Vision is the Heart of a Company!

A vision in a company is a clear, inspiring and long-term image of what the organization wants to achieve. It represents the organization’s purpose, values and aspirations, and serves as a guide for decision-making, strategic planning, and employee engagement. Read this article to understand why companies need a solid vision, why it is crucial to align employees objectives with the vision, and how they can effectively perform vision alignment across the company.

Why We Need a Vision

Let’s be honest. You can run a business without a vision. Yes, you can, but you will not thrive! Why? It’s simple. Vision is the basis for all business strategies and decisions, large and small. Vision will help companies in many different ways:

1. Vision Provides Direction: A vision provides a clear direction for the organization, helping to focus resources and efforts towards a common goal.
2. Vision Inspires and Motivates: A well-crafted vision can inspire and motivate employees, customers, and stakeholders by aligning their values and aspirations with those of the organization.
3. Vision Supports Strategic Planning: A vision provides a basis for creating and implementing a long-term strategy, allowing organizations to plan for the future and adjust to changes in their environment.
4. Vision Differentiates from Competitors: A distinctive vision sets an organization apart from its competitors, helping to create a unique identity and build a strong brand reputation.
5. Vision Improves Decision-Making: A vision provides a framework for making decisions that are aligned with the organization’s long-term goals, ensuring that resources are allocated in a strategic and effective manner.

Don’t Forget to Communicate the Vision Efficiently

Obviously, defining a meaningful inspiring vision is not enough. You need to efficiently and constantly communicate it with the employees to keep it live. However, many organizations fail because they fail to align their vision with the daily activities of every team member. Most often this is because the vision and mission are not communicated properly with the employees; they are kept in isolated documents or on internal web pages, employees rarely visit. 

Take Kodak failure as an example! Although the company’s vision was to be the leader in photography, the company failed to effectively execute this vision and missed opportunities in the digital camera market. Kodak was slow to embrace digital technology and did not effectively communicate the importance of this transition to its employees. As a result, employees continued to focus on the company’s traditional film business, rather than developing and promoting new digital products. This lack of alignment between the company’s vision and the everyday activities of its employees ultimately contributed to Kodak’s decline and bankruptcy.

 On the other hand, Amazon is known for constantly communicating its vision to the employees. Amazon has taken its vision (i.e. “Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”) as a guiding principle for the company since its first day. They consistently communicated the vision to employees, customers, and stakeholders. The company’s commitment to its vision has helped to create a strong company culture, and has driven employee engagement and motivation.

Why Vision Alignment is so Vital

The question that arises after reading about Kodak and Amazon instances is why aligning your team with the company’s vision is so vital.

First of all, when employees understand the organization’s vision and how their daily activities contribute to it, they are more likely to be productive and motivated in their work. They feel committed to the organization as they  understand their role in achieving the vision. Moreover, Aligned employees are better equipped to make informed and strategic decisions that support the organization’s vision and values. Most importantly, aligned employees are more likely to work together effectively and collaborate towards a common goal, leading to better results for the organization. And Finally, Organizations with a strong and well-aligned vision are more likely to attract and retain top talent, and to be viewed positively by customers, partners, and the wider community.

In sum, aligning with the vision in an organization is important for increased productivity, improved employee satisfaction, better decision-making, improved collaboration, and a better reputation.

Use Pandos to Efficiently Align Your Vision

Because a company’s vision statement is a declaration of the organization’s reason for being and objectives, it needs to be a living guide for the business, directing it to defined  growth and goals.  The Pandos Vision Alignment tool activates the vision by becoming a continuous strategic lever for success, a guide when employees encounter challenges and empowers employees to work toward a shared goal. Keeping your vision top of mind ensures that every member of the organization understands the strategies and work required and how to contribute to turn the vision into reality.

The Vision Alignment tool communicates a clear message on where the organization is going and directly aligns with the Performance Check-In Dashboard so that employees and teams always know the whys and hows of their work.

Alignment is crucial to business success. When your company’s vision, mission, and values are aligned, everyone from prospective clients to potential employees know who you are, what you do and what you stand for.