Hi! managers: To the leader the vision

Welch is a former CEO of General Electric (GE) who was hailed by Fortune magazine as CEO of the century for his proven ability to turn GE from an industrial production base into a goods-producer and service-provider, growing from US$26.8 billion (Bt946.6 billion) in 1980 to $130 billion in 2000 when he retired.

The success of GE is a result of his creation of a culture in which all staff profess their belief in the organisation with the words: "We bring good things to life."

This is a testimony to the important role the leader should play in finding a path for his organisation, which is literally to define the vision of the organisation.

Vision is a goal which tells all the staff in the organisation to what end they are working. However, many people confused vision with long-term planning.

Vision is the ultimate goal of an organisation; long-term planning is the path or means to that goal.

In effect, once vision is defined, it must be translated into reality with tasks given to executives and staff to formulate mission, strategy and planning, including long-term planning and action planning.

To illustrate the point, Dhanin Chearavanont, chairman and CEO of CP Group, has a vision of CP as the "kitchen of the world", and his executives and working team have formulated a strategy and action plan to realise it.

What CP has clearly demonstrated as planned is that it has moved from being a leading primary producer of crop seeds and animal breeds to producing a variety of processed foods based on pork, chicken, fish, shrimp and more. Its diversified distribution channels encompass not only the 7-eleven convenience stores nationwide, but an expanding market across the world, bringing it close indeed to the "kitchen of the world" goal.

As for SCG, when president and CEO Kan Trakulhoon defined its vision of being the "region's sustainable business leader", an innovative workplace of choice, by 2015, his executives followed up with the "Go Regional" and "High Value Added Products and Services" strategies, defining a medium-term plan and an action plan as a road map to those goals.

SCG has demonstrably expanded its investments with for instance a cement factory in Cambodia and a paper mill in Vietnam on top of previous investments in construction materials and trading business in Indonesia and the Philippines.

To become an innovative workplace of choice, the company realises that it needs change and has to create a new organisational culture that turns out innovative people who can then create high-value-added products and services.

The result gradually became apparent last year, with 19 per cent of SCG's income derived from high-value-added products. The target is 50 per cent by 2015.

Implementing the vision, strategy and medium-term planning is seen as a challenge by SCG leaders Kan and his management team, as well as their staff.

Manoon Sunkunakorn is corporate human-resources director of Siam Cement Group.