Counting sheep concept as a symbol of insomnia and lack of sleep due to challenges in falling asleep as a group of farm animals jumping over a fence in a dream bubble as an icon of bedtime for sleepy children and tired adults.
If your vision statement is like most, you don’t think about it much, and its best use is for bedtime reading as a cure for insomnia.
7 Reasons Your Vision Statement Puts People to Sleep
1. It sounds like “God, Mother, and Apple-Pie.”
2. It is too vague to provide any direction.
3. It’s boring.
4. It was written by the marketing department for customers, and is disconnected from daily life in the company.
5. Employees feel no involvement and sense of ownership for it. They think it’s your vision statement, not theirs.
6. It was used to justify downsizing or to drive a change vision that did not benefit the individuals in the organization.
7. Leaders don’t model it and they don’t use it to make decisions.
Vision Statements That Wake You Up.
Vision statements don’t have to be snoozers. These statements pack a lot of power, not because they sound snazzy, but because they illuminate the core of what the company is about and provide guidance for strategic decisions.
“To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
“One of the world’s leading providers of family travel and leisure experiences, giving millions of guests each year the chance to spend time with their families and friends, making memories that last a lifetime.”
“With our powerful, easy to use, integrated set of applications, businesses can attract, engage, and delight customers by delivering inbound experiences that are relevant, helpful, and personalized. HubSpot is, after all, on a mission to make the world more inbound, one business transformation after another.”
Tips to Revitalize Your Vision Statement.
The first thing to do is stop using the word vision as a catchall phrase. Vision paints a clear picture of the desired end-result AND it is deeply rooted in purpose and values.
Create a statement that illuminates all three elements of a compelling vision.
Then test it against the characteristics of a driving vision and these benchmarks:
- Explains our purpose or reason for existence?
- Is about more than the products or services we provide?
- Provides a picture of the desired future that you can actually see?
- Provides guidelines that help you make daily decisions?
- Is about being “great”—not solely about beating the competition?
- Is inspiring—not expressed solely in numbers?
- Helps each person see how he or she can contribute?
How It’s Created Is As Important As What It Says.
Don’t hand the job off to the marketing department. If you want to create a vision that engages the hearts and spirits of everyone in your organization, involve them in the process of creating it.
When people are involved, they understand it more deeply, are better prepared to implement it, and are more strongly invested it.
Think of it as creating a lump of clay where senior leaders create the substance and then invite people to put their thumbprint on it before it’s baked.
Be open to requests for changes in language that do not change the essence of your vision. And, if there is a pattern of requests for substantive changes, it’s possible you may have missed something, which is important to know.
This is great! Three elements of compelling vision: desired end-result, purpose, and values. Always alert to the need to make it ‘compelling’ is important to success in developing the vision.
And then, from the post: “Don’t hand the job off to the marketing department. If you want to create a vision that engages the hearts and spirits of everyone in your organization, involve them in the process of creating it.” As I considered your list of the seven issues, #4 and #5 stood out for me – and this short paragraph in your post says to me that you agree!
Issues #1 – #3 have to do with “what it says,” #4 and #5 have to do with “how it’s created,” and #6 and #7 have to do with “how it’s lived.” Often people are aware of the problems created by how it sounds and the lack of congruence when it’s not lived, but are less aware of the impact of lack of involvement. So yes, I agree this needs to be emphasized. Thanks for calling that out, John.
What a great capsule of your absolutely wonderful book, FULL STEAM AHEAD. What I love is the 3-part-approach. How often have I seen “leaders” go away, play golf, create a “vision” and then say “Done”. Far from effective.
Indeed. Too often leaders think of creating a vision statement as an activity to be completed. Once it’s checked off the To-Do list, it’s easy to forget about it and move on.
Jesse, your idea of the “desired future” in a vision statement is, to me, the #1 aspect. When done well employyes can easily get a kind of “just over the horizon” feeling/ image.
It all falls apart when managers/ leaders/ the company culture conspire to steal the horizon from employees.
Love your work.
Mark
When there is no horizon, you’re not going anywhere (except perhaps in circles) and your work has no meaning.
Thanks for your insights, Mark!
Thanks Jesse.
There’s an aspect of the vision statement concept that most managers/ leaders/ companies don’t get.
Well crafted, it transcends the employee/ employer level of behaviour and engages the fundamental emotional level of human behaviour.
Simply, everyone wants to belong to something … and this statement helps rally everyone to a specific purpose.
Afterall, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
Well said, Mark. The transcendent nature of vision connects us at a deep emotional level to that which is greater than our selves.