Equal Exchange, the fair trade coffee people, recently asked me to help them create a twenty to thirty year vision for their organization. They already enjoyed a mission that they hope will guide them for one hundred years or more. And they rigorously pursue a four-year planning process that consistently delivers them growth and success. But the vast middle ground - a compelling vision toward which their four-year plans will take them, in alignment with their mission - remained unclear.
The good people at Equal Exchange had searched their cooperative networks for ideas and inspiration to help in creating such a vision, but had found little (hence the motivation for this article - to help any cooperatives who wish to follow their path). Undaunted, they formed a Visioning Group of three board members, and set off on their own. Here’s how they accomplished their goal.
First they engaged their worker owners in contributing to the process, asking them to envision a newspaper headline twenty years into the future that expressed some kind of success they’d like to see. This is a great technique for releasing oneself from the limits of present day thinking, while still grounding the future image in something tangible like a newspaper headline. The workers responded playfully, individually creating dozens of vivid images of an Equal Exchange enjoying a very positive future. Among them were items like: * “Equal Exchange Cooperative Adds 500th Member” * “Fair Trade Leader Launches Coffee Shops in 10 Major Cities” * “Equal Exchange Wine Surpasses Gallo in Gallons Sold”
This, after some delay, is where I came in. The Visioning Group had lots of great data, yet needed to take it to the next level. First we created a “plan to plan,” which mapped out the steps by which we’d engage the worker owners in further dialogue about the vision, involve the board in crafting it, and engage the worker owners once again in reviewing, approving, and embracing the final vision. We turned next to the headline data, clustering it into roughly similar content groups expressing related, visionary scenarios. Several, for example, imagined Equal Exchange as the largest worker cooperative in the country. Others pictured Equal Exchange having an enormous economic justice impact. Others saw Equal Exchange teaching corporate America a much-needed lesson in doing business ethically.
We presented the East Coast workers (in one ninety minute meeting) with this feedback on their ideas, and engaged them in a discussion about which future scenarios were most appealing. Then, using adhesive dots, we asked them to multi-vote for their top three.
A few favorites clearly emerged. At this point the seminal work of Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last, came into play. Jim writes that successful companies share a vision-level goal, which he memorably calls a BHAG, or a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. A BHAG is: * A huge, daunting challenge with a ten to thirty year time horizon * A clear and compelling catalyst for team spirit and unified effort * A desired result that reaches out and grabs you, and requires little or no explanation.
BHAGs are typically expressed in one of four forms. They can be: * Quantitative (WalMart once aimed to be a $125 billion dollar company by 2000) * Qualitative (Citibank’s aim to be the most powerful, serviceable bank in the world) * Competitive (Avis’s “We try harder” aimed at Hertz) * Role Modeled (Stanford’s “Be the Harvard of the West” in the 1940s)
After presenting this concept, and these formats, we asked the workers to use them in drafting possible BHAGs inspired by the vision scenarios from the headlines. They did this enthusiastically, posing some like: * Equal Exchange has two million loyal consumers who actively choose fair trade * Equal Exchange is at the center of the world’s largest network of fair trade * Equal Exchange models a viable cooperative alternative to globalization.
We then repeated this process for the West Coast workers using the web-based meeting platform WebEx. We now had input from every worker owner who wished to participate. The Equal Exchange board was now ready to do its part, meeting for a day, while having before them: * The original envisioned headlines in the workers’ own words * The vision clusters of similar headlines, and their ranking by the workers * The workers’ proposed BHAGs in formats suggested by vision guru Jim Collins.
The board experienced roughly the same process as had the workers - first reacting to the vision scenarios, and then doing their own multi-voting. Next we reviewed Collin’s thinking, and they wrote their own BHAGs. Finally, we posted all the proposed BHAGs, including those of the workers, and those just penned by the board.
Now we were ready for some great conversation about what the organization really wanted to be, and where it wanted to go. Indeed, after some very creative and heartfelt give and take, and another round of multi-voting, a clear consensus vision emerged. The day ended with each board member drafting a few words or phrases picturing how they’d know the vision had come to pass - what Jim Collins calls a “vivid description.”
Equal Exchange’s vision statement - a preferred future described eloquently in just twenty-four words - was approved by the board at their next meeting. A vivid description - a narrative picturing the vision as fulfilled in six concise paragraphs - was approved at the one just after. Board members commented on the immediate, practical implications of the vision, and how it would surely shape the next four-year plan. Then the Visioning Group met to craft definitions for pivotal terms used in the vision statement. They hoped to clarify for the worker-owners what the board meant, and to act as a reference in the years to come, when future co-op members might wonder what more precisely the Board of 2006 had in mind with these key 24 words.
Those definitions were then shared with the broader board for their review and approval. The vision and vivid description then went before the worker owners for their review and approval. The worker owners embraced the vision by a vote of 45 to 2. At this point in the process, the vision is private, as Equal Exchange internalizes the audacity of its chosen goal. Some day you may be able to read it on their web site, and perhaps it will captivate you as it has EE’s board and worker-owners. Some consultants argue that all any business really needs is a twenty-year goal and a ninety-day plan. Everything else should fall into place. True or not, if you are a cooperative that also feels the need for a clear, twenty-year vision, take these ten lessons to heart from the successful process at Equal Exchange:
1) Start with your board and engage their commitment to the process. 2) Learn more about what vision means by reading Jim Collins’ (and Jerry Porras’) article in Harvard Business Review entitled “Building Your Company’s Vision.” 3) Be clear on why you need a vision, and how it fits into the other big ideas, like mission and values, that also guide your business. 4) Engage every worker in a process – like the headlines exercise - that inspires their imagination and creativity about a preferred future. 5) Work toward common ground through clustering of related ideas, and multi-voting of priorities. 6) Translate your most promising candidates into possible BHAGs, using the Collins/Porras formats, before clustering them and multi-voting among them yet again 7) Know you’ve found the vision when it is both too wonderful to turn away from, and almost too scary to face. 8) Make it come alive through vivid description. 9) Take whatever time you need to internalize your vision and make it your own. 10) Allow the compelling nature of the BHAG to draw you forward toward making it real.
Jay W. Vogt founded his organizational consulting practice - Peoplesworth - in 1982 and serves fast growth companies in the natural and organic world. Clients include Stonyfield Farm, Applegate Farms, Annie’s Homegrown, Global Organics, EcoLogic Finance, Recycline, and The Natural Dentist.
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