Getting the Team to Own the Vision: Why a Vision Written Alone and Announced Once Dies, and How It Becomes the Team's Shared Story
A vision is born in the leader's mind but comes to life through the team. Why a vision written alone and announced once dies, and how to turn it into the team's shared story.
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A vision is born in the leader's mind, but it comes to life through the team. Many leaders assume it is enough to set the vision on their own and tell the team, “here is our goal.” But however bright a vision is, if no one owns it, it is doomed to stay on paper.
In the previous two pieces of this series we looked at the vision statement itself: is it original, does it touch the customer, is it at the right scale, does it fit the mission? In this one we move from the sentence to the people. Because a vision can also die when it is written well and shared badly.
The vision set alone and announced once
A vision a leader creates alone may never reach people's heads or hearts. Lack of participation is a decisive factor in why visions fail.
Why it happens. A vision usually starts with the leader's personal passion. So the leader may believe they know it best. Getting feedback from the team takes time, and leadership teams that want to move fast skip the step. To be fair to them, a leader with a vision sees the picture in their head so clearly that they assume others see the same picture. That is an illusion.
The second half of the mistake is communication. People assume that once the vision is announced at a company meeting and hung on the wall, it will live on by itself. In fact, a vision has to be told and repeated constantly, consistently, and vividly. In “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” published in Harvard Business Review in 1995, John Kotter gives one of the common mistakes of transformation efforts exactly this name: undercommunicating the vision by a factor of ten. The scene he describes is familiar. A group develops a good vision, communicates it in a single meeting or a single memo, and is then surprised that so few people seem to understand the new approach. Leaders think a few announcements have carried the vision, when far more is needed for everyone to understand it.
What it leads to. A vision not built with the team and not shared with it leaves people feeling these are “top-down goals set without asking us.” They see themselves not as part of the vision but as its audience. The result is low commitment and low motivation. No one wants to put their heart into a goal they had no part in.
Poor communication creates a second problem: the vision fades over time and dissolves among everyday priorities. Because the shared direction was never internalized by everyone, the company starts pulling in different directions. After a while the vision becomes a set of words that looks nice in a frame and has no effect on the work.
How to prevent it. Turn creating the vision into a participatory journey. The leader's guidance is critical, of course, but bringing key team members, perhaps customers and other stakeholders, into the process at the right stages improves both the quality and the acceptance of the vision. Once senior leadership has a first draft, it can test it in workshops with people from different levels. That shows people they are being heard and lets them touch the vision early.
In the same article Kotter offers a useful rule of thumb: if you can't communicate the vision to someone in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signals both understanding and interest, you aren't done with that phase yet. If you can't tell the vision in a way that is clear and engaging, it is hard to expect people to make sacrifices and follow you.
And setting an example may be the most powerful communication tool of all. When the leadership team acts in line with the vision in its decisions and behavior, it sends a quiet but effective message. The vision doesn't stay in words; it starts living in the culture.
A three-step plan: tell, involve, embed
Once the vision is set, the real work is bringing it to life. I suggest three simple but effective steps to spread the vision across the company and keep it alive.
1. Turn it into stories and tell them often. The best way to bring the vision down to every level is to turn it into stories. When a small win in line with the vision comes in (a small project victory, a customer's story), share it with the whole company right away and connect it to the vision: “Here is an example that brought us one step closer to our vision.” Keep the vision on the agenda of regular meetings. This is how you close the communication gap Kotter points to: saying it once is not enough, so repeat the message tirelessly in different forms. Making the vision visible (in the office, on the intranet, in email signatures) also works as a constant reminder.
2. Encourage participation and ownership. A vision is only powerful when it is shared. Make room for local initiatives and feedback channels. Ask people, “What do you think our department could do to reach our vision?” Weigh the suggestions, put the good ideas into practice, and credit the people behind them. That way everyone starts to see themselves as part of the big picture. Don't forget the role of middle managers either: they are the ones who carry the vision to teams. Teach them how to talk about the vision and how to connect it to their team's motivation. The vision should be on every leader's agenda, not just the CEO's.
3. Build the vision into goals and processes. The last step is to make the vision part of how work gets done. When setting annual goals, link each unit's goals to the vision. If a goal like “increase customer satisfaction by X% by the end of next year” ties to the customer focus in your vision, say so explicitly. In performance reviews, don't only ask “did you hit your targets?”; also ask “how did your work contribute to our vision?” Make “Does this decision bring us closer to our vision?” a habit when making decisions. When investing in a project, let whether it serves the vision be an important criterion.
The plan comes down to three words: tell, involve, embed. Tell your vision well, involve everyone, and build it into your processes. That way the vision stops being a slogan and becomes the company's shared mind and heart.