"We want to achieve excellent performance in terms of quantity, quality and productivity." "We believe our primary res-ponsibility is to make the best product possible." "We are in a business not merely to sell a product, but to sell a service."

These were some of the visions of excellence reported by managers at some companies during a recent training programme held in Dubai. Are these visions true? Are lower level employees aware of the vision and mission statement?

A vision is a comm-itment/belief as to what the organisation wants to be. It defines the values, principles and philosophy the company stands for. Fine. How does one understand such values? Is it through training? Certainly not!

For a vision to bear fruit, the management needs to recruit professionals. HR should not end its task by selecting personnel - it should ensure the inducted staff understand the corporate vision.

Employees should have a feel of the culture. They have to be internalised with the core values. This is important because staff need to perform their tasks in accordance with the core values underlying the envisioned quality.

For instance, in an organisation where the corporate culture is to serve customers, managers must not only try for results, but achieve them through participative decision making. Companies often die because their managers concentrate on result-oriented performances. Staff must be told that the management's concern extends to ensuring customer loyalty.

The core value is customer care - both internal and external. How can we achieve it? Only through better communication, team building and good working conditions. One company followed a top-down communication. It was reluctant to receive bottom line feed back.

Managers rarely convened shop floor meeting to hear out the technicians. The managing director could not understand the advantage of participative decision making that could improve the work culture.

Once, he released the corporate vision through his company's newsletter. He gave a big dinner to top executives and stressed the importance of it. But his lower level employees were nowhere on the scene. They were restless due to bad working conditions.

Thousands of Gulf labourers have been living in uncomfortable working conditions - why they should bother about corporate values? In what way has a mission statement helped them? Where is the quality in their life? What is the use of TQM awards?

Quality is not for mere performance alone; it should aim to improve the workforce. Though the above company had a strong vision, it was unfortunate that it was not communicated clearly to the workforce.

It is the responsibility of HR to motivate staff by articulating and disseminating core values and a vision of excellence. Business ethics gives meaning to an organisation's life.

Pon Mohaideen Pitchai is a Dubai human resources consultant.