Page 29 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

Building a Unifying Vision 19

The stakeholder discussions also generated many other messages
about the organization’s aspirations, so that the overall vision eventually
looked like this:

Our dream is a world free of poverty.

• To fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting
results

• To help people help themselves and their environment by pro-
viding resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity, and
forging partnerships in the public and private sectors

• To be an excellent institution able to attract, excite and nurture
diverse and committed staff with exceptional skills who know
how to listen and learn

Over time, with regular repetition and use, this statement and the
aspiration it described became an antidote to the external criticism that
called for the end of the Bank. It also helped leaders in the organization to
focus and prioritize the Bank’s strategic goals, both at the corporate level
and throughout the regions, countries, and technical networks in which it
operated. Indeed, the focus on poverty alleviation eventually became an
ongoing measure of progress, not only for the Bank, but also for other de-
velopment institutions such as the United Nations. The vision also reso-
nated with the staff at a personal level since many Bank staff either came
from poor countries or frequently traveled to areas that were economically
disadvantaged.
The power of the World Bank’s vision was not just a matter of framing
strategy and building engagement, however. It also was unifying, allow-
ing the Bank to leverage the contributions of its individual employees at
scale. The Bank, like most organizations, consists of people with a wide
variety of skills and backgrounds across many functions. There are econ-
omists, agronomists, water experts, civil engineers, accountants, cleri- cal
personnel, writers, administrative assistants, and many more, all in
different silos, departments, and locations. But because the organization’s