Today, I want to talk to you about how you can get all the players on your team to be rowing in the same direction, focused on the same vision, and getting your business to where it needs to be. As business leaders, we know it’s important that everyone in our team is working collaboratively and in the same direction, and that they’re not off doing their own things on different tangents.
So, how do we go about doing that?
It’s important that every once in a while (it could be your annual planning or maybe at your quarterly strategy meetings) that you sit down with your team and you work through a couple of key points.
1. Determine Your Direction
The first thing you need to focus on is getting very clear on what your business direction is. It’s important to know where you are headed and what it is that your business wants to achieve. And, you can only do that by sitting down and mapping out the destination that you want to be at.
- Where does this business want to be in 10 years or 20 years’ time?
- What is the big dream that you have?
- What is the vision?
You need to determine these things with your team because it’s hard as a business owner to go out and set that vision and then come and share it, expecting everyone to be on board. But, you can also work with the key players on your team, maybe with management, and then they can later go and share that with those who work below them.
So, sit down, have this session and come up with what the big vision is.
What is the big destination that the business wants to be at in five or
20 years’ time?
2. Set Big Goals & Targets
The second thing is to dream big. Have big goals, have really big targets.
Set out these targets to inspire people to want to reach them. No one wants to come second or third. They want to be number one, and it’s the same thing when you set big goals and big targets. Create these big goals and targets that make people want to aspire to reach.
And, that’s a very important part of creating the vision, inspiring people and having them be a part of that journey.
Set these big goals and targets so that people want to work towards them and feel energised and excited doing so.
3. Communicate Your WHY
You also want to communicate a strong purpose. What is the purpose? It’s your WHY. Consider the following questions:
- Why are we doing this?
- Why do we have this big vision?
- What does the company stand for?
When we do something, our WHY is usually more important than what we do or how we do it. It’s the concept of The Golden Circle by Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why.
People buy why you do things. They don’t buy what you do and how you do it, so that’s important as well. That’s your purpose. You need to share that with your staff because when they believe in that, then they’re able to go out and do a better job out in the sales and convert customers into believing customers.
So, you need to really communicate what your purpose is in the business.
Take ants as an example. They don’t just go and march in a particular direction. They have a purpose. They go out in search of food that they can bring back to the colony. And, that’s ingrained. That is their genetic code. Their WHY is to go out, find food and bring it back to the colony.
4. Set Strategic Goals
You’ve also got to wrap this all up into setting strategic goals.
Once you set that big vision and you’ve got your team, then sit down and work out:
- What are the goals that we need to achieve?
- What are the targets?
- What are the checkpoints that are along this journey that’ll help us get to our destination?
- What are those targets and goals?
You can think of it like this:
- What do we need to achieve in three years’ time?
- First, we need to do this, this, this and this to get to our big vision.
Take that and then consider:
- What is our one year goal?
- Now that I’ve got my three-year goals, what do we need to do in one year
- that feeds back into my three-year goals and big vision?
- So in one year, we need to do this, this and this, and then that will help us in our three-year target.
Most people struggle to keep one-year goals in focus and to follow through
on those one-year goals. So then what you do there is break the one-year goals into quarterly or 90-day goals. Sit down with your team and decide:
What do we need to achieve in the next quarter that will feed into
our one-year targets and our one-year goals?
This makes it easy because people can then better focus. It’s only 90 days, one quarter, that they need to focus on their particular targets, goals and what it is that they need to do. It’s easier because people can know they have a set target. So, they know that over the next 90 days, they need to do this, this and this. And then, every quarter you readjust these to ensure that you’re getting yourself to your 12-month target.
Ultimately, as a business leader, your job is to be able to motivate your staff, your followers, and the people that you lead to be able to take action and get results. They need to do certain things so that you can get a result at the end of the day. You need to share with them what your company vision is. You need to share with them what your WHY is, why you have that company vision. You need to then share with them what the goals are that you need to achieve. That way, you inspire them. That way, you energise them and keep them focused on what they need to do and what they can do best.
So, I want to leave you with this last quote by Antoine de Saint Exupéry:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
