Leading Teams: Vision
Last week I kicked off a series of posts about developing leaders within an organization. In my experience, I've found 5 key tenants that can help provide a pathway for how to lead a team. Those 5 tenants are Vision, Clarity, Fun, Time, and Care. Let's spend some time today on Vision!
Here's a challenge for you. At the next meeting you have in your organization, department, or team, bring in a stack of 3x5 note cards and pens. Give everyone 5 minutes to write your one sentence vision on this card. Collect all the cards and then read the responses out loud to the whole group. Here's what I'll bet, the degree to which those sentences match will reflect the degree to which your organization, department, or team is all working towards the same vision. This is a simple way to get a read on team alignment.
Vision answers the simple question: Why are we here? If you have different visions in the room, then your team will be trying to pull each other to different end destinations. It will be like herding cats. You'll spend copious amounts of time, energy, and resources moving towards an end goal that you're not even trying to get to.
Often times on teams that lack cohesion of vision, conflict will come up within the team. This should be expected since the team members are trying to convince each other to spend their time and energy to move the team in different directions. For new leaders, it can be frustrating to understand why the internal conflict is happening. The first inclination is to try to resolve the symptoms of a lack of unifying vision (indecisiveness, gossip, sabotage, confusion, frustrations, delays etc).
The fastest way to resolution for these symptoms is to align everyone to the same vision. Imagine if the energy being used on gossip, sabotage, and indecisiveness were being used to actually accomplish what your team is together for? I recommend that if you find yourself in a place of spinning your wheels, it might be a good time for a vision check. Does everyone know and embrace the vision? Use the note card exercise to find out.
How do you get everyone on the same page? Repeat the vision all the time! Once you are sick of casting the vision, do it about 20 more times. Evaluate and give feedback based on the vision. Don't just say great job, share specifics on how they did a great job helping achieve the vision. Empower others to share the vision. This can be in meetings, emails, and clients interactions.
Ultimately, vision is the leaders first important tenant. If you aren't all going in the same direction, nothing else will matter. I'd love to hear from some of you, as leaders how do you go about casting and reinforcing vision? Leave a comment below!
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