Influencing every stakeholder to a shared VISION

Getting everyone aligned with an organization's goals and values is essential to the seamless and effortless growth of the company. But usually, organizations come up with lofty visions and missions while sitting isolated in board rooms with just a few top-tier leaders involved in the process; and then struggle to get every employee to embody these values and display the behaviors associated with them. Influencing different stakeholders in defining and taking actions that align with the organization's vision, mission, and values is a whole other ball game! 

"An inspired employee embraces the Vision naturally."

The majority of employees want to engage and grow with the company actively. They understand that if the company grows, they grow and usually want to work in that direction. But even with the best intentions, they may feel clueless about what to do and how they can go about it.

Some employees might resonate and feel thoroughly inspired to embrace the vision and embody the values naturally while others may not relate to them and struggle with them. The earlier breed of employees is a rare one and diminishing soon. The average employee is not fully aware of the company's vision and mission or may not relate to it or be motivated by it. 

A 2015 Achievers' survey, The greatness gap: The state of employee disengagement, states a staggering 61 percent of employees don't know their company's mission statement. What's more, of those who are familiar with their company's mission, 57 percent are not motivated by it.

This is the current reality, and these numbers are hard to ignore. As a result, many employees feel lost or demotivated at work and question their role in the bigger picture and feel like just a cog in the wheel. 

How can we change this?

Organizations need to focus on the intersection of what the company stands for, what the employee is seeking, and what inspires them while making economic progress. 

Let us look at two leaders who are starting on this journey:

Story #1:

Ramesh is the founder and CEO of a start-up. He is extremely passionate, driven, and has a strong vision: Always put the customer ahead of everything. He embodies it and leads by example. 

While the company was still in its nascent stages, Ramesh encountered a disgruntled customer who was not happy with the service they had rendered. Though they had followed the brief and adhered to every request and requirement of the client, the client ended up unhappy as he kept changing his mind several times. Though it was not their fault, Ramesh let the customer have his say and fixed it from their end, yet another time. 

All the employees in his small team observed how he dealt with it and started emulating him as the number of customers began growing. Even without actively articulating this #value, Ramesh was able to align everyone on his team by ?????????????? ???? ??????????????. 

"Ready or not, as a leader you are leading by example."

On another similar occasion, he saw that one of his team leaders handled the customer just as he would. He recognized this behavior and rewarded it by calling it out in their team meetings and appreciating him. 

This experience lent itself to further clarifying its vision and helped Ramesh reiterate what he stood for. As time went by, he formulated his thoughts and got his team together to do a visioning exercise, and almost everyone was able to articulate the vision he had in mind!

Story #2:

Sonia is the founder of an NGO that helps children access quality education. She is driven, confident, and is very passionate. Her vision is to enable all the existing schools (especially the government schools and the underprivileged ones) to provide quality education. Though it is lofty and a noble cause, she struggled to get her team's buy-in and was unable to inspire them to embody these values. 

She came up with the vision as she had struggled as a child to have access to quality education as her parents were not well off. So, she felt strongly about this cause. But this was not articulated to the rest of her teams. Moreover, when she saw some of her teams struggle with something, she quickly swooped in and took over. She worked like a lone-wolf sometimes, to the point of burnout. 

This did not lend itself to set an example to the teams as they got used to her saving them when they messed up. She did not take the time to involve her stakeholders in this exercise or talk about how it could have gone better, as she always felt that there was so much more to achieve, and she could not waste time on these things. 

When one of her friends observed this and pushed her to share her vision with them, she organized a training session, and they had the vision presented to them by a third party and eventually asked for some posters to be put up in their office. 

What could Sonia learn from Ramesh?

• Though it is vital to have a strong vision and be passionate about it, getting the teams involved and getting their buy-in is important. 
• If Sonia wanted her teams to embrace her vision and values, she should have talked to her teams herself. It would be more impactful coming from her. 
• When someone in the team displays the desired behaviors aligned with the vision and values, she could recognize and reward it. 

As leaders, how can we achieve this and avoid the pitfalls that Sonia fell into?

All-inclusive Process:

• In most organizations, the senior leaders and the founders create a #mission, vision, and define the #values they would like all the employees to embody. And then, these values are translated into actions and behaviors and are disseminated organization-wide. Another way to successfully do this would be to invite representatives of all departments to be a part of the vision making the process so that everyone feels like they are a part of it, owns it, and takes it back to their teams. This way, it feels like a collective effort versus a select few. When everyone takes ownership of the vision and embodies the values, they are more likely to embrace them and be accountable for the desired behaviors. 

Experiential Communication:

• Once the vision and mission are in place, it is imperative to communicate it to the whole team effectively. In most organizations, this exercise is usually inside a training hall with a PowerPoint presentation and a few tabletop momentos to remind them of the values. But the desired action can be seen only if everyone experiences these values and lives them. Apart from training, one can think of engagement surveys, using the vision in performance reviews and gamified dissemination or experience led learning. For example, if innovation is a strong value, then simple games can be designed to get teams to experience this. It can be as simple as handing them a box of sheets and asking them to make a tall tower that stands on its own. When this plays out, you will be amazed to see how teams will develop newer solutions every time. Another example could be if one of your values were, "It is ok to disagree, but it is not ok to be disagreeable." You could give teams debatable topics and design the exercise where they all need to come to some kind of consensus to win it. This would help them understand that their opinions are welcome, but it also clearly understands that you expect them to be respectful at the same time.

Live & Lead By Example:

• Everyone is always watching the leaders handle situations, react to crises, and embody the values. Once the vision, mission, and values are defined, lead your teams into it by making it a part of your daily workplace culture and behaviors. When they consistently notice you living the values, they will be motivated to emulate it. Failing to adhere to these and living by them could be worse than not having a vision! It is rather easy to adhere to the desired behaviors when things are going well. When the company is going through a crisis, it is the most critical time to stand by your beliefs and lead by example. 

Align Goals:

• When setting each employee's individual goals, empower managers to align them to the organization's vision and mission, and explain how these goals coordinate with the values and behaviors. This will help make the vision relevant to them and help them follow through while fully understanding it and feeling like a part of the big picture. 

Be a part of the dissemination process:

• Getting everyone in the organization on the same page takes a lot of effort and constant communication. This is usually carried out by the HR teams and is viewed by the employees in isolation to their roles and responsibilities. As an alternative, leaders can be hands-on in this process by conducting organization-wide town halls and regular all-hands meetings, effectively using their social media handles or newsletters. Every employee touchpoint should reinforce these values. 

Recognize and reward:

• Once the vision and value dissemination has taken place, look out for examples of the desired behaviors, and reward them. This will help break down the vision into actionable steps for the rest of the employees. For instance, if retaining clients is an element of the vision, and one of the employees manages to maintain a client during testing times, then recognize and reward it. On the other end of the spectrum, if an employee fails to adhere to the vision and the core values, be decisive in letting them go. If an employee consistently engages in behavior that is contradictory to the company's vision and desired behaviors, it not only impacts his performance but disrupts the company's performance. 

Fernandez hospitals, Hyderabad:

It is one of the oldest hospitals in Hyderabad and has built a reputation for high-quality maternity and neonatal care. When you visit any branch of the Fernandez hospitals, you will notice that everyone is extremely polite and respectful - from the valet driver to the doctors, everyone seems to embody the same values. Dr. Evita Fernandez, the founder, believes in respect for life and commitment to patient care, and this clearly shows when you have been through their system. Some of their practices are unique to their hospital-like delayed cord clamping, respecting the newborn skin-to-skin's ???????????? ???????? with the parents, among others, as they genuinely believe that life is sacred and precious and do our best to affirm and preserve it. 

McDonald's Fast Food chain:

This is yet another example of where the organization's vision and values are entirely inbuilt into the expectancy, delivery, and work culture of the system. McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick-service restaurant experience. You visit any franchise in the world; they live and breathe this vision. They never fail to deliver! Moreso, if anyone does not embrace this, the system itself is built so that it will automatically oust them. Imagine one slow worker in their assembly line - it just doesn't work. 

Mirchi & Mime: 

This is a trendy Indian restaurant that serves modern-Indian cuisine. They stand for respect and inclusivity. They live this value by exclusively hiring speech & hearing-impaired service staff. They provide gainful, sustainable, and respectful employment to 500 speech and hearing impaired, through a chain of restaurants across India and beyond. 

If the leaders don't walk the talk, they lose their credibility. The organization is represented by every employee looking up to the leaders to show them the way. By breathing, living, and owning the vision and values, leaders can enable every employee to become accountable. In turn, this can help the organization reach its full potential and live its true vision. 

Welcome your thoughts and perspectives on this Article and your personal experiences.

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