Setting the right VISION

For company owners and owners of the vision…

Owners of the Vision need to be clear on their professional vision for the company/department, whilst safeguarding that, their vision can be shared by the people they wish to deliver on such a vision.

Asking people to constantly strive higher and harder might not always harbour the absolute best results. In fact, in some cases this may well create completely the opposite culture within your business.

Aim for Moon and hit the Stars!

Whoever uses ‘Aim for the Stars and hit the Moon’ or vice versa when setting company goals has a lot to answer for.

This is completely the wrong way to set a vision or target. The difference between Stars and the Moon is massive. We won’t dive too far into celestial mechanics here, but the Moon is an orbiting piece of rock, and, stars are huge celestial bodies made mostly of hydrogen and helium that produce light and heat from the churning nuclear forges inside their cores. Admittedly they are both in the sky, that is pretty much where the similarities end.

Why on Earth would we aim for one thing and hope, or be happy, that we hit something completely different? Even if they are both in the sky. Aiming higher and higher and higher is not necessarily the best way to reach the moon or the stars, you might miss both! If there is such a misalignment, this will create completely the wrong culture within your organisation.

If you and your team are aiming for the Stars, yet, you as the owner are happy that you’ve hit the Moon. Your team has been set a goal which they have not hit. Yet, you, as the owner of the vision are happy with their failure.

The company has a feeling of success. The team has a feeling of failure, because the ‘secondary target’ was sufficient, the team then has a culture of failure without consequence. As such, future target setting, and performance management becomes increasingly difficult or worse still impossible and meaningless

Whilst there is a balance to be struck make sure there is clarity in your vision. If you want to hit the Stars create the plan that hits the Stars, don’t be happy with hitting the moon. If you’re happy with hitting the moon create your target as being the moon.

If you feel you have to put goals in front of a team that pushes them to go the extra mile constantly, you might want to review your recruitment and performance management procedure before you just get your stick of motivation out.

For Managing Directors and Boards

Aligning on vision and managing expectations of your shareholder whilst maintaining happy and motivated teams will be your toughest, and probably never ending, challenge as you work through this process.

Owners and shareholders have a right to ask for more. You have a right to be realistic yet aspirational,  finding the balance here will be your challenge.  

Open and honest communication is the only recipe for success.

We talk more about vision setting in both the Refocus Programme and the Strategic Gap course, there are more details on these in the links below.