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Partner Spotlight: Compudyne
Mission, Vision and Values
Profile: Brad Schow - General Manager
Compudyne
Location: Duluth and Hibbing, Minn.
Established: 1987
Number of employees: 39
Web site: http://www.compudyne.net
Company focus: We are a regional system builder and integrator that provides a full complement of repair, maintenance, support, and network management services.
Favorite part of my job: Working alongside great people
Least favorite part of my job: Sitting at my desk
Words of wisdom: Practice servant leadership. Pour your life into the people around you and you will be rewarded with a dedicated team of friends who will execute for you even beyond the borders of your business.
What do you want to accomplish in your business? How will you get there? And what is the moral and ethical framework within which you will operate to reach these goals? If you want to position your business for success, you need to identify, document, and communicate the basic principles that you and your employees will use as benchmarks for your decisions. These are your mission, vision, and values. Without them, your business will be like a rudderless ship that gets blown in the direction of any prevailing wind. As a leader, you need to answer the fundamental questions above. Take a minute to review them and really think about your answers.
What do you want to accomplish?
How will you get there?
What is the moral and ethical framework within which you will operate to accomplish your goals?
Once you’ve identified your mission, vision, and values by answering these questions, you must be consistent in applying them to your business decision making. Every decision you make sends a message to someone—your employees, co-workers, suppliers, vendor partners, or customers. Be sure it’s consistent with your framework. If it’s not, you need to rethink the decision or the answers to the questions above.
You also need to share these key principles with your team. I’m sure people within your organization can tell you what business you’re in. But can they tell you why you are in it? Do they know what’s important to you, morally and ethically, in getting things done? If you have not identified and communicated your mission, vision, and values to your employees, you leave them no choice but to apply their own. Unfortunately, these may be at cross-purposes with your goals, business strategy, or ethics—or all three. The natural result of allowing each person in your organization to apply his or her own set of guiding principles is inconsistencies in your business relationships that can lead to confusion and a breakdown in communication. Remember: If your company’s core concepts are not communicated from the top, they will come from somewhere else.
As leaders we are called upon to make tough decisions. Those decisions become even more difficult, however, if you have not articulated your mission, vision, and values. How do you know what benefits to offer your employees, for example? How do you decide when and how to deal with unacceptable employee behavior? Or how do you know if a new business idea or technology is something your company should adopt?
We first developed Compudyne’s mission, vision, and values because we did not want to struggle to build a business and then look back and wonder why we did it. We knew that chasing money or power would be a hollow goal that would not satisfy the reasons we went into business in the first place. We made a conscious decision to base our business around building relationships and making a difference in the lives of people with whom we work. Our mission, vision, and values reflect that. We want to accomplish our goals and make a difference for the reasons that are important to us. Our employees know it. And our customers, vendors, and distributors should see it.
As a leader, I have much to learn about communication and consistency. One thing I have come to realize, however, is that you cannot communicate too often when it comes to mission, vision, and values. Define them. Write them down and distribute them. Then make decisions based on them. Also, be sure other leaders in your organization are doing the same. If you run a small company and are looking.
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