Why Your Vision Can’t Suck

One of the best ways to engage your team and ensure that they are really working towards the success of your business is to craft a vision that your team can believe in and can buy into. As leaders, we need to focus on what we are trying to accomplish and how our teams can get involved. This rings painstakingly true on an everyday basis.

It is our responsibility as leaders to craft a vision that is clear, consistent, inspirational, and aligned with our core values. With clarity, team members not only feel comforted in investing themselves fully but that compelling vision also helps disengaged workers find their connection point within the team and engage.

Vision is important

The more connected to the overall mission of the company your team members can be, the higher level of personal purpose they will experience within their daily tasks. When personal purpose is missing, we find in its place “group think” and an unchallenged acceptance of “status quo” methodology. A compelling vision boosts the personal purpose of each associate, and when personal purpose is heightened, it provides the power for deeper change and innovation.

Here is an easy formula for crafting a compelling vision for your team:

CONTENT – The vision must communicate clearly as to what it says about the company/department. It should identify direction and where your team can get involved. It should be persuasive and idealize a future for the company and the individual.

CONTEXT – The vision should be able to demonstrate how the content applies and relates to the lives (professionally & personally) of the associates. While it needs to show how to advance the company’s mission, it also needs to benefit the individual team member as they are working towards personal growth, themselves. It needs to be able to connect with each team member at a visceral level, and create in each associate a desire to commit themselves to the goals and values of the leader.

CREDIBILITY – The vision needs to be able to show how content and context work together in proof of concept. In short, it needs to make practical sense to the everyday workflow. It should bring value and meaning to the work associated with your team and mobilize them to action. It should provide a framework so that your team members can easily decide what to do and what not to do in the course of their daily work.

COLLABORATION – The vision should engage the associates at a “personal purpose” level. When the vision is compelling it will create an ambitious desire in each team member and inspire them to align their energies in a common direction to achieve the mission. They should be able to perceive the goals and understand that they cannot reach them on their own, but need the collective involvement of each other in order to accomplish them successfully, fostering loyalty through involvement.

Question: How do you craft a compelling vision for your team? Share your strategy in the comment section below.

This was a guest post by James Beene. James has spent years training and developing leaders in the corporate sector. He shares his insights to impact other leaders through guest speaking, blogging, and social media. You can follow James on Twitter: @JamesBeene.

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