What Is Your SCS?

So What Is Your SCS?

You spent some time thinking about thereal reason, or purpose, for your family farm or family business.  Let’s get cracking on the actual vision statement for your family business.  

Your big goal in this process is to create a vision statement that will have real meaning to people…especially your current and future team members…about the future direction of your family farm business.  From a simple, clear, brief vision statement your team members should be able to understand where the business is going and how they fit in.

Simple - Clear - Stimulating

A meaningful vision statement has the following features:

Simple - Your vision statement does not need to be long. Think about Disney; “To Make People Happy.”.  Fairly simple, eh?  Your challenge is to say a lot with a select few words.  

Clear – The ideal vision statement for your family business ought to be so clear and unambiguous that a total stranger can read it and know exactly what it means – An instant understanding of where you want your business to be in the future and what kind of affect you are trying to have in the world.

“To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.”

— Seneca

Stimulating – Your vision statement must lay out an image for your family business that is exciting, thought-provoking and inspiring.  If it can be achieved in a year or two, maybe it’s not so challenging and is really just a target or an objective.   Think about Kennedy’s vision of getting a man on the moon.  Not just build a rocket or get a rocket to the moon.  It was a MAN ON THE MOON!  I would bet that was kind of inspiring and motivating for all the people involved in that project.  Obviously you may not have the resources for such a grand vision.  This exaggerated example was simply to show an extreme example of a clear vision statement.

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.

Lastly this week, developing, sharing and communicating your family business vision statement is paramount.  Laying the foundation for an effective team beginning with your vision statement requires that it be rooted in your family business culture with regular communication – maybe even excessive communication.  

The communication and establishment of the vision begins with ownership and senior management and travels to all levels of your family farm business to become a regular, top-of-mind concept for your entire organization.  Once it becomes engrained, your vision becomes the stimulus for innovation, improvement, ingenuity, resourcefulness, effort and order that might propel your family business and the entire team to accomplish great things.   When family farms and family businesses come together around a simple, clear and stimulating vision statement it can make all the difference in almost all areas of your business.