Realigning Corporate Vision: Winson Press

Tan Jit Khoon and his team of 11 staff spent six Saturdays in June and July back in the classroom at the Singapore Management University campus. No, they weren't part of SPRING's Management Development Programme although SPRING did play a part in their Saturday classes.

They were at the SMU for their customized Vision Alignment training. Jit Khoon, CEO of Winson Press, said it was time to get everyone in the 18-year-old family-owned printing company aligned for their corporate vision.

"We want our company to be a place where good people want to come to do work they enjoy," he explained. "We want our customers to be highly satisfied, and our shareholders to have good returns. To achieve all this, we believe that people are our most important asset - not just in words, in thoughts and action as well. We believe that once we get everyone aligned to a common vision, we can achieve anything we want."

He has several objectives for Vision Alignment. Besides service excellence for both their internal and external customers, he also wanted to strengthen their corporate values, build teamwork and drive continuous improvement across the 58-strong full service printing company. "We also wanted to get our people to be accountable and take responsibility for results," he added. "Empowering them means letting them know that everyone can make a difference. And we wanted to have a closer knit team."

Assoc Prof Tan Wee Liang, who teaches Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Management at the SMU's Lee Kong Chian School of Business, is observing Winson Press' Vision Alignment to develop it as a teaching case for SMU students and SMEs. "In order for an organization to move in the same direction, for togetherness and a common sense of purpose, there is a need for Vision Alignment," Prof Tan said. "Firms need VA as they grow. When younger, there are fewer employees and there is clear identification with the firm's goals and direction. Part of the reason is the fact that the entrepreneur is able to infuse his/her team with the vision.

"When firms grow and new people join the firm, coupled with turnover of staff, the people in the firm may lose sight of their corporate vision. The various units might work on their own agendas when they are supposed to work together so they may operate at cross-purposes."

While there are attempts to induct new staff into organizations, these practices only take place in larger organizations with professional management practices. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many SMEs who run smaller operations.

Jit Khoon would like to recommend VA to other SMEs. For him personally, he said his most important lesson was finding out: "We've been sitting on a 'gold mine'. The project provided a lot of opportunities for our people to show us what they are capable of."

In most organizations, changes or initiatives are often driven from the top down. This works but usually takes longer as people need a while to buy in. In their case, the changes and initiatives came from within so staff tended to be much more committed in wanting to achieve the desired outcomes faster.

"To make this project successful, the key lies in top management's commitment in empowering our people and committing time for company-wide training," Jit Khoon added. "It's very tough to juggle production and training, especially in our work. This exercise is not the end but the start of a new journey for our organization."

SPRING Singapore supported WInson Press for comprehensive capability upgrading under its Technology Innovation Programme. You can go to http://www.spring.gov.sg or e-mail: enterpriseone@spring.gov.sg for more information about this and other assistance schemes. ET

Vision Alignment in two languages over six Saturdays

Whether you call it Vision Alignment, Strategic Planning or Organizational Development, the objectives are the same. Companies go through this exercise to align staff with their corporate vision and goals. The 11 Winson Press staff - representing a cross-section of staff from sales and pre-press managers and supervisors to executives and offset printing and die-cutting operators - were chosen because they are what Prof Tan calls "influencers" i.e. they are able to influence their colleagues either positively or negatively. Even Jit Khoon's parents, Mr and Mrs Tan Hock Beng, who are in their 60s, joined the weekly training which was conducted in both English and Mandarin.

These five modules were facilitated by consultants:

1. Coloured Brain Communication Inventory (CBCI)
Uses the CBCI tool to identify how each individual processes the world around them. This leads to a greater understanding of colleagues' perceptions of how to be productive and the best suited management of this perception when interacting with others.

2. Harnessing Emotional Drivers
Through a variety of fun experiential exercises, staff determined how their environment and past experiences affect drive and efficiency. This area of personal awareness helped participants to harness those emotional drivers to gain and manage greater productivity and more employee job satisfaction.

3. Postures and Personal Energy in Influence
Examines the five leading human response postures and how to identify and use these postures to influence more productive behaviour. Using the postures of warrior, child, lover, emperor and angel with new strategies in innovation draw out the best from supervisors, peers, and subordinates.

4. Group Dynamics
This module applies the learning of the previous three. It develops team behaviour patterns that drive company loyalty through a sense of organizational belonging and success. This sets the foundations for people to take actions that benefit their own personal fulfilment while positively affecting the organization.

5. Leadership Intelligence
People are immersed in a series of leadership enrichment exercises. Each individual is coached to discover their own leadership identity to master their specific leadership competence. As leaders, each will be given tasks to improve their environment to combine abilities from the first four modules to influence behaviours, emotions and postures as key influences.

On the sixth Saturday, the Winson Press team unveiled their Vision and shared it with the rest of the company, families and friends.

What's next after the Vision Alignment? Jit Khoon said the core team has already come up with nine initiatives and will be responsible for leading the implementation of these initiatives which are in line with the company's vision.

"The main difference this project made in the way we run the business will be the staff participation in coming out and implementing initiatives," Jit Khoon said. "Previously, even though we practised participative decision making, more initiatives were still from top down. I think this will be a new journey that we embark on. We will keep striving for greater heights."