Developing Vision Statements that your team can stand behind can make the difference between success and failure for any leader or manager.

Learn, step by step, via this video tutorial, how to develop a vision statement that is realistic, achievable and meaningful.

Vision statements we come to see mission and vision statements put together on a website and these  are under knee about us where we read about what a company does so the mission statement talks about what the organization does what was this organization formed for what are the tasks that is supposed to complete what does it measure itself by the objectives that it was set up to do that’s what the organization does so a training company’s mission could be to educate the general population on best practices and maybe in a certain field the vision statement however talks about where your organization sees itself in a few years and typically in to five or ten years and sometimes even longer than that so many organizations will put out a vision statement on their website and that vision statement is kind of like high-level generic doesn’t really speak to what the organization really looks to do and they kind they kind of look they kind of sound like politically correct and when you read it you can’t really understand and there’s a reason why they do this because this competition so if I was in the technology field if I was making telephones or making cable lines or whatever it is I’m not going to be that clear about what it is that I aim to be or to in a few years because my competition can easily look at that and try to figure me out and replicate and maybe be and of the game so there is no intention to be really clear on my vision that I put out there for the public to see however internally the organization needs to have a proper vision statement every new leader that comes that organization tends to focus on a certain vision when the leader changes a new leader comes on board they tend to have their own vision of where this organization is going the vision statements are critical to success of an organization the organization as a whole including top middle managers and the lower level the employees and everybody and the organization needs to feel that the leader has a vision that they have their sights set on you know getting somewhere if they feel that the leader is lost its just fumbling jumping around you know from place to place making a decision today cancelling that decision tomorrow coming up with something else later they lose motivation they lose steam and you don’t see that much of our productivity so it’s very important that an organization’s leader has the vision for the organization now that’s for the leader of the whole organization well what about departments what about units what about yourself everybody needs to have a vision for their own unit section or department because the team needs to be guided as to where they are headed so let me explain quickly what a vision statement really means other than what you see superficially on the websites because we don’t want to give our secrets away this is what a vision is supposed to be and I’m just going to give you a little bit of a scenario maybe try to visualize this for you imagine you are in the year seven six zero 760 BC before Christ right 760 see and you are in a forest right uninhabited forest and you have access to a time travel machine and you go into this time travel machine and you sell it for forty years later so you’re at seven six zero be see and you said it for forty forty years later so that’s not going to take you to 800 BC if you did the math it actually should reduce it it should take you to 720 BC alright so then you’re going to this time travel Bob you self you do all the settings you do it for 720 BC which is 40 years from now right and you want to see the future so the time travel machine does abstain and then at some point is acting just like a microwave and it says you know you’re there you’re at 720 BC and then the door opens steam comes out and you come out like an alien right like we see in the movies and you look around what do you expect to see you’re probably going to see the same forest the same forest same trees probably different birds different different little animals in there right not much is going to happen you’re in a forest you’re in the Year 760 from 760 or 720 in an uninhabited area nothing is going to happen without any actions without deforestation without construction building roads or man interference and that land that forest is going to be exactly as is so 40 years would pass by and you wouldn’t see a single different thing you might recognize that heard that this wasn’t there before but pretty much everything’s going to be the same and you know what that’s the case for a lot of organizations forty years go by and nothing really changes well this is if you survive 40 years that’s not about four years for just a single for three years for three years five years you probably know organizations that have been around for a few years and nothing has really changed all the problems they had all the technology weaknesses that they had all the things that they miss all the misinformation they had all the bad decisions delays and so on chaos confusion you find that these still they still exist why is it that they still exist well you know in that time travelpod you an end you went out nothing has changed along the way so let me use that as the basis for how we explained the vision all right if you want a better future if you want 720 BC to be better than 760 BC somebody is gonna go there and make some changes right that vision that vision is the result of all that happened in the 40 years from 760 to 720p see that vision for your organization this place that knew you and that you’ve made all changes within a certain number of years so let’s look at it like this over here on the left what you see is now what you see on the right is later okay so from now to later now I can assess where I am I can look at current state and my current state to make it easy I have to assess the people that I have and that means how many I have what skills they have how well they work together their motivation the caliber their certification and their geographies where they work which locations and so on right this is the people and the processes these are the workflows that we use for approvals reviews decision-making auctioning approving recruitment any process that you have for change management risk management for evaluations for contract management so these processes that exist inside your organization now and then the tools right the tools is the technologies the databases the mainframes the workflow systems that you have document management systems CRM ERP x’ or it could just be machines that you have so these are your tools the computers for example and now look at the combination of all the people the processes and the tools gave me t people process tool that represents you now this is your current state this is where you currently stand right if I’m going to assess your organization as a consultant I’m going to check your people and your process and your tools and now I’ll tell you that this is where you are these are your weaknesses how do I know you have weaknesses well you’re gonna you’re gonna tell me what you aim for what is your vision if you tell me I intend to become number one or we want to be holding twenty percent of the market share in a specific area then I’m going to tell you that if you want to do this you’re gonna need certain capabilities certain number of people you’re going to need process used to be in place certain capital assets certain intellectual assets for you to get this done right so I assess you on your current state based on what your ambitions are and I said this is where you stand right now and this is where you want to be where you want to be requires these certain capabilities and these capabilities are going to be and going to be an enhancement compared to where your people processing tools are right now so if the number of people is insufficient or isn’t qualified or isn’t well gel together they don’t work well together they are if they don’t bond well if they have no motivation or no skills then along the way these plus signs that you see are the actions that you will need to take with regards to the people to optimize for enhance or change their capabilities and if you can do that then you’re more equipped to be at that future state that you want to be but it’s not just about people as we mentioned these processes and tools your processes may also need optimization enhancements or changes your tools may need update they may need upgrade scaling up so what you have to do is determine what does your future state require for people processing tools where are you right now for people processing tools and put a vision that is realistic to be achieved in two five or ten years in two years in five years or in ten years this is where I aim to be and when you say that think about all that it’s going to require along the way for optimization has many changes which incidentally I want to happen by a projects and initiatives that you have to run on a timely basis which is what they call strategic plan right so you have to develop a strategic plan that would help you successfully move your caliber or your capabilities from where it is right now for people processing tools to some future enhance optimize people process and tools and when you write your vision statement this is internal when you give your team your vision statement involve them let them agree with you that we can escalate our people processing tools enhance them to that level and put a reachable achievable vision that the team can stand behind that is believable to them that is relevant to your organization that fits within your mission statement along with that encourage the team to support you in coming up with the actions that need to be taken between now and then so that your vision becomes a reality so vision statements are put in high level on websites well when it comes down to your own organization and you want them to stand behind that vision and you want to make a statement that you’re not gonna back out from eventually one of you will deliver make sure you’ve considered all the actions that are required for you to go from here to yeah don’t overshoot don’t overestimate be realistic as to what you can do with your people processing tools so for example if you have limited funding or you have limited exposure or you don’t have all the proper experience then size it up based on what you’re actually able to do and you know we usually do that with a SWOT analysis so we do that with a SWOT strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats see what your strengths are see where your weaknesses are be realistic as to what sorts of optimization enhancements you can do that take you closer to where you want to be set your target to be something realistic that you and the team can work on and deliver and then write that vision statement don’t say we’re gonna go and conquer the whole world if you have one horse right say we’re gonna conquer the next house you know with one horse right so it’s on your capability is funding and such right put realistic targets right with your team based on what you can optimize enhance a change within a certain period of time through projects and initiatives that you can afford to do so that in the next two five or ten years those changes will suffice to put you a lot of future state that has that optimized version of you and that’s how you write your vision statement so this is how you think about it when you want to put your vision statements together so if you are leading your own team or your organization this could be a good time for you to revisit that vision statement forget the one that you put out there on the website for people to see think about what does your team see and reevaluate that sit with your team and you’ll be amazed right how much interest your team might have in helping you develop a realistic vision that speaks of a future state of us that we believe we can reach and we can stand behind thank you very much for watching my name is Edwin hobb if you like this video please click the like button if you think somebody else would benefit from it share with them I would appreciate it and if you haven’t subscribed yet please click the subscribe button for more videos like this thank you and see you on the next video