Most organizations today have some form of vision and mission statement written, printed, and posted on the walls of their offices, hallways, conference rooms, etc. These statements are written in various styles and understanding of the language.
If you read these statements, they are very well written, but the meaning seems to be subjective. How to translate this Vision and Mission Statement so that your employees understand it and are part of it in its execution?
This is perhaps one of the key challenges for senior leaders in an organization today to translate the Vision and Mission Statement into actionable terms. Let’s take a look at some of the vision statements
- To be an employer of choice
- Being a preferred partner in Home Decorative Design
- To be the TOP exporter of Goods
These examples of Vision statements seem to indicate some goal that the organization is striving for. A question that we often ask an organization when we do an assessment of the organization.
- How do you know that you have achieved your goal as stated in your Vision Statement?
- How do you communicate the goal of your vision statement to your employees?
Once these questions are asked, the senior leader would typically hesitate for a while and wonder what he was getting at. I explained to him that he probably needs some kind of indicator that tells him how his Vision will be achieved.
The senior leader argued that the Vision Statement is simple enough to understand. The fact is that when I interviewed employees, most of them couldn’t articulate what the Vision statement meant.
Senior leaders need to accept that fact and do something to correct it. The senior leader may attach an indicator to the statement that would help articulate the statement in simpler terms so that the employee can understand and contribute to it.