Revamping a Company's Mission, Vision and Values Statements

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A key component of Emerson Hermetic Motor’s employee communications plan was out of sync with the company’s strategy

Situation

Emerson Hermetic Motor (EHM), a division of Emerson, serves only other Emerson divisions. However, the Emerson Hermetic Motor division faces competition from outside suppliers to those same divisions.

EHM hired Obata, a strategic communications agency, to revamp the company’s Mission, Vision, and Values (MVV) statements.

Mission Possible

The MVV development process can and should be a powerful process that has great positive impact on an organization. Defining a company’s MVV can too easily become a committee-driven wordsmithing exercise of generic statements, industry buzzwords or jargon.

From our experience, powerful mission, vision and values statements create a lasting competitive advantage. They can galvanize a company’s culture internally, attract talent, and rally customers.

During our discovery process, we found:

• the existing MVV language was dated and out of sync with the company strategy, and

• EHM was missing an opportunity to carve out a distinctive reason for being

So, we convinced EHM to completely rewrite the MVV with employee engagement and understanding in mind.

MVV Communication Goals

Our communication goals were to focus EHM on its MVV principles in order to drive the business culture forward. All employees needed to understand and follow its guidance. A rewrite of the company’s MVV was needed to clarify and simplify the message.

LISTEN

Understand and review insights from all team members

The entire EHM leadership team participated in the development of the new MVV statements. Logistically it was a challenge to get the entire leadership team together for a workshop. Instead, we sent a survey to each leader to gather input and gain insight.

We received a great deal of input from the EHM team. Each team member submitted three to five adjectives or phrases that defined the company.

From there, Obata reviewed and analyzed the various adjectives and phrases received. The adjectives became keywords as we considered new MVV statements. We combined the words into a single more effective organizational structure. Then we edited the original MVV statements into three new MVV messages.

ARTICULATE

Simplify feedback into concise and cohesive messaging

Next we engaged the full leadership team again to demonstrate how all team members were heard during our workshop. The key to delivering the new messaging statements was how we unveil them to the leadership team.

We wanted there to be structure and excitement to the presentation. First we developed a three-sided graphic icon highlighting MVV. The icon is based on a product silhouette that every employee would recognize from their business. This icon became the central harmonizing element in delivering each new statement.

We chose an interactive PDF format. This format would allow us to illustrate how we listened to the team and captured their input.

We produced three slides with a single statement on each slide. Within the statement, phrases were bolded and underlined. Clicking on each underlined phrase, revealed a thought bubble containing key words and phrasing that led to the final MVV wording.

This format provided greater insight and a deeper connection to the words that defined the company. The leadership team was thrilled to see how their input helped inspire the final MVV messaging.

EXTEND

Visualize and produce materials that illustrate the company’s values

The employee engagement plan consisted of:

• develop a keepsake and reminder of the importance of their new mission, vision and values statements

• distribute the interactive PDF to all company employees

As a keepsake, Obata designed a dimensional aluminum plaque. All members of the EHM leadership team received an aluminum plaque to display on their desk.

The leadership team distributed the PDF to all employees.

Other employee engagement strategies included designing and installing a brushed aluminum standoff display. The final display was mounted on the wall of their company’s boardroom.

Interested in learning more about OBATA?

Our team specializes in the design of corporate, sustainability, branding, and digital communications.