How to Develop a Powerful Team Vision
Reading time: 10 minutes
What you’ll learn
Why having a vision is important when leading your team
Two frameworks that will help you realize your vision
How to create a mission statement and a vision statement
Imagine this scenario:
You’ve been put in charge of a team, in either a business or sports setting, and are tasked with implementing something new for the organization.
This could be a restructuring, a new process in the day-to-day activities, or a change in leadership.
How will you bring the members together and create meaningful change? How will you ensure that your ideas are as clear to others as they are to you?
Inciting change as a leader begins with having a vision for your organization. Having a strong vision is a great way to ensure all members of your team are on the same page, and to establish the core of your work. Every action for the team should be in accordance with this vision, and any veering from the path to success can be redirected with a brief reminder.
How to Establish Your Vision
Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model
The best visions are clear, concise, and can be easily grasped.
Using Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model from his book Leading Change (1995), visions are created by determining the values you’re trying to instil in your team.
Begin by creating a brief summary of where you see the future of your team heading, then create a specific execution strategy to start everyone out on the right foot.
Have all members know the vision well enough to describe it, and practice your own speech often.
Communicate this vision frequently to keep it at the forefront of others’ minds as well as yours, and create action to move towards it so you’re practicing what you preach.
Use the vision when you train, and when you review your team’s performance. Every step on the path towards the vision should be rewarded- celebrate small successes.
McKinsey 7S Framework
Using the McKinsey 7S framework, you can begin to instigate changes by first identifying the values held by yourself and team members. Does the way the team operates align with these values? If not, how can the team change their behaviour in order to adhere to these values?
From there, examine the teammates as individuals. Do they support each other? Are they able to supervise each others’ actions and keep each other aligned to the core values of the team?
Having a grasp on where your team stands with regards to less concrete ideas will help you focus when it comes to the specifics.
Mission and Vision
A solid way to create your overall vision for the organization is to have a clear mission statement and a clear vision statement. These may sound like the same thing, but the differences are important.
A mission statement defines the organization’s purpose and primary objectives. They explain why you exist and what you are doing in the present to achieve your mission.
Vision statements focus on the future with regards to the organization’s goals and aspirations. They are less direct and are intended to inspire.
How to create your mission statement:
Begin with a unique idea that’ll stand out among the others. Everyone wants their sports team to start winning more games, but how are you going to make that happen? What training regimen, team building exercise, or standard of accountability do you have that the athletes haven’t heard of yet?
Clarify your goal by creating measures of success. How many games won will prove your idea has worked? How much will players have to improve, and in what areas? These things will make your goal more specific, and therefore clearer to those you are trying to reach. The more concise your goal, the easier it will be to implement, allowing you to prove your ability through your work.
How to create your vision statement:
Identify how you will collaborate with others, whether that is your teammates or the fans invested in the sport.
What does your team value? How can you use shared values in your mission?
Now put them together. These statements create your well-rehearsed speech that you will use to show others the vision you have for your organization.
Proof in the Process
In a study published by McEwan and Beachamp, 12 sports teams created player handbooks derived from brainstorming discussions between coaches and teammates that identified the players’ purposes, goals, and action plans. The players were given briefing and debriefing sessions before and after every game to identify how they were going to go about achieving their individual and collective goals. By having these sessions before and after each game instead of before and after the season as a whole, the team vision was kept current for each player, and progress could be measured throughout the season.
McEwan and Beachamp saw significant performance and teamwork improvement among the teams who had created their charters together.
In Conclusion
When moving towards a common goal, you as a leader should have a strong idea of how you’re going to get there. If you can effectively communicate with your team the future you see within them, you’ll be able to motivate them to see that same future within themselves, and inspire them to work towards it as a team. Being a leader means more than just being a drill sergeant. Be a role model and a visionary, and those who share your vision will follow you to success.
About the Author
Willa Hladun believes that every individual has the tools within them to excel at their craft. She wants to help others achieve their potential through mental training and understanding that the mind can be your biggest obstacle when starting a new path or reaching new heights. She has a BA in Psychology from the University of Victoria.
