Setting an intention, or your company’s vision, for all your actions is often referred to by productivity experts as one of the best ways to make sure you reach your goals.
By setting an intention, you can align all your actions to your goals, and everything seemingly starts falling into place. That’s great for individuals, but is there a way that a company can do that? The answer is yes.
A company’s vision is how you define your intention. It’s a guide to lead you toward your business goals. When done correctly, it will drive your business forward. Unfortunately, many companies, in particular, smaller ones, tend to omit investing time into defining their vision.
This article will give you a step-by-step guide to building a strong vision for your company.
Importance of a Company Vision
The biggest challenge every organization has is focusing their actions in the same direction to achieve their objectives more effectively.
Team members on every level tend to focus on what is in front of them, rather than how their work relates to the big picture. While this is great from an individual perspective, it creates a problem when it comes time to make decisions or find solutions. Ideas stem from a limited vision of what matters to the company, since they can only see what impacts their job.
A company vision is a tool for every team member, regardless of the work they do, to use to focus their actions towards a common goal. This means, when it comes time to make a decision, the company vision can be used as a guide to cross-reference your findings and have the confidence you are taking the best course of action.
How to Build Your Company’s Vision
There are many approaches you can take to building your company’s vision. This is why creating one can be so tricky. There is an overabundance of options, and business owners often want to write the perfect vision.
The reality is there is no perfect vision. In most cases, it will be an idea that evolves as your company grows. However, laying the groundwork is essential.
Step 1: Set a Time Frame
Company visions don’t need to be set in stone. A more pragmatic way to approach them is by setting a time frame for the current vision you are developing.
Creating an exceedingly long vision can be vague and not very practical to reference. A best practice is to look at either 1, 3, 5, or 10-year time frames to develop your vision. No matter the time frame, you want it to be meaningful for your organization.
For example, crafting a 10-year vision can sound daunting. It’s a big stretch goal and visualizing how to get there likely won’t be easy. However, you should use your 1, 3, and 5-year visions to make your 10-year vision more reachable with a shorter timeline perspective.
Step 2: Ask Yourself Lots of Questions
Once you have a time frame, you need to ask yourself many questions to pinpoint where you want your company to go.
Here are some helpful questions to ask:
- Where do you see your company heading?
- Are your business goals attainable?
- What do you want your company to look like?
- How do you, your employees, and outsiders view your company?
Step 3: Consult with Your Team
Even though you should lead the initiative, it’s essential to consult your team. The vision statement will be useful to everyone in your organization, so having their feedback while developing it will help make sure everyone sees it in the same light and bring you some clarity.
Step 4: Write a Draft, Edit, and Finalize
It is unlikely that you’ll get the perfect version of your vision on the first try. For this reason, start with a draft and build your vision around it by adding and subtracting as you go. Make several edits and experiment with different choices of words until you find the version you want to stick with.
Also, give your team time to make edits. This will help you test if you like it and if it will fit your business culture. Taking a look at it with fresh eyes is another great way to ensure you are happy with your vision. If you need to step away for a while, do it!
Step 5: Share Your Company’s Vision and Uphold It
Now that you have your company’s vision finalized, it’s time to put it to work. So the next step is sharing it with your whole team. This includes:
- Employees
- Investors
- Customers
Sharing your vision will make sure that everyone understands the why behind your actions and give them the confidence that you have their best interest in mind.
Also worth mentioning is that you need to choose the best way to communicate your newly developed vision. Don’t just publish it on your website and call it a day. Invest enough time to make sure everyone understands what drives you, and that way, your vision will become apparent to everyone.
Need More Time to Work on Your Company’s Vision?
One of the reasons why business owners don’t develop their company vision is because they don’t have enough time to get it done. It becomes a case where the urgent tasks don’t leave enough time for the critical tasks. They also often lack guidance for building a vision that will support their business.
When you work with Argento, not only will we handle your finances to free up your bandwidth, we will also consult with you to help you find out what your vision is and create strategies your business can use to reach it.
Contact us to learn more about how Argento CPA can drive your business!
