining centers for employees can hope for a vacancy among the companies of the future.

Personnel development control and certification

It is also useful to use adequate forms of control to increase the return on investment in personnel training. Unfortunately, many companies implementing corporate training either forget about the need for control, perceiving training as a tribute to modern business fashion, or have difficulty choosing evaluation criteria. In the first case, a situation may arise that a trainer I know told me about. Working on behalf of one organization, he traveled with groups of its employees to country recreation centers, as if to conduct training. Upon arrival at the site, the training participants asked to immediately be given feedback sheets, and for a good assessment of the trainer’s work, as well as for a bar, sauna and free time, they were offered to leave them alone and just let them relax. At the same time, everyone was happy: the company’s employees had a rest at the company’s expense, the coach received his salary, and the heads of the personnel development department checked the next box and reported on the use of the budget. In the second case, certification may be too formalized and not reflect the real picture of learning outcomes. And more often, the criteria for assessing training are generally inadequate and are reduced to a single criterion - money. For example, they trained salespeople in value-oriented sales, the ability to collect information about the true needs of customers, and they assessed performance, as I said earlier, only by the number of customers served per day and total daily revenue. These criteria do not in any way reflect which seller learned more and better satisfied the buyer's needs; whether the buyer was satisfied with the communication with the seller, whether he had a desire to come to the store again and tell his relatives and friends about it. The presence of such disagreements in evaluation criteria greatly demotivates staff and devalues ​​the very idea of ​​training. Here it will be useful to recall once again the previous logical level and the fact that only an appropriate corporate culture and a focus on the professional and personal values ​​of people can make the learning process truly valuable and productive.

Approaches to choosing technologies for achieving organizational goals

Taking into account all the previous levels will help the company choose from the huge number of existing strategies and techniques for achieving goals only those that most fully correspond to the values, personal identity and mission of the company. It is unlikely that an organization that preaches the values ​​of openness, mutual respect and trust will require its managers to fill out special forms on a weekly basis to record non-core use of company time, resources and equipment by subordinates. Such “informing”, proposed by the security service to increase the efficiency of staff, caused more than one manager to leave this company. Some companies, preoccupied with a single idea and not systematically considering their own development, sometimes become victims of an irresponsible approach to the choice of strategies and means of promotion in the market. For example, in the pursuit of quick results when promoting a company, when redistributing the market, in the “fight for the client,” companies thoughtlessly use “black PR” tools, and then for months or even years they cannot launder their own reputation. Particularly surprising are cases when a company, positioned as innovative and creative, allows itself to “copy” the advertising style of its “market neighbor,” hoping to intercept its customers. Or when, while preaching high quality standards for goods and services, the organization finds nothing better than pointing out the poor quality provided by all other companies.

Project management, delegation of authority and corporate knowledge

And the last important point in the development of the organization at this logical level. Many large Russian companies are growing into project management and delegation of authority. To effectively move to a new level of management, managers need to have the skill of developing strategies and creating technologies. Traditionally, technological thinking was more associated with production, so today we are calmly talking about the creation of humanitarian technologies for managing people, time management, project development and implementation, personnel selection, setting goals and monitoring their implementation, etc. Many managers who want to advance their careers are faced with the problem of transferring tasks: they themselves are no longer interested in doing certain things, and they cannot really transfer them to anyone else. It seems to them that no one can cope with a specific task better than them, and therefore either they constantly interfere in the work of their subordinates, wasting extra time, or, on the contrary, they completely ignore them. Both lead to a drop in overall work performance, an increase in the workload on managers, a decrease in their motivation and disappointment in the system of delegation of authority. This is such a vicious circle.

Another problem growing on the same basis is the loss of corporate knowledge. Once a key employee leaves the company, the performance of his department can be greatly reduced for weeks, or even months. But the organization may not have such a reserve of time. Even if you select an adequate specialist with work experience to replace him (which is becoming more and more difficult every day), he will need time to understand all the intricacies and specifics of the work. And it is quite clear that not a single standard job description will explain to a person what exactly he needs to do in a new position. Where to look for a way out? And the solution is to train managers in the skills of structuring their own work, highlighting key aspects and steps in it, and then creating high-quality instructions and technologies on this basis. The amount of work, of course, is large, but when the organization accumulates a bank of effective management strategies, where the goals, criteria and main steps for performing various tasks are clearly stated, the issue of delegation of authority and transfer of affairs will disappear by itself. Therefore, one of the criteria for a manager’s readiness for promotion will be a system of technologies prepared and tested by him and a “package of instructions” for the employee who replaces him. At the same time, if you noticed, the main gain of the company lies not only in preserving and increasing knowledge, but also in the formation of a completely new generation of managers who are able to think systematically and take a structural approach to their own work organization, which inevitably becomes the basis for their professional and career growth!

Organizational behavior and actions

The meaning of the logical level "Behavior" follows from its name. At this level, we can consider how all the values ​​preached and the strategies and technologies used by the company are implemented in the concrete actions of employees. A mission in a simplified form is a global goal, and to turn it into the final result you need to take certain actions. By analyzing the behavior of an organization, we can conduct a kind of “inventory” and understand what each department does and what it should do, based on the Mission, goals and objectives of the organization. It is useful to do the same thing with regard to individual employees. Then it is necessary to “filter out” all unnecessary actions that do not lead to achieving the goal, but take up resources, and think about what new behaviors should be added to the arsenal of the employee or department to increase its operational flexibility. Such an analysis will make it possible to identify emerging overlaps in functional responsibilities among different employees, and therefore make their understanding of their position clearer. As I wrote earlier, it is precisely by the dissonance between the behavior of ordinary employees and the stated Mission that a weak corporate culture in a company is usually determined with the naked eye. Aspects of the company's functioning, such as behavior at operational meetings, forms of interaction in the team and communication with consumers, require conscious formulation, and sometimes “embedded” in the behavior of employees through training.

Another nuance at the Behavior level is that many companies that understand the importance of training middle and senior management sometimes do not pay attention to the lower level of personnel. But it is their behavior that will have the most “indelible” impression on the consumer. I had such a case. In the midst of renovations, I needed new interior doors. Having found a company almost on the other side of the city offering elite all-wood Spanish and Italian doors, I was pleased with both the quality of the product and the level of communication between the managers. The incident arose later when the manager, having taken the money, invited me to go to the warehouse and choose a product. The warehouse was nearby, but it was difficult to get there without a car due to the lack of a pedestrian road - just pure dirt. But when I got to the warehouse, that’s when I learned all the “eliteness” of communication between the local loaders and warehouse workers. No, I don’t require them to have a higher education, but when, upon entering a dark, cold room (re-read this sentence when you move on to the “Environment” level), no one notices you point-blank, it’s somehow strange. And then it gets even more interesting: after attracting attention and explaining the purpose of coming, with the meta-message “these buyers are already fed up,” I was asked to choose what I needed from the doors piled up along the wall. Well, I didn’t know that they had such a level of service... After all, I stopped by after work, in a suit and tie, and all the doors were not only heavy, but also in dirty packaging! In general, I really needed doors... And I never told anyone where I bought them.

Environment

The “Environment” level, although the lowest, is the most extensive. This is the environment, the space in which all employees of the company jointly implement its Mission. We are surrounded by our consumers, partners, suppliers, “market neighbors,” all kinds of government officials, and so on. It is useful to realize who, out of all the diversity of people, is our “sphere of habitation”: for whom we work and who works for us, that is, moves towards the Mission together with us. It is important, on the one hand, to be able to notice and retain people who are significant for the realization of our goals, and on the other hand, to free ourselves in time from those who are not on the same path with us.

This level also includes the entire objective world associated with the company’s activities. The ability to prioritize the purchase of equipment, office equipment and other “work and everyday life” items will allow the organization to more thoughtfully and economically invest the organization’s money only in those things that are really necessary to achieve its main goal. I will leave aside the simplest questions regarding the organization of effective workplaces for each department and each employee in it, realizing that this is already clear to everyone. An employee cannot be expected to work efficiently, even with the best training or the introduction of advanced technology, if he does not have adequate means of production. The era of creating computers "on the knee" in the garage is far behind in the memories of Hewlett and Packard.

Let's touch on the issue of quality of products and services. They are the material expression of the Mission. When dealing with a product or service, consumers become convinced of the truthfulness of the slogans that manufacturers so generously disseminate. One of the trends that has become traditional in people's perceptions is the expected decline in quality after a company gets firmly on its feet and wins the attention of the consumer. This applies primarily to food production, where recipes and ingredients are gradually becoming cheaper, and to the service sector, where the level of service and attention to customers is decreasing. Nowadays, when dozens of companies with similar products are waiting to enter the market, the buyer will never forgive such treatment. Everyone knows how difficult it is for domestic motor transport, but this does not make the attempts of Russian auto companies to invest in image advertising and PR, when the product is actually far from ideal, any less ridiculous.

The last aspect that I think is important to cover in this article is the impact of the design of an organization's space on the consumer experience. For example, the interior of a store is just as important for a potential buyer at the beginning of communication, as is “a person’s clothing at the beginning of an acquaintance.” Logo, corporate style, branded clothing, room layout, its color scheme - all these are material expressions of the personal identity of the company, according to which a person builds his perception and attitude towards the organization.

Let me give you an example. A company that produces and sells wholesale and retail its goods was wondering why sales were so weak in their trade showroom. Everything turned out to be banal, but completely unnoticed by the company’s leaders. Imagine: the workplaces of managers and salespeople were located on a podium against the wall and were fenced off from the rest of the hall by a high counter. When I first saw this structure (even beautiful in appearance), I silently called it a “redoubt.” The salespeople sat at their computers, and the edge of the counter was at chest level, so they calmly looked out from there, communicating with customers. And on the clients’ side, the height of the “wall” was such that they had to constantly look up at the seller. One scene I found especially funny was when a man, slightly shorter than average, stood on his tiptoes while communicating with a manager, and when he was asked to sign an invoice, he almost jumped up to reach the paper. We think that few people will like to be in the position of a beggar, and even for their own money. And the company preached an almost individual approach to its consumers. From time to time it is useful to go into your own sales or presentation hall and look at it through the eyes of an outsider: what information does the interior of this room convey to you, what can it tell you about the people working in it?

To summarize all of the above, I want to once again emphasize that the world has already become different, and the speed of its change is constantly increasing. We, as managers and participants in various business processes, will have to restructure our own thinking and management of the organization. Systemic thinking is neither better nor worse than linear thinking - it is simply the most adequate today. Perhaps the day after tomorrow we will need some other way of perceiving reality. Social, state, and political systems are becoming larger and more complex every day, and only its most flexible elements, that is, those with the greatest number of degrees of freedom, can control the system. In our case, freedom is directly proportional to the ability to look further into the future than others, notice a greater number of implicit relationships, sensitively perceive various feedback and quickly respond to changes in the world around us! I wish you all this from the bottom of my heart!