You can become the Most Valuable Player in your business when you work to develop and implement a bottom up mission, vision, and purpose strategic process.  As many business advisors and business consultants will tell you; you will start to see profit increases to your bottom line within 6 months, and, over the course of 18 months to 3 years, see some serious performance and profitability increases.
 

How can that happen?  Simply put, ask this question of yourself and your coworkers.  How widespread is your MVP? 

Oftentimes when meeting with a business owner I ask him to explain their MVP – no, not in an athletic sense, as in Most Valuable Player, but a business sense – their Mission, Vision, and Purpose.  Once that is explained, I will ask him a follow up question – on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how many of your employees understand that MVP? 

Think about it, if you can comfortably quantify your MVP (even if the number is low), you have the capability to improve performance and efficiency in your company.  Having your fingers on the pulse of your employees’ perspective is an essential first step in increasing corporate performance.

It continues to impress me that many small and medium sized businesses do not have an MVP.  That is right, no mission, no vision, and no purpose.  When I ask that question I get a nervous laugh or chuckle.  It reminds me of the time worn phrase – you can’t get there if you don’t know where you are going.  I am sure you can think of countless variations to this theme.

The FOR WHAT PURPOSE
Of course the business owner who does not have that MVP also may not have a specific revenue and sales goal, may not know if his business is profitable, may not know if his product or service pricing is competitive to the marketplace, and may not know if his marketing strategy is targeted to the right market.  Can you think of more examples?

The WHAT
Many times business owners tell me, as their business advisor, that the MVP does not get developed because it is too difficult to get their hands around, to understand.  Great point! 

So how can you define mission, vision, and purpose in a way that is understood by every employee? 

• MISSION is an internally focused statement, as viewed from the outside… in other words, it conveys to your client who you are, what you will do for them (achieve their vision), and why they should do business with you instead of anyone else. 
• VISION is an externally focused statement as viewed from the inside and answers the question: What will YOU (your business) achieve in the absence of all obstacles.  Begin your thinking with “I will… or we will.” 
• PURPOSE quite simply, is expressed as your overriding reason for existing.

The WHO and HOW
First, ask your employees if they are willing to help you develop your business MVP.  Assisted by a business consultant, develop a facilitated discussion and process with your employees.  The process, in short form, starts with your employees being asked to assess their current understanding of the company’s mission, its vision, and its purpose (discovery). 

This requires some background explanation on what an MVP is, uses illustrations of other corporate MVP’s for comparative purposes, and allow the facilitator to begin structuring a participative and inclusive process.

Next, ask your employees to discuss whether the company’s mission, vision, and purpose are being pursued as efficiently as they could (analysis)?  It is during this process that employees will start to make very critical observations about specific business practices and situations.  During this phase of the process your business advisor will make every effort to ensure all comments are respected (the facilitator’s credo in this instance is – there are no bad ideas). 

This phase needs to be followed with a careful, yet distinct transitional series of questions that suggest that negative observations need to be turned into positive observations that can enhance or improve the observation.  

Finally, your business advisor will ask your employees to suggest methods to improve their own connection to your business MVP (prescription).  It is during this phase that employees will need to develop specific methods.  With proper guidance, I have found employees become fully engaged in brainstorming practical ways to improve the MVP as well as their connection to it. 

In all instances, this process will provide comments and suggestions that are useful well beyond the strategic development process.  You will find your employees quite eager to comment on marketing, sales, production, inventory, human resource, and other business strategies to help propel the company forward. 

The WHY
The process of asking an employee’s opinion and asking further for improvement ideas itself will enhance an employee’s engagement and affinity to the MVP, especially if their ideas are respected and acted upon.  You can also engage the employee through a personal development program that enables them to become more efficient and more aligned with the business MVP.  Remember the person/future fit and its positive impact on corporate performance?  A small investment now can pay dividends over the long term for employers. 

So, let’s ask the question one more time.  What is your MVP?  And, on a scale of 1-10, how many of your employees understand it?  What steps do you take to increase that number?  Let me know.  See you at www.RutherfordBusinessAdvisor.com. 
 Technorati Profile