Category: Strategy and Planning

There is likely nothing more deserving of criticism in businesses than most Company Vision Statements – if they have one at all.

Perhaps a founder jotted a few words down as part of a one-page business plan or a slick marketing agent sold an owner on the concept with a lot of energy during a month-long consulting gig. The typical result is the same; they became some words that didn’t see the light of day and were quickly forgotten.

Yet many of the best-known, most-proven management consultants, business coaches, and business leaders see a company’s Vision Statement (along with the company’s Core Values) as one of the key pillars of all companies. How can this be?

Business coaching experiences that reiterate two fundamental reasons that a company’s Vision Statement can be either worthless or priceless:

1. The statement never hit the mark on identifying something truly meaningful to the company’s leaders. If the goal is to complete a business plan, there is a tendency to create something decent and then just move on. When a business founder wants to describe how they are going to put a dent in the universe, that requires a different level of effort and attention. 
2. Even if all the right words are used, the Company Vision must be circulated and used as a guidepost for making consistent decisions. If not, it will never develop the force or energy necessary to weather the inevitable storms of growing a business. Visionary storytelling may sound like a soft skill, but the ability to articulate a compelling vision to stakeholders is what increasingly separates the winners and losers. Crafting such a story should be a core skill of today’s CEOs with five or more employees.

Examples from Business Coaching When a Company Vision Helps (and When It Doesn’t)

Company A has a well-utilised and adopted vision and Company B doesn’t.  The recent lockdown in Victoria, Australia caused both companies to take hits from a revenue recognition standpoint, as projects were halted with people not being able to be present at job sites. I have business coaching and management meetings with both companies on a weekly basis, though Company B is just starting out as a new client. 

I started both management meetings with the acknowledgment of likely issues arising due to the lockdowns. It was also suggested that we spend five minutes reviewing ‘why’ we are doing this in the first place – that is, why the company exists. We reviewed the Vision, Mission, and Core Purpose, asking individuals to share their thoughts and observations. Company A’s people quickly identified compelling reasons for attacking the upcoming Covid lockdown issues, and we spent the remainder of the 90-minute meeting breaking down the key challenges into practical action items. Company B struggled to find meaning, and we spent much of the meeting discussing topics around mental wellbeing. These two meetings were a real-life example of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. I have no doubt Company B will identify a compelling future; it will simply take some focused effort to get their foundation right.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, it took me a while to be a believer in the value of a strong Company Vision. There are far too many empty and invisible Vision Statements compared to those that actually energise entire teams. Drop us a line if you’d like some real-life examples or to talk through your own.

I like doing things on my own as often as possible, but this happens to be a body of work that yields better results when working with people who have tamed these difficult waters multiple times before.

Regardless of your strategy, we hope the experiences described in this article spur you to revisit your Company Vision Statement and breathe some more life into it, regardless of its current level. Covid is likely going to challenge our businesses in ways we haven’t fully prepared for, and a strong ‘Why’ can certainly help make the journey a more confident one.

Better Execute is a Business Coaching and Management Consulting Company focused on helping business leaders with 5-50 employees gain more control over their businesses. Better Execute’s motto is Better Business = Better Life and Better Business comes from Better Execution.

As business leaders, it is natural to want our employees to maintain a clear vision of company direction and their priorities. However, we know we all struggle to maintain focus and discipline even though it is our company and responsibility. This area of company focus is something business coaching looks to keep visible for management teams they work with.

Company Focus from the Lens of a Business Coach

Company Focus helps to align your organisation on a clear focal point. Too often in my earlier career, I saw Company Vision Statements used poorly. More accurately, they were created, written, published on new employee documents and never distributed further. 

If you want your employees to stay energised and focused on the right topics, ensure you have a vision that is compelling and that it is referred to clearly and consistently. Every quarter, the entire company needs to hear it again and see how it is being effectively utilised as a guide for planning, decision making and continued efficacy. They say you need to repeat the Company Vision Statement seven times before it is heard for the first time by an employee and then repeated consistently after that. Time and again I have found this to be accurate as a business coach.

If you feel your current Company Vision Statement is no longer applicable it is time to dust it off and figure out a compelling reiteration for the business. If that angle doesn’t work, try clarifying why the business should exist in the first place, what dent can it make in your universe? You want to find something to stand for – otherwise, you won’t stand for anything. 

Quarterly Refocus Needs

Without an effective business coach, projects can rapidly become overwhelming when we don’t first assess the individual goals needed to achieve them.

Any business coach will advise you to define your goals, creating differing types and time frames to avoid excess pressure in one particular area. This is an important concept and discipline to use because it should help with day-to-day decision making helping you remain clear on where you want to get to.  Additionally, it will allow you to break down long-range goals into short-term goals providing consistency of focus for both the short and long-term objectives. 

Managing Your Business Goals

What can this look like in your company with the assistance of a skilled business coach?  Begin by identifying “5-year” goals for where you want your company to be.  This could include revenue, profits, number of locations, employees, types of products/services, community involvement, etc. 

Then identify what needs to happen by the end of this year for you to be on the right path to achieving your 5-year goals.  These will then be your “1-year” goals.  Now you are getting close to where the magic happens. 

Next, define what needs to happen in the upcoming quarter (3 months) to reach your one-year goals.  These goals or activities are often referred to as ‘Rocks’ in several popular management books like Scaling Up and Traction.  They actually borrowed the concept from a lecture given by a university professor about focusing on the important things rather than the urgent ones. These Rocks are like ‘3-month or less’ projects.  They are bigger than typical tasks and are seen as the most important things to improve about your business.

Once you have identified a series of key projects (or Rocks) that need to be accomplished within three months – ones that will keep you on track for accomplishing your one-year goals – you are enabling yourself to get some real control over your business and provide more focus for your people.

Each identified Rock needs to have a single owner.  This is a good time for you to share some responsibility and accountability to others. The Rock Owner should define what their definition of success looks like for completing the project.  The final step in the Rock Definition process is for the Rock Owner to clarify the correct Milestones for completing the Rock successfully. If you need a spreadsheet setup to define and manage rocks you can request a copy here.

When these Rocks have been defined, you as the leader should review the Rocks for the completion criteria and whether the Rock Owner has identified the most efficient path to complete the Rock. After you have provided your feedback, both you and the Rock Owner should be feeling confident with obtaining the desired outcome.

Weekly Business Reviews

The final business coach step in this typical goal-setting process is to monitor the progress of the Rocks weekly.  Normally a quick check-in during a management meeting with your Rock Owners will suffice. If it doesn’t, you and the Rock Owner are able to troubleshoot any issues and work on finding solutions as early in the process as possible, giving the Rock the best opportunity for successful completion. 

At the end of each quarter, you should review the results of the Rock outcomes for the quarter and identify the next set of Rocks for the upcoming quarter.  This process of sequential goal setting – from quarterly Rocks to one-year benchmarks and five-year project conclusion – is an effective and practical way to use the power of goal setting in your business, even if you only are a team of one.

Time and focus are the most valuable commodities any business has. Using goals, especially Rocks, to maximise a company’s ability to focus on the most important outcomes is a big step toward ensuring the company will thrive over time rather than go out of business as the majority do.

Invest some time in your goal setting and using rocks for short-term outcomes and see how this can help you feel more clear and confident about your company’s future.  Let us know if we can answer any questions that arise on your journey and think of us if you are looking for some support from a business coach!

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to lead effectively in today’s complex and rapidly changing business environment. Business leaders are asked to do more and more with less and less clarity on what is going to happen next. This is where a business coach can prove invaluable.

Setting company, team and individual goals can be a game changer by providing some basic measurement sticks and feedback that make the whole process of running a business and managing people more interesting and enjoyable.

There is overwhelming evidence that the discipline and strategy of goal setting works. No reason to bore you with all of the research studies validating this.  Let’s talk more practically and in more actionable terms.

If you have ever wagered a bet on a sporting event for money or simply to make a point to a friend that you know more than they do, you have likely seen how your level of interest and energy goes up about the game.  The simple reason is that you now have something at stake AND there is clear feedback on the result of the match.

This is the same for your business.  By setting clear or ‘SMART’ (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) goals you place a type of wager on the fact that an outcome can be achieved.  If these goals, or wagers, are monitored like you would a sporting event, they will stay visible and you will get feedback on your progress to success or failure in achieving the desired results.