A Shared Vision enhances Profitability

A Shared Vision enhances Profitability, and it is what you and your team members want to create or accomplish as a part of the organization.

Bill Marriott famously once said ‘I want our associates to know that there really is a guy named Marriott who cares for them.’ He understood that if his team were to share his vision, they needed to know of his existence as a caring, understanding, and existing personality.

Ricardo Semler who pioneered the Semco story and articulated his success in empowering and creating a common vision believed in a decentralized, participatory style and let his employees set their own hours, wages, even choose their own IT. In 1990, the Brazilian economy went into a severe downturn, forcing many companies to declare bankruptcy. Workers at Semco agreed to wage cuts, providing their share of profits was increased to 39%, management salaries were cut by 40% and employees were given the right to approve every item of expenditure. How did he fare? Semco’s revenues subsequently jumped from $35 million to $212 million in nine years, with an annual growth rate of 40% and the firm grew from several hundred employees to 3000, with an employee turnover of about 1 percent.
Ricardo Semler’s leadership style can best be described as radical. This approach encourages followers to share their ideas and apply their creativity and ingenuity to reach the company’s goals. The employees have the opportunity to offer suggestions to improve the company.

Findings through a survey by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman revealed that People leave Managers, not Companies.’ This apophthegm is one we all have heard of, and is oft-repeated; yet strangely, it is referred to others rather than to oneself!

Henry Ford said once, ‘if everyone moves forward together, then success takes care of itself.’

Beyond a point, an employee’s primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he’s treated and how valued he feels. If you are losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor/manager.

Jack Welch of GE once said, ‘Much of a company’s value lies between the ears of its employees. If its bleeding talent, its bleeding value.’

Ponder for a moment the cost of losing a capable member of staff. The cost of substitution entails:

  • The cost of not having someone to do the job in the interim
  • The cost of recruiting, and then skilling the new incumbent
  • The loss of the company’s reputation (Every person who leaves a corporation becomes its representative, for better or for worse)
  • The loss of clients and contacts the replaced person had with the industry
  • The loss of morale amongst co-workers
  • The loss of trade secrets this person may possibly share with others

Too often, Shared Visions really mean, ‘I have a vision; you share it!’ 

A General Manager of one of India’s 5-star hotel chain worked hard at bringing up his ageing hotel’s brand equity in the market. From an ARR of ₹5600, he took it up to ₹7560 over 24 months, with a slew of efforts. He facilitated the improvement of the brand’s perception in the city – interestingly by staging niche F&B events, P.R. interactions, Revenue Management interventions, involved Guest interaction, and through intense sales and behavioural Training for his team. Unfortunately, the ownership did not share his progressive vision of differential pricing to achieve a better RevPAR. Instead, they insisted that rates should not be offered below a mandated level of ₹7500/+ taxes including breakfast. The owners forcibly cancelled all signed RFPs (including those producing 500 – 2500 room nights per year) and Travel Agent contracts and made the hotel sales team create new contracts which most clients refused to sign. The result? Irate clients (Corporate/Travel Agencies, etc) took their business elsewhere. All this occurred at the beginning of a financial year, and the repercussions were immediate. From a top line of ₹63 crores (ARR ₹7560), the hotel dipped to ₹45 crores (ARR ₹5200) over the next 3 years (incidentally, all this was pre-pandemic, when business elsewhere was stable, if not increasing).

The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a Shared Vision. 

On the other hand, another hotel owner I know shares his vision and allows the operator to function with optimum freedom, his only caveat being that major policy decisions be discussed with him, for his opinion. The General Manager is equally competent as in the earlier example – the difference here is that in this second case, the owner and operator work towards a shared vision. The operator also shares this collective vision with his team. It is no wonder that the top line grew y-o-y at 12-15% pre-Covid. [In fact, during the current pandemic, the hotel has managed to stay out of the red, thanks to innovative changes in the hotel’s business plan, expense reengineering, and operating policies]

Peter Senge, the author of The Fifth Discipline identified ‘Shared Vision’ as one of the five disciplines necessary to create a learning organization. A dynamic organization adapts and transforms itself to function effectively in a complex and dynamic world. These are organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results that they truly desire, where new and expansive thinking patterns are nurtured, where collective aspirations are set free, and where people are continually learning to see the ‘big picture together.

A Shared Vision must be strongly evoked by all leaders on the team, and be capable of driving them relentlessly, if need be, towards a common goal. A quote attributed to Helen Keller says, ‘The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but no vision.’ To rephrase this quote in the context of Shared Vision, it would stand as, ‘The most pitiable organization is one who can see, but has no vision.’

A Shared Vision enhances Profitability, and it is what you and your team members want to create or accomplish as a part of the organization. It is derived from common interests and a sense of shared purpose for all organizational activities… and leads to sustained profitability. 2000 years ago, the Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu said, ‘Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say: We have done this ourselves.’

This article has appeared in ET HOSPITALITY WORLD.COM September 2021

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