By: Ashley Viens, Director of Operations, Ascension Innovation Management
Getting your entire company in sync is not an easy task. No matter the size of your organization, it’s certainly a challenge to make sure every team member is on the same page, effectively working towards the same goals.
Think of steering the direction of your company much like having a boat full of people and each person holding an oar. When you shout “Row!”, what happens? Will those people know where you want them to go and how they’re going to get there? Or will they each paddle aimlessly in their own direction?
To run your organization well, whether you are a small local business or a massive global enterprise, you’ll need your entire team working together towards that common goal. The V2MOM (pronounced vee-two-mom) is the most effective method we’ve found that propels companies to success. And who doesn’t want that!
Over the next few weeks, we’ll walk through the V2MOM charter, what each letter stands for, and why we use it at Ascension to keep our team on track with our company’s mission and to keep individual team members accountable for their own success.
Vision — What’s your goal?
Creating the overall vision for your company is the first and most important step. If your team doesn’t have a north star to guide them, then how will they know when they’ve fallen off track? People feel empowered to work more effectively and passionately when they understand why they’re doing the work they do and where their company is needed most.
Establishing a vision marks the ideation stage of your V2MOM plan. You strip away all the noise and focus on the reason your company exists. “But my company isn’t innovative”, you protest. Nonsense! Let’s show you an example of how you can take the work you do and transform it into an elegant vision for the future.
Say you run a welding company. Your work is putting together trailer beds, metal work frames, and other necessary tools for trade, construction and transportation. However dull that seems, you can tailor your vision statement to communicate that you want “to help people build better tools and structures to ensure safety in our community”. See the main points there? You’re building something of value that ensures your community knows they are safe. Creativity, Value, Safety, Trust…these are your values. (More on that next week.) Your overall vision is to build a safer community.
When you know your goal, you’ll be able to look to your vision when you run into obstacles to inspire you to continue to do good work, and to learn where you can do better in the future.
