Do you know your company’s vision? Does every staff member, board member, and volunteer? According to Forbes, 70 percent of U.S. employees cannot recite their company’s vision statement. Most people either don’t know their organization’s vision, don’t understand it, or feel so disconnected from it that they can’t explain how it relates to their day job.
This is important in any company, but in a nonprofit organization or association it’s critical to connect your people to your vision. Unlike a for-profit company, chances are that money was not the primary motivator that attracted them to your cause. Instead, your staff and board members have chosen to do good in the world and have high expectations for delivering on that promise.
Nonprofit employees and board members love an inspirational mission and are proud to be associated with it, but in order to have the full effect it must be intrinsically connected with the work of the place. Their love for your cause can turn against you if you’re not careful: the more people care, the more demanding they are that the organization deliver on its greater good. Employees and board members will feel honor-bound to point out the discrepancy between their perception of the organization’s future and the marching orders that come from its leaders. If they don’t understand the vision, don’t expect them to bend over backward to implement it.
The same is true of funders, members, and other supporters. If they can quickly understand your succinct vision—and, better yet, recall it unaided—they are much more likely to become aligned with your cause. A great vision can be truly transformational for a nonprofit, but not if it’s unclear how or what will move the needle.
Here are some time-tested ways to connect your stakeholders to your organization or association’s vision:
1. First, create a memorable vision.
A memorable vision is succinct, specific to your organization, and inspirational to your stakeholders. It crystallizes the path toward the exciting future you have selected and it really should be able to fit on a t-shirt. If you can’t distill your vision to a short sentence because it’s too complex, you probably have more distillation work to do! If you’re already tied to a longer vision statement, create a subset or “tagline” version of the vision that will serve as shorthand to explain the larger concept. Don’t blame me if you end up adopting the shorter version as your vision when you see how much power it has to rally people around your cause.
2. Make sure the vision is top of mind.
People aren’t going to bring your vision to life if they can’t remember it or don’t understand it. Include it in meetings and presentations on a regular basis. Showcase the actual vision, but also spend time digging into its meaning and how you expect it to play out over time. Don’t assume that everyone understands it as well as you do! Share examples of the ways in which it is already coming to life. Give progress reports on key vision-related initiatives. Show pictures and tell stories that help to illustrate what vision success will look like.
3. Help each employee understand how his or her work relates to the vision.
Staff members may love the vision but still not see how they will play a role in it—particularly those employees who are further down on the organizational chart. Challenge each supervisor to start a conversation with staff about the connection between their department and the direction the organization is headed. Create an organization-wide tool that helps guide the conversation and give employees some power by classifying each employee’s work on a continuum from “best fit” with the vision to “least aligned” with the vision. Brainstorm ways to delete the least-aligned tasks over time in order to make way for new best-fit projects.
4. Measure what matters.
The quickest way for both staff and board members to understand the implications of the vision is to see it affecting success metrics. If staff goals and rewards are connected to the vision, they are much more likely to see how they’re affected by the organization’s direction. The same goes for the board: if the numbers they see as determinants of success are obviously correlated to the vision, the connection is made stronger. If you can’t find a perfect way to quantify success towards the vision, an imperfect metric is better than none—at least it keeps the vision as part of the conversation about what success looks like.
5. Conduct a facilitated role-definition exercise with the board.
Board members may see progress toward the vision as the work of the staff, or they may be so eager to bring the vision to life that they get into the weeds. Help head this off at the pass by examining the roles of both staff and board (as well as volunteers or other stakeholders) in implementing the vision. The best way to do this is with a professional facilitator, to ensure that both executive staff and board members can speak openly about how they envision each other’s roles in bringing the vision to life.
6. Brand your vision.
Give your vision and strategic plan a powerful name—something evocative of the change to come. Instead of referring to “the vision” or “the plan,” using its name helps to strengthen the connection with a transformative future. Take the brand a step further with a logo and specific look and feel. This identity becomes a symbol of the success you’re seeking and reinforces the vision every time your people encounter the vision brand. I’ve seen this play out in dozens of different ways—including merchandising (logo t-shirts and pens), office décor (common areas festooned with the vision logo to celebrate a big win), billboards on each level of the employee parking garage, and pocket-sized versions of the strategic plan for every employee and board member.
7. Live your vision.
All the steps above will help, but not if they happen in a vacuum. The only way to truly foster transformative change is to ensure that the vision is firmly interwoven with the culture of your organization or association. This requires leaders to fully commit to rewarding vision progress, allocating resources in accordance with the vision, and embracing the vision as a way of life. This can be as complex as a reorganized pay and bonus structure, or as simple as walking through the office periodically with a pocketful of Starbucks gift cards for anyone who can recite the vision.
The vision of your organization or association is a powerful tool to get everyone rowing the boat in the same direction. Make the most of it by helping people understand the direction you’re headed and teaching them how to row together!
Comments