Ultimate goalThe direction

A reason for being that everyone can see from their workstation

At the top of the house, above profit, sits the reason for being. Not a poster slogan: the yardstick that lets a team decide on its own, and in the right direction, when management is not in the room.

In the house

Each part of the drawing leads to its own page.

What the literature says

The reference works this part of the house rests on.

Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1996). Building your company’s vision. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 65–77.

Check : Harvard Business Review

Drawn from their research on visionary companies that last, this article by James Collins and Jerry Porras separates vision into two parts. First, the core ideology: a few essential values and a core purpose, what the company exists for beyond profit. It hardly ever moves. Second, the envisioned future: a bold goal ten to thirty years out, described vividly enough to be seen. That part can and should evolve.

Their conclusion fits in one phrase: preserve the core, stimulate progress. Companies that last are neither those that change everything nor those that change nothing, but those that know what is not negotiable and what must move. To reach the core purpose they suggest something very simple: ask, several times in a row, why what you do matters.

Devine, F. (2023). Rapid mass engagement: Driving continuous improvement through employee culture creation. McGraw Hill.

Check : McGraw Hill (O’Reilly)

Frank Devine starts from a field observation: continuous improvement stalls when the culture does not follow, and a culture cannot be decreed. His approach has the teams themselves build a Higher Purpose, and the commitments that go with it.

Because they wrote it, teams hold to it, and culture change speeds up instead of wearing out. The reason for being stops being a management text and becomes a promise everyone has made to themselves.

How Phi-Lean applies it

What we actually do, on the ground and with your teams.

A workshop with the leadership team to put the reason for being into one sentence an operator understands, and tie it to three concrete indicators.
Cascading it with the teams, department by department: what each person does at their workstation to contribute, and what they stop doing.
Visual displays close to the work, so the reason for being settles everyday trade-offs instead of decorating reception.
Our crisis exercise for leadership teams, one of our serious games: under pressure, we check that decisions really follow the stated direction.

Go further :

The crisis exercise for leadership teams Training courses

And in your company?

This will sound familiar if…

The reason for being is on the website, but nobody on the shop floor could quote it.
Each department optimises its own indicators, sometimes against the next one’s.
Every trade-off goes up to management, for want of a shared yardstick.
Your best people leave without being able to say why they would have stayed.

What it changes for you

Decisions made lower down, faster, and in the right direction.
A shared yardstick to settle trade-offs between sales, operations and finance.
Teams who know why their work matters, and show it.
A strategy that can change without the company losing its way.

The cost of waiting

A reason for being left as a slogan is expensive, yet never shows up in the accounts: every trade-off settled case by case, every talent who leaves, every project that bogs down for want of a shared yardstick.

Phi-Lean is a small firm, on purpose: Manuel Gourmand leads every engagement himself, from the diagnostic to the last workshop. The number of engagements running at the same time is therefore limited. If this is on your agenda this quarter, it is worth talking now.

Book 30 minutes Start with the VSM Express Diagnostic