Change is hard for humans in many situations. When talking about an organizational change such as agility the combination of alignment and a unified vision as an organizational whole becomes very important. What is the plan for the future? How will the organization be planning throughout to inspect and adapt to the overall vision? For example, with a sportswear company, is the vision to provide the greatest sportswear to enable an athlete to perform better? If so, how is that greatness defined in terms of value? How does the organization continuously provide value and become better?
Having a vision visible throughout an organization will help establish alignment and transparency. Maybe this means communicating the vision daily in meetings, posters hanging in the office, and online visibility on internal applications and tools. Ideally the vision is reiterated through communications of all kinds from face-to-face to online. There are also clear goals that define how the organization will meet that vision on a daily basis.
When employees are not aligned with the vision, I have found that the environment tends to be chaotic and busy. Employees are moving in different directions and not keeping their focus on delighting the customer. This may lead to dramatic effects for both revenue and employee retention. I like to think of vision as a meeting’s agenda. Do you like meetings to have a clear agenda? Each meeting will ideally start off with an agenda and a clear direction for the duration of the meeting. What does the team want to achieve in the next 30 minutes? Did the team achieve it? Question meetings that do not have a clear agenda. Why are we having this meeting, and what are we trying to achieve? I would do the same at all organizational levels that do not have a clear vision. Ideally every organization continuously grows toward their overall vision.
What are your thoughts and experiences on a unified vision and it’s importance in an organization?
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