Many companies don’t communicate their vision to employees, and this leaves the entire organization wondering, “Where are we going?” If your employees don’t know where you're going, how can they help you get there?
In fact, many employees don’t even know what a company vision is. A company’s Vision, simply put, is a matter of defining:
Great companies have leaders who communicate a crystal-clear vision to the entire company.
Every company has a vision, but it might not be written down or shared with everyone. Perhaps only a few leaders carry it around in their heads. Perhaps only the owner has the vision but hasn't shared it with everyone. Or worse, the leadership team thinks they all agree on the vision and they really don’t.
When the leadership team isn’t on the same page with the company’s vision, they and the company will end up rowing in different directions. If you don't have a written vision that is shared with everyone and owned by everyone in the company, you'll inevitably have more miscommunication, greater confusion, and wasted effort.
As an example, the leadership team members of a New England telecom firm were asked to write down the company’s top priorities for the next year. Not a single answer was the same. One person thought that sales were the top priority while another thought it was hiring additional operations people. Yet another manager thought it was opening an office on the West Coast. Clearly, they were rowing in different directions and communicating different priorities to the employees.
"I always thought management didn’t know where we were going. If they did, they sure weren’t sharing it with me. The V/TO changed that." —Lindsey C., Accounting and HR Specialist
The EOS tool that helps your leadership team define, document, agree on, and share your company's vision is called the Vision/Traction Organizer™ or V/TO™. The latest Traction Library book, What The Heck Is EOS? is written for employees so that they understand what a vision is and why it's important to them. It also explains the V/TO and gives employees questions to discuss with their managers.
Key take-a-way: Make sure your vision is written down and shared by all employees.