Have you ever felt like your vision for the future of your company needs to align with how others see it? The people around you may misunderstand your idea or are just not excited about it. Whatever the case, fostering open communication about your vision will help ensure that everyone on your team is on board with where you want to go.
Create a Vision Statement
A vision statement is a short, inspiring description of your company’s future. It should be simple and easy to understand, be able to be communicated in one sentence, and be about the future, not the past.
A vision statement aims to inspire people who work for your company toward a common goal. Having one helps you focus on what kind of company you want to build over time, so you can make decisions that align with those values rather than simply reacting to problems as they come up without considering how they fit into your overall plans for growth.
This means only some employees must agree with every decision management makes. Still, at least everyone will know where they’re going (or at least why they’re heading toward a particular destination), giving them something concrete upon which everyone can base their ideas about how best to achieve that goal or pursue its associated objectives.
Use the Vision Statement to Guide your Mission and Values
- Use the Vision Statement to Guide your Mission and Values
Your vision is a statement of where your organisation will be in 5-10 years. This vision must be aspirational, meaning it’s not likely or possible today but could be realised with hard work and determination over time. Your mission is what you do along the way and how you operate daily. Finally, your values guide your decision-making when faced with tough decisions or complex scenarios. When these elements are aligned well together, they clarify why we are here doing what we do for our clients, which helps build trust with our teams and customers!
Share Your Vision with Your Team
Sharing your vision with your team will help you gain their support. When you share the image with them and get their input, they will feel more connected and more likely to help you achieve it.
You can share your vision in various ways:
- Share the vision with everyone on your team at once. You can do this during a weekly team meeting or company-wide events like an off-site retreat or holiday party.
- Share the vision one-on-one with each member of your team who might be affected by it (including contractors). This will help ensure that everyone has enough information about what’s happening. Hence, they feel included and understood about new policies and procedures, which can lead to higher levels of employee satisfaction over time if done correctly!
You may need to update your vision statement.
Changes in circumstances, leadership, industry, and company goals can require updating your vision. For example:
- A change in leadership could mean that a former CEO wants to remain chairman of the board but no longer has executive responsibilities. In this case, you may need to revise your vision statement to reflect the business’s new structure.
- Suppose you’re planning for future growth or expansion and want to hire more staff than initially intended. In that case, you’ll need to adjust your projections to stay within current resources and capabilities.
- If technological advances make specific production processes obsolete or increase efficiency beyond what was previously possible with manual labour alone (like how robots are making manufacturing jobs obsolete), then this too would affect how efficient and effective your business will be able to run over time if left unchecked!
Communicate about your vision so that others can understand where you want to go and why.
The vision statement should be easy to understand and inspire.
The vision statement should be specific, measurable and time-bound.
Your vision statement must become a shared goal for the team. It can also be shared with customers or other stakeholders, who will better understand where you want to go if they have access to your vision statement.
Bottom-Line
The best way to know if your vision statement is working is by hearing feedback from your team. You can have them fill in the blanks or give them a list of words representing what they think you’re trying to accomplish. Then ask them if they feel those words accurately describe what you’re saying in your vision statement. If not, talk about how it could be improved so that it does! Also, remember that a vision statement is never really finished—it can constantly be updated as new opportunities arise or circumstances change.
Who am I?
I am Dotun Adeoye, a Business Growth Strategist & Author of the 5 Pillars of Business Growth.
I’ve built up my experience via serial entrepreneurship, consulting leadership roles in business growth, business development and product innovation in large companies worldwide in the last 30 years.
Today, I consult with large businesses on how to sustainably grow their businesses, sustain infinite growth, ensure business continuity and achieve a legacy.
Hire Dotun Adeoye to Speak Virtually or In – Person at your company’s event to cover this or other topics. You can also get in touch via +44 203 097 1718 or dotun at dotunadeoye.com.
