According to Bowen (2018), the vision statement for any organization expresses why the organization exists. Part of the vision statement, therefore, is to express the company’s overall objectives and provide insight into how they guide decision making. This paper is a short description and analysis of the vision statement of Royal Dutch Shell, a multinational oil and gas company that is better known as shell. It will, therefore, discuss the qualities that make Shell’s vision significant, its appropriateness, why the vision is alluring at the emotional and cognitive level, and whether it motivates organizational change, among others.
Royal Dutch Shell Vision
According to Beurden (2020), the vision statement for Shell is to make the difference through our people, a team of dedicated professionals, who value our customers, deliver on our promises and contribute to sustainable development.
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Attributes of the Vision
Apart from introducing the organization in a few words, a vision statement should not only be memorable but also reflect the key aspects of the organization’s operations. Shell’s vision statement is memorable and conveys all this by stating that its primary focus is on people, both customers and its inhouse professionals. Secondly, a vision statement should be direct and communicate the organization’s long-term objectives. Shell does this by expressing their long-term objective that by delivering its promises to customers, the company contributes, directly, and indirectly to sustainable development. By focusing on the customers and its employees, Shell’s vision statement has managed to humanize the company where anyone reading it will think less of it as a multinational corporation and more as an international group of individuals working towards a common goal.
Cognitive and Emotional Appeals of the Vision
Cognitively, Shell’s vision statement is appealing in that it is simple. Compared to the size and global reach of the company, the vision statement wraps it all up with a single statement that is easily understandable. A lot of the work Shell does is highly complex, but none of that is hinted at in the vision, only the company’s efforts to make a difference through its existing human resources. Secondly, there is no mention of the company’s track record, business model, or operations. Instead, the vision statement focuses on a single aspect that is relevant to any reader and stakeholders. As an employee or potential employee, the vision statement communicates the company’s dedication to its human resources to achieve its objectives. As a current or prospective customer, the vision statement communicates that the company exists to serve your goals and objectives, not the other way around. Such an emotional appeal is what makes the vision statement compelling.
Vision Statement and Organizational Change
In business, change (planned or unplanned) is inevitable. The vision statement should, therefore, be flexible enough or have provisions that accommodate the organizational change. Shell’s vision statement achieves this by focusing on the important aspects of its operations; the professionals and customers. Business operations are bound to change, but they will always exist to serve the interests of the customers. Therefore, by not talking about specific business operations, or even confining its vision statement to a specific industry, Shell’s vision statement remains flexible and adaptable to organizational change. Secondly, short-term goals regularly change, but long-term goals rarely. This is because short-term goals are designed to build up to the long-term goal, which, when achieved, needs to be sustained. By incorporating the objective of contributing to the customer’s sustainable development, Shell’s vision statement shows enough flexibility and adaptability to organizational change by focusing on the big picture and not its intricate details.
Significance of the Vision Statement
First, Shell’s vision statement is a source of hope and creates the required unity of direction. For the employees (its professionals), the vision statement brings together all aspects of the company and gives them a common purpose. For the customers (current and prospective), the vision statement is a promise that all resources would be dedicated to achieving their current and future (long-term) objectives, even towards any sustainable development goals. With such a vision statement, Shell has managed to not only explain why it exists but also why customers should work with them. This is a source of competitive advantage for attracting both customers as well as talent and skill.
Royal Dutch Shell v. Microsoft Corporation
Similar to Shell, Microsoft Corporation is another successful multinational company that, according to Gregory (2019), has the vision statement that states, “to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.” This vision statement shares a few similarities with Shell’s. First, both vision statements do not describe any aspect of their business operations, only their focus on their customers. Secondly, though the two corporations are in different industries, their vision statements are similar in that they provide no concrete details or specifics about how they achieve the vision. That being said, Microsoft’s vision statement is more ambiguous as it does not define what full potential constitutes. In contrast, Shell’s vision statement is more specific in that the organization aims to contribute to its customer’s sustainable development.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to examine and discuss Shell’s vision statement and how it appeals to customers. By analyzing Shell’s vision statement, it was discovered that the core of the corporation is its customers and employees. In other words, people. External stakeholders might find it easier to relate to Shell as its vision statement states that the corporation exists for the customer. By using Microsoft Corporation as a comparison, it was discovered that both companies were focused on developing their customers, which is an important hint when creating a vision statement for any other company.
References
Beurden, B. (2020). Royal Dutch Shell Mission, Vision & Values . Comparably. Retrieved 4 September 2020, from https://www.comparably.com/companies/royal-dutch-shell/mission.
Bowen, S. A. (2018). Mission and vision. The international encyclopedia of strategic communication , 1-9.
Gregory, L. (2019). Microsoft’s Mission Statement & Vision Statement (An Analysis) - Panmore Institute . Panmore Institute. Retrieved 4 September 2020, from http://panmore.com/microsoft-corporation-vision-statement-mission-statement-analysis#:~:text=Microsoft's%20corporate%20vision%20is%20%E2%80%9Cto,can%20use%20for%20their%20development.
