Overview: 5 Steps to Help Your Team Buy Into Your Vision

Step 1: Clarify the Vision

The vision must be clearly communicated to every person working in the business.

If you have managers, start with them so you’ll have their help and support when communicating the vision to everyone else. Without full manager buy-in, the vision will be doomed from the start.

*Choose a day and set aside a one to two hour time slot for a kind of mini-conference. This can serve as the launch of the new vision. If feasible, shut down operations so you have full participation and underscore the seriousness of the undertaking. This will send a strong message to everyone of just how serious the goals are being taken by leadership.

Step 2: Clearly define each person’s role in the vision

Once the “big picture” has been effectively communicated, each person needs a clear understanding of what their role is, and how they play a crucial part in everyone’s success. It’s human nature to want to be a part of something successful, something larger than ourselves.

*This can be done in a series of one-on-one meetings by you, or mangers who have totally bought in to the vision.

Step 3: Be prepared to meet and nip resistance in the bud.

Most people will be energized by the vision, and their role in it, once it has been communicated. However, there will be some who resist change and refuse to adapt and grow. Small issues quickly grow into large issues, and unhappy/negative employees poison the minds of others. Those who refuse to grow must be removed from the team. It’s a painful but necessary step. This holds true regardless of the position and is necessary to protect the culture.

*Hire slow, fire fast mindset.

*Negativity is contagious.

*Positivity is contagious.

Step 4: Follow Up

Leadership should stay connected, visible, available, and ensure everyone has clarity about the vision. Solicit feedback and be prepared to accept feedback so you can make course corrections as you go. This doesn’t mean changing the plan based on every gripe and complaint, it’s a matter of gathering information from the people responsible for implementing the plan so you can see what’s working and what isn’t. Ask those who give feedback to offer ideas for potential solutions.?

*Open-door policy.

*Specific email address solely for communications regarding the vision.

*In-person visits throughout the week.

Step 5: Ongoing Training

All elite professionals have one thing in common. They train continually. It boosts performance and employee satisfaction. It also pinpoints strengths and weakness of the team. Nearly every business will have people who feel they are in a dead end job with no possibility of advancement. That mindset is a team killer. Implementing an ongoing training program will go a long way toward shifting that mindset.

*Train specifically to the job role. Interpersonal skills, phone skills, positive verbiage when talking to customers. Let them know they are being trained because they are needed.?