Business organizations need visions. Not the kind related certain decades, vision of direction. Visions of where the organization is to be in the future. Visions that indicate what we hope to accomplish as an overarching goal. Increased revenue, expansion into new markets and enhanced products and services are all good visions, but whose vision is it and do the workers know and share in that vision?
Think about this for a moment. When you hear a corporate vision statement do you know where it came from? Is it the CEO or the Executive Board that had the vision? Is the vision being shared across the organization? If you were to ask the employees about the vision of the organization’s future, would they know it and even if they did, would they understand their role in making the vision reality?
In my view, sharing the vision is critical to the success of any organization and reiterating it from time to time is not a bad thing at all. In fact it is a way to keep the workforce on target and focused. Another aspect of this is to identify Critical Success Factors (CSF) tied to the vision along with Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to measure if the goals have been reached. If part of the vision is a reduction in operating costs and you are working with the legal department, a CSF might be to reduce discovery costs by 50% within a year. The measure in this case could be the dollar figure of say $2M annually spent on discovery. Success in the case is reduction to $1M or less a year after implementation with regular measurements taken and the results published to let the organization know and share in the success.
Having a vision is good but if no one knows what it is, understands their role in achieving the goals of the vision or they do not see the results, it is a hollow vision that will not likely come to fruition. Create a vision. Share the vision. Let the organization know their role in achieving the vision and promote your successes to keep focus and support. It is not a sure fire equation but it does work.
What say you? How are you sharing the vision and working to reach the goals? Do you have a story to tell? I want to hear from you and learn what you and your organization are doing.
Looking to increase your level of knowledge? Join us for the ECM Certificate course in:
- New York 10/13/09 - 10/16/09
- Toronto 10/27/09 - 10/30/09
- San Francisco 11/10/09 - 11/13/09
- Houston 11/17/09 - 11/20/09
- San Diego 12/01/09 - 12/04/09
We look forward to seeing you there.
I will also be in Chicago delivering an ECMp workshop at the Document Strategy Forum on October 6th and 7th. Will you be there?
Bob Larrivee – AIIM
Follow me on twitter – BobLarrivee and remember to visit www.aiim.org/training and www.informationzen.org, AIIM’s free social network created just for you.
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