Five Star Blog

Have you ever walked into an office space, maybe even your own, and seen a big bold, typically framed, vision statement hanging on the wall? If you have, then it’s likely you’ve asked yourself if employees really know it, let alone use it to guide their daily work.

Vision statements are great and can be very valuable, but a question every leader must ask is, “is our organizational vision providing a compelling purpose for our employees’ daily responsibilities?” If the answer is no, you have some work to do. But don’t worry, it’s highly worthwhile. Very few people are motivated to act based on a singular task alone. In fact people want to know that their work matches up with a long-term direction. Employees want to know that their work means something and is valued.

How can you help renew the passion in your organization for its vision?

• Ask yourself: “Does our current vision help define our organization’s long-term destination?” Ensure that your vision statement isn’t just a jumping off point. The end destination must be clearly communicated and understood.
• Keep it simple. A vision by nature should be easy to understand. Still, it’s quite common to find overcomplicated, complex terms muddying the waters. Just remember: If your employees don’t understand your vision, they won’t be motivated by it.
• Get an inside opinion. Ask employees for their ideas on how they feel their work enables the vision. Don’t miss out on a perfect opportunity to involve your workforce by giving them the chance to individualize the vision.
• Get an outside opinion. Validate with customers if your organization’s vision is in alignment with their current and future needs. Ultimately, if a vision is not customer-centric, it stands the risk of becoming irrelevant and subject to frequent change.
• Revisit often! As decisions are made, goals are evaluated, changes are proposed, and new strategies are defined, be sure to revisit the vision to ensure that alignment is not lost. The vision should serve as the measuring stick and help guide day-to-day decisions.

Take time to make your organization’s vision statement more than a fancy wall flower. You’ll find that your attention to and communication of your vision statement will renew a sense of organizational purpose for yourself and your workforce.

Chances are your organization is trying to find ways to be more competitive by seeking ways to lower costs, while maintaining or increasing customer satisfaction. Regardless of the economic situation, savvy organizations and their leaders are constantly looking for ways to improve quality, reduce costs, and increase customer loyalty.

Over the years, organizations have explored and implemented a variety of process and quality improvement methodologies. Some examples include Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, and Total Quality Management. Although varied in practice and approach, at the core of each one of these programs is the desire to improve organizations and deliver measurable results. So, if that’s the case, why do organizations experience differing results when implementing these programs?

The greatest process improvement dilemma faced by organizations today is that far too often, the improvements made are anything but continuous. The aforementioned programs run their course, and once team members have completed them, they return to their “real work,” and maybe more telling, their “old habits.”

What’s at stake? How can you ensure that continuous improvement measures form the basis of long-term solutions, as opposed to quick fixes? Continuous process improvement is a culture change that must begin at the top. Executives must view process improvements as “real changes,” meant to become a core part of their workforce’s “real work.”

Here are the steps to follow to make your next process improvement stick:

1. Gain executive sponsorship. If your organization’s leaders are not championing the process improvement, proceed with caution! You can ensure executive sponsorship by building executive sign offs into the process.
2. Communicate the strategy of continuous improvement to each member of the impacted workforce and engage top managers and front-line leaders as “trainers” of the process improvement.
3. Hold people accountable for improving their work processes by adding continuous process improvement behaviors and objectives to individual development plans. People who are responsible for executing work know where there are known shortcomings in the process and typically offer solutions on how to improvement them.
4. Reward employees for continuously analyzing their work processes to determine methods for improvement.

Creating a culture of continuous improvement is a critical component of maintaining a competitive edge in the marketplace. This can only happen when responsible leaders and workforces commit to the ongoing goal of making process improvements stick with the organization.

How does your organization respond when the “way things have always been” just won’t cut it? Every organization will inevitably face a situation where its people are challenged to question long-standing assumptions governing thinking, processes, and accepted practices. In light of the current economic climate, your organization might be struggling to make uncomfortable adjustments even now.

Research shows that high-performing organizations excel during tough times. One way they do this is by not taking the easy way out, by not simply accepting dogmatic practices that are just plain out of touch. What do you think might happen if you were to challenge your organization’s current assumptions about the way of doing business? Sure, you might get some pushback and/or some uneasy stares, but what you are certain to gather are some fresh, innovative, and unique ideas.

Five Star recently conducted a companywide brainstorming exercise that you could quickly and easily implement in your organization. This activity was inspired by Michael Michalko’s book, Thinkertoys, which chronicled the creation of the Smart Shirt.

1. Put together a list of accepted, organizational assumptions.
2. Break into small groups, and assign each group an assumption.
3. Ask each group to “flip” the assigned assumption.
   Example Assumption: We work Monday through Friday.
   Reverse Assumption: We work when the customer needs us.
   Potential Idea: Allow employees to work a more flexible schedule to meet increased demands.
4. Work through ideas of how things “would be” if the reversed or flipped assumption were true.
5. Share ideas.

The goal of the activity is to gather every possible idea and then evaluate each one’s potential effectiveness. Studies show that if ideas can work for the flipped assumption, it’s likely they can also work in some form for the original assumption.

Whatever your particular situation, your organization can use this activity to brainstorm new ways to push the envelope and be successful in today’s economic climate.

While phrases like “I give you my word” may seem antiquated in a world of contracts and dotted lines, the importance of trust-based relationships has never gone out of style. Isn’t it true that we still long to interact with a boss who is not only understanding, but trustworthy and honest as well? Would you share your personal and career goals with anyone less?

A fresh way of thinking about trust in the workplace is to understand that leaders don’t carry the burden of building trust-based partnerships with members of their workforce alone. The leadership principle of trust is based on a mutual influencing relationship between leaders and individual employees, one that requires a true interdependency of values and vision-sharing.

How can your organization get there? What does it take to build trust-based partnerships between leaders and employees? Here are the primary principles for leaders to follow:

Act with Integrity:

• Model the kind of values that employees can identify with and respect.
• Honor commitments and be counted on.

Demonstrate Caring:

• Take a genuine interest in employees’ backgrounds, interests, and motivations.
• Work toward a win-win solution when problems arise.

Deliver on the Shared Vision:

• Establish shared expectations and determine what success will look like.
• Pave the way for employees by making it possible for them to deliver their very best.

The mark of an effective leader is his or her ability to garner the trust and respect of a workforce. Once trust is established, there must be a focused, continual effort made by both parties to sustain it. This is a critical component of achieving and sustaining high performance.

Learn more about trust-based partnerships and Five Star’s “Leading the High-Performance Workforce” program.