Sharing Your Vision with Employee's

The CEO/leader's job is to communicate the vision of the company and help employees make it their own.

Successfully transforming the company vision into a shared vision empowers employees. They see themselves as a part of it, and it as a part of their own future. It gives them a sense of purpose.

A vision is a source of magic. When people see themselves moving toward an inspiring future, they take action in the present consistent with that desired future to transform it into reality. People become self-inspired when they own the vision for themselves.

How is the vision communicated to employees? This depends on the size of your organization. It might be communicated one-on-one or at round-table discussions, town-hall meetings, staff meetings, conference calls, satellite meetings, board meetings, company dinners, off-site outings, videos and audiotapes, monographs, white papers, and newsletters. Any of these ways might be appropriate for communicating the company vision. Regardless of the venue, every time you get people to talk about the vision, you are helping them make it their own.

The CEO also communicates the company vision to outside stakeholders such as board members, suppliers, customers or clients, investors, the media, and perhaps the government. Communicating a clear, strong vision lets the world know what your company is about and the future it intends to create. This makes it much easier for outsiders to actively participate in your company's future. As a consequence, many things that were once difficult become easy.

In addition to sharing the vision, as a CEO you want to provide opportunities to enable people to take action to realize the vision. Employees should spend 100 percent of their time on work that is aligned with the company vision. They should ask the question, “Is this project moving us toward our intended future?” If not, drop it immediately!

A Vision Encourages C.R.I.B.

C.R.I.B. stands for creativity, risk taking, initiative, and breaking with tradition. Creativity is important because same-old thinking rarely fosters a bright new future. Get your employees to look outside the box. What new approaches can be taken? What new technology can be applied?

Risk taking is worth failing. Failing shouldn’t be punished. Silicon Valley venture capitalists reward failure as a badge of courage. A failed business venture is a sign of experience and maturity. The lessons of failure, accepted and learned, contain the knowledge of how to succeed the next time.

Initiative can be encouraged by giving people permission to launch projects on their own. If you discover someone working on something promising, be sure they get the resources and funding they need. Make a big deal out of it, too.

Breaking with tradition involves creativity and risk taking as well as courage. Just because something has always been done a certain way, it doesn’t mean that it’s the best or most efficient way to do it. Eliminate the “we can’t because of time, money, resources, etc.” attitude. Instead, cultivate a climate that encourages people to speculate on how “we can” do it. There’s always a way to implement a good idea, even if it takes a little time to get all the resources lined up. The simple change from a blanket “we can’t” to a speculative “how we can” fosters C.R.I.B. Ask the question, “What is in the way of committed action in this area?” then proceed to remove the obstacles.

Developing New Leaders

In the military, the quality of a senior officer is measured by the quality of the junior officers he is responsible for leading. As the company CEO, you will be ultimately successful to the degree that you cultivate the leaders that follow you. Remember that leadership is not a set of qualities, but a set of actions to take. Great leadership ability can be developed through practice. If your company embraces C.R.I.B., as described above, your employees will naturally develop leadership skills.

Consider your development teams as providing a training camp for leaders. Rotate people through key positions for experience and change the rules a little from time to time. Keep projects challenging to encourage inventiveness and flexibility. Have managers make decisions on the spot. Delegate responsibility in as many critical areas as possible. Encourage decision making further down the organizational ladder and, finally, let go!

Leadership is the laser that tightens the scattered light of your company into a focused, coherent beam powerfully aimed in the direction of your envisioned future. By forging a vision and continually promoting it, you enable your people to take action to bring the vision into reality. By developing new leaders to replace you in critical tasks, you create great leverage. Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and I will move the earth.” Developing leadership skills in your employees is the ultimate leverage.
 

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