Redefining Your Organisation’s Vision in a Changing World: Core Values
Photo Credit: Unsplash
Your company's vision encompasses who your organisation is, where you are going and how you are going to get there. While many leaders may have a clear idea of what the company vision is, when there are several members of a leadership team, it sometimes means there are several different, often conflicting, visions.
So how do you ensure your entire leadership team is on the same page, and you have a clear vision which informs and drives your business as a whole?
In this series of blog posts, I will look at the steps I take when I work with SMEs to define, or indeed redefine, their vision.
In Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business, Gino Wickman outlines eight questions that you should ask yourself when it comes to establishing your vision. When every member of your team can answer these eight questions and agree upon the same answer, you know you have found your vision.
Once you have defined your company vision with clarity, it is essential that you conduct all your business dealings with this at the forefront of your mind. Your vision should act as a guiding light any time you make a decision to ‘hire, fire, review, reward, and recognise people'.
To define your company's vision, the first question to ask yourself, and your team, is 'What are our core values?
What Are Your Company’s Core Values?
To help businesses discover their core values and begin to articulate their vision, I suggest the leadership team set aside at least two hours, at a time and place where they can focus solely on strategic thinking. I find this is generally best conducted off-premises.
In this meeting, there are three distinct steps we work with, which begin to uncover the organisation's authentic core values.
Step One: People
The first step involves each person in the leadership team listing three current team members who they believe embody the qualities that are key to succeeding in their given market.
Once each person has chosen their three, we share them on a whiteboard.
Step Two: Qualities
From here, we examine each person listed and define what exact qualities it is that they embody. As this list comes together, you will start to see your company values coming into clear sight.
Your list will contain a series of real-world characteristics and may include some of the following:
- Accountability for one’s actions
- Strives for self-improvement
- Champions individual initiatives
- Exhibits creativity, particularly when it comes to problem-solving
- Demonstrates humility
- Treats co-workers with respect and dignity
Step Three: Narrow it Down
Now that you have a substantial list of the qualities you admire in your team, it's time to narrow these down to your core values.
Start by combining the similar characteristics, eliminating those which are not at the heart of your business culture and finally, choosing the qualities that are most important to you.
If you are wondering how many of these should make up your core values, I suggest somewhere between three and five.
At the end of step three, you will have around 15 qualities or characteristics from which to choose your set of organisational values.
Through sustained discussions and debate within the leadership group, you then narrow this down to your core values.
I suggest to all the companies I work with to take 30 days to sit on these values before attempting to communicate them with the rest of the team.
In my next blog, I will look at how best to communicate these core values in a way that resonates with your staff and encourages them to embody these values in all their business interactions.
As the director and founder of Infinity HR, Iolanda Hazell helps SMEs define their vision, values and purpose through people-first strategies. Contact her today for a free phone consultation on 0400 489 743.
References:
Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business, Gino Wickman, BenBella Books, 2013