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Have you ever written a statement of corporate philosophy?

A company with which I’m familiar has spent the past seven months in meetings
with a highly paid outside consultant, developing a stunning statement of its
corporate philosophy. Oh, the terminology they used was flowing! It was lofty
and poetic! The only trouble is that no one has any idea what the carefully crafted
prose means in terms of the company’s business, least of all the employees
themselves who will be charged with carrying it out.

Having a clear, understandable sense of purpose and mission is actually vital to
corporate success. It’s how you will attract top talent to your company and how
you unify the efforts of your workforce. But many times, in developing such
philosophic statements, the lofty vision doesn’t match the actual job being done
in the company. Employees get copies of these statements, read them, sigh, and
go on with their work. The public (including stockholders) pages right by them
in annual reports. Even executives don’t always take them into account when
making key decisions.

Statements of corporate philosophy tend to end up forgotten, tucked away in a
ring binder on a shelf in the company library.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Why don’t these corporate statements of
philosophy and belief have more teeth? Why don’t they guide and direct
corporate life more explicitly?

The answer, I believe, lies in two key factors: how they’re written in the first
place, and how they’re applied to actual corporate life, in the second.

The cart before the horse
Many corporate philosophy statements are just too vague and unclear. They tend
to use highfalutin language learned in graduate schools of management. Often,
when the final statement is released from the strangle-hold of its writers, no one
could tell you in ten simple words what it means. And if it can’t be summarized in
ten words or less, it’s probably not very memorable.

This happens, in part, because many such statements are written by a rather
small band of insiders. The process itself may be rich – company retreats, days of
reflection on company history and mission, and the careful gathering of personal
statements which then flow into glowing corporate documents. The trouble with
such a process is that if you weren’t part and parcel of it, and most in the
company weren’t, you may never catch it’s spirit and tone. You may not
understand the meaning which writers in such circumstances load onto individual
words and phrases.

Furthermore, the top-down method of telling others what to believe – in religion,
politics, the arts, or any other arena – is mainly no longer viable in today’s
culture. It’s my experience that people want values and vision stated in plain
language that really connects to the reality of their situation. It needs to come
“from below” rather than “from above.” Any other approach results in theory
which is a rather speculative idea as to how something might be done. To be
fully believable, we must reflect like a mirror what folks around us actually
experience about the company.

We put the cart before the horse, which is not a very effective way to get work
done, and it also aggravates the horse!

If you can’t apply it, don’t write it
And this leads to a second challenge. Most companies, including many large
transnational ones, really need a coach in order to apply what they say they
believe. If the philosophy of the company rises out of the reality of the actual
work, then applying it must rest in that actual work as well.

Just consider how successful a firm could be in which the whole workforce
operated as a single unit, all headed together in one, clear direction! Such a
unified, energetic, and powerful result comes from helping everyone buy into
the same philosophy and sense of direction.

Most likely your existing corporate mission and philosophy statements are
sufficient as they stand. You don’t have to spend much time or money refining
them. They’re sitting on that shelf in your office, waiting to be put to use. So how
do you go about dusting them off and applying them?

One way to get started is by undergoing a corporate philosophy audit. Such an
audit can result in a powerful and united company-wide effort to achieve that
mission to which your philosophy calls you.

What’s happens in a corporate philosophy audit?

Step One: Discovery. After initial meetings with management, the auditor
becomes thoroughly familiar with existing company statements, both oral and
written, related to your philosophy. These existing statements may be refined
and put into plainer terminology.

Step Two: Listening. During this step, the auditor invites employees,
shareholders, executives, and even the public to state in simple terms what they
believe the company is about. A concise report is drawn together, reconciling
steps one and two and a strong company credo emerges.

Step Three: Planning. A plan is drawn together by the auditor and management,
which will be followed in order to apply the company mission, values, and
philosophy to actual performance. Such a plan may contain several elements and
stages.

Step Four: Evaluating. The final step includes a report from the auditor which
brings closure to the process and leaves the company with a strong plan.

In sum
We know that today’s business community is based heavily on knowledge. Every
nation’s workers feel threatened by every other nation’s workers. It’s a global
marketplace, at the speed of light (literally), and more dependent than ever on
the wit of sharp leaders.

In this environment, workers have self-confidence. They feel mobile. Their
commitment to any one company is low. It wasn’t that long ago when workers
made a lifetime commitment to the company which employed them in their
youth. Most social systems supported this. If your father was union and a
carmaker, then chances are you would be, too. But today, almost everyone has a
resume on his or her laptop, ready to send off with the flick of a keystroke.

What attracts and holds talented workers today is not the financial goal. That can
be achieved almost anywhere. What attracts and holds them is a clear mission.
People desperately want to know that the company for which they work has a
purpose, that their work has meaning, and that they will be able to grow with the
company.

Each company, therefore, in order to succeed in this environment, needs an
explicit corporate philosophy onto which each worker signs his or her name. It
has to be clear. Short. Easy to understand. Meaningful. It needn’t be complex or
heavily nuanced. But it does need to be applied in order to make it work as a
tool for growth.