Imagine your Story, Build towards It, Then Let It Happen

This past Wednesday, I cried in a business situation.

I was up in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, speaking at a conference for the International Council of Shopping Centers, talking about using storytelling to create more meaningful connections and experiences for shoppers. But it wasn’t my presentation that made me cry (which would’ve been unbelievably awkward). It was Andrea Shaw’s.

Andrea is the founder and managing partner of Twentyten Group. She is also known as the former VP of Sponsorship and Marketing for VANOC, the organizing committee of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Andrea packs a lot of infectious energy and grit into her tiny frame, both of which came flowing forth as she talked about the power of having a vision and working tirelessly (and she emphasized, tirelessly) to achieve it. At the end of her speech, she showed a four-minute highlight film of the Vancouver Games, and that’s when I got all weepy. I found solace in the fact that I was not the only one in the room with tears running down their cheeks.

Andreas’ talk reminded me of what an incredible experience the Vancouver Olympics were, and more importantly, how brilliantly VANOC envisioned and orchestrated them. There are many reasons why the whole experience of the Vancouver Olympics worked so well and lessons we can draw from it; but allow me to offer up three for you to consider if you’re trying to create meaningful and memorable experiences around your brand.

First, envision the story of the future you want people telling and be proudly stubborn in your adherence to it.

“This will be Canada’s Games,” said John Furlong, CEO of VANOC, from the outset. And despite a mountain of criticism from British Columbians and Vancouverites (myself included) who wanted to lay greater claim to the 2010 Games, he and his team never wavered from that vision. Ever. Through these Olympics, VANOC wanted the world to have a new story of Canada to tell; and they wanted Canadians to have the same for their own country. As Andrea told us, everything VANOC did was in pursuit of realizing that vision and working towards that story.

Second, imagine and create the experiences that will enable that future story to emerge.

These Games really started to become Canada’s when the torch relay stretched its way 45,000 kms across the country, giving 94% of all Canadians – many of whom would never make it to Vancouver – their own Olympic story. The Opening Ceremonies furthered this story of national unity with beautifully choreographed representation from all corners of the country. And VANOC’s partnership with The Bay and the creation and sale of the red maple leaf mittens gave everyone – Canadians and non-Canadians alike – a physical way to show their Canadian pride.

And lastly, after all the planning and all the preparations, step back and let it happen.

The most admirable aspect of VANOC’s management of the Vancouver Games was in the way they bravely and selflessly gave up ownership of them once the Games started, metaphorically handing them over to Canadians. They still managed the experience, but they didn’t try to control it. They reacted to situations, but they never over-reacted. Through countless challenges – the faulty arm of the Opening Ceremonies cauldron, the lack of snow on Cypress, the death of the Georgian luger – they remained calm and intuitively responsive.

And when it all started happening, it happened in a big way. Still, VANOC never panicked. Instead, they seemed to simply “roll with it,” trusting that the facilities (e.g. lots of public places to experience the Games outside of official venues), the training (e.g. the pride and “bend over backwards to help” approach of the Blue Jacket volunteers) and the procedures (e.g. working with the BC Liquor Board to manage store hours and public drunkenness) they had put in place would hold, even though all that energy flowing through Vancouver was greater than anything they had ever imagined.

The Irish poet John O’Donahue, once said, “I want to live as a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” This is what VANOC enabled, allowing this story they had worked so hard to create to ultimately unfold on its own, all the way up to that magical gold medal win in men’s hockey (click here for my absolute favourite video of that moment). They recognized that once this Olympic experience got going, it had a power all its own; and they let it run. Through it all, they had vision, conviction and faith, because they had imagined a story that was achievable and worth achieving – a story that we Canadians will tell for years to come, always with a twinkle in our eyes, quiet pride in our voice and a warm glow in our hearts.

Undermining the Mission of Mission Statements

As a youngster, I was not a strong student. My parents, God love them, tried motivating me to apply myself more, with inspired talk of how junior high is a stepping stone to a bright future as a doctor or investment banker; but I wasn’t buying it. Getting A’s just wasn’t that important to me…but skiing was. So when my parents told me that for every A I got, they would contribute $25 towards a season’s pass at the local ski hill, I changed my tune and my behaviour. I now had something real to work towards, something that was meaningful to me personally. I now had a mission and – when my mom wrote out “I will earn a season’s pass to Boston Mills and ski as much as humanly possible” on a piece of paper and stuck it to my door – my first mission statement. I got my A’s and my pass.

Mission statements are one of those traditional trappings of strategic planning. They can be powerful things that focus, align and inspire a workforce to come together to reach a common goal. However, despite their best intentions, many mission statements fall tragically flat. In a recent HBR blog post, Dan Pallotta said that a lot of mission statements fail because there’s no real sense of mission fueling them. I completely concur and offered up three additional scenarios to Dan that often undermine the very mission that mission statements are looking to fulfill.

1) Collective Composition

Far too many strategic planning sessions with top executives are allowed to turn into glorified, vocabulary mosh pits as a group of non-writers try to write together. They agonize over every word, resulting in mission statements that lack magic and are filled with clichés. (“Oh! Let’s get ‘Integrity’ in there. That’s a great word!”) This collective brainpower should be focused more on ideas, vision and the differences they want to make in the world, less on words. Leave the actual writing to writers; they’ll make it sing.

2) Non-human Language

Mission statements are too often written for some plaque on a wall or annual report, not for the hearts and minds of the people who are expected to carry out the mission. They are rarely written in a way people actually talk. So if your employees aren’t talking about your mission statement, they’re likely not thinking about it…and certainly not acting on it.

3) No Vision for the Mission

If you develop a mission statement, make certain it goes hand in hand with a vision statement. Your vision statement conveys the world as you see it…or more specifically, as you want to see it. Your mission statement then captures what you vow to collectively take on to realize that vision. People need to know what they’re working towards, not just what they’re working on.

If you need to develop a mission statement, then give it a chance to actually carry out its mission and make it something that will resonate with your troops. That’s more than half the battle.

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