Greetings from Shoppers, Inc.! Hope you enjoy the article below from Mark Sanborn about 7 Ways to Create a Vision that Motivates and Inspires as much as we did.
1. Think big!
Make it aspirational, but not irrational. Challenge people with the size and scope of the vision but don’t make it so far fetched that it is considered unattainable.
2. Share the future.
Don’t just craft only around the desires of management or shareholders. Craft a vision that explains to everyone–especially the employees who will need to achieve it–what this desired future will look like for them as well. If they don’t see any benefits, why buy in?
3. Create with 20/20 vision
Explain what you’re trying to achieve in the next 20 years, but make sure the vision gives the guidance team members need to decide what to do in the next 20 minutes. Connect the future to the present.
4. Keep it real.
Use language the real, normal people use, not the kind of corporate rhetoric that means little and is understood less.
5. Make it easy to remember.
The more concise, the more powerful. Make the primary vision statement short. If necessary, add a more detailed explanation. Just make sure there is a concise version that is easy to recall and repeat.
6. Refer to it frequently.
Use it on more than the company website and annual report. Ask people what the vision is, and what it means to them. Show how achievements and innovation are moving your organization closer to the fulfillment of the vision.
7. Ask each department to develop it’s own mini-vision.
It is important that a departmental vision describes the desired future for the department and supports the larger organizational vision. The mini-vision should complement and add clarity.
Mark Sanborn, CSP, CPAE is president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea studio for leadership development. He is an award-winning speaker and the author of the bestselling books, The Fred Factor: How Passion In Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary, You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader: How Anyone Anywhere Can Make a Positive Difference and The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do. His book Up, Down or Sideways: How to Succeed When Times are Good, Bad or In Between was released October 2011. To obtain additional information for growing yourself, your people and your business (including free articles), visit www.marksanborn.com.
