If Your Company Is Growing, You Need These Three Things
Before you update your business plan or growth strategy, there’s something you need to do first. You need to work on your core Vision, Mission & Values.
I’m always surprised to learn that most leaders don’t prioritise these three important things. Think about it. You wouldn’t set out on a road trip without a map, would you? So how can you expect to lead a business without know not only where you are going, but why you’re even embarking on the journey in the first place?
And it’s not just as simple as quickly throwing a mission statement together and popping it up on the website. Remember, this is the foundation of your company culture, so it pays to be thorough.
Let’s start with what happens when you don’t have a clear Vision, Mission and Values:
Your team lacks motivation
When your team don’t know the WHY of your organisation, they lose focus and their work suffers because of it. Study after study shows us that employees are not solely motivated by money. They want to understand the bigger picture of what they are working towards, they want focus and they want direction.
Your team have stopped collaborating
Without clear values driving your team culture, we often see employees stop pulling their weight. Without a clear vision to connect with, employees will after start thinking to themselves (or saying out loud) “I didn’t sign up for this,” and, just like that, the idea of teamwork evaporates.
You struggle to retain top talent
Without a clear vision, it’s only a matter of time before your employees start turning to your competitors looking for greener pastures. They leave in search of greater purpose, deeper connection and better alignment with their own personal beliefs and morals.
You lose connection
Without a solid company culture and connection to values, an organisation can often feel disingenuous. When your efforts to create purpose are more token than considered, this will be felt not only by current employees but potential employees, who may use it as a reason to choose another organisation to work for.
As you can see, establishing clear Vision, Mission and Values is an incredibly important part of the business puzzle. So how can you get started?
Let’s break each of them down so that you can properly understand what they mean as well as how they can impact your business. We’ll also use LinkedIn as an example so that you can get a sense of what Vision, Mission and Values look like in action.
Vision
Your vision is the story that your organisation tells. This is relevant for all businesses but can be particularly important for founder-led companies. Sharing your vision is an opportunity to inspire your team. It’s important that your leadership team are dedicated to the vision, as they are the ones that will act as brand ambassadors.
When we write out a vision statement, we like to consider these questions:
Where are we going moving forward?
What do we want to achieve in the future?
What kind of future society do we envision?
Think about where your company aspires to be in the long term, and the impact you want to have on the world. Make sure that your vision statement is unique to your company, not too generic and relevant to your industry.
LinkedIn’s vision statement: To create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.
Mission
Now that you have your vision, your mission is going to explain how you are going to get there. You can think of it as your company’s purpose or reason for being. It should communicate the solutions that you offer to your audience or customers and paint a picture of what your company does.
A mistake that a lot of people make when writing a mission statement is making it too long. It only needs to be concise, but it should encapsulate what you do today, who your customers are and what you are trying to achieve.
LinkedIn’s mission statement: To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.
Values
It’s important to establish your company’s values to ensure that they line up with the values of your employees or potential employees. Having strong company values will make all the difference in your retention rate, allowing you to attract the right talent from the beginning and avoid people turning around six months in and saying “this isn’t what I signed up for.”
A good place to start is by asking yourself and your core leadership team about their own personal values. Ask yourself, what do you stand for? What types of behaviours do you value? How do we want our teams to treat each other? Your values not only need to reflect your business, but they also need to reflect the way you interact with each other on a day to day basis. Your leadership team have a very important role of demonstrating these values and leading by example on a day to day basis.
LinkedIn’s values: Prioritising members, trust, honesty, connectedness, diversity, fun.
Did you know that we run engaging workshops to help your business establish clear Vision, Mission & Values? This workshop helps to align everyone within the business, providing focus and ensuring that all team members are working towards a single purpose. Get in touch to find out more.