SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: How exciting is your organization’s vision?
- Very — the future we’re pursuing is exciting and compelling: 31.71%
- Kind of — there are some exciting aspects but others aren’t clear: 36.79%
- Not very — our vision is pretty blah and “me too”: 18.5%
- Not at all — our vision is either nonexistent or simply boring: 13.01%
Making the vision compelling. We all know the purpose of a vision statement is to give the organization direction and to motivate team members to contribute because they know where their efforts are ultimately directed. If your vision isn’t exciting and compelling, you need to understand why. Has it been a while since you reset the vision? Have market conditions changed and the vision needs to be bigger or bolder? Do you need to shift the direction of the vision? Are your people demographically different than when the vision was originally crafted? Does the current vision “speak to” your new workforce? Just because you have a vision, it doesn’t mean you can ignore revisiting it. You must ensure that vision stays compelling given the market you’re in and the people working toward achieving it.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”