How to Create a Sparkling Vision to Fire Up Your Team

Do you want your team firing like an Abraham tank? Do you want them welded together as if by superglue? Do you want your team’s energy to fizz like champagne?

Feb 27

The best leaders have clear goals. Such goals are often growth numbers or revenue targets. It’s important to express goals in these terms for clarity. But number goals do not inspire human beings.

So the best leaders gather their team together. They explain the team’s goals and the reasons why they’re important.

Then they ask the team a crucial question, “In order to achieve this goal, how do we need to see ourselves as a team?”

This question is designed to have the team come up with their own vision.

A team that develops its own vision owns that vision. They feel proud of what they’re doing.

The gunpowder of a sparkling team vision

The most effective vision statements are like action movies. They’re pictures filled with color and sound. and movement that illuminates how the team wants to be.

Effective visions should:

Excite, energize, and unite the team by describing the team’s desired future state. The team’s future is described in the present tense. E.g. “We are becoming……..”
Fill each individual with the desire to make the vision their own reality. “I want to be part of the journey. I want people to know I was part of this success story.”
Make each team member recognize, “I will have to learn and improve and make myself fit to make the vision my reality.”
Make each team member believe, “I can achieve this result by improving, working hard, and supporting my colleagues.”

Creating your exciting vision

Keep it short. Two sentences should do the job.

Write in the present tense. Yes, I know it’s about the future but you need to “act as if” it is already here.

Describe clearly what your team does when it’s fired up and delivering masterpieces. Think about the benefits of what you do. Ask: “Why do we do what we do the way we do it?”
What is unique or different about what you do? This might be the way that you do what you do. Ask: “What’s special about us?”
How do you aspire to be as a team? This is the future you aspire to create. Ask: “How do we each have to behave in order to make our vision our reality?”
Add an emotional kicker. E.g. “We will all have silly grins on our faces when our vision becomes reality. We’ll start now so we can feel the effect right away.”

Great team visions look like this

Please read each example slowly to digest its meaning. Notice how each statement describes, “the way we see ourselves behaving.”

“We create a better everyday life for people.” Ikea

“We bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” Nike

“We are the world’s best-loved, most efficient, and most profitable airline.” Southwest Airlines

“To make the best products on earth, and to leave the world better than we found it.” Apple

“Measure success by the way we touch the lives of people.” Barry-Wehmiller

“To provide access to the world’s information in one click.” Google

“I see leaders inspiring teams to win.” David Ferrers, Leadership Coach

Why you also need a mission statement

A mission statement is a roadmap of how the team will achieve its vision.

Here’s an example, Google’s mission statement: “Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

When they read Google’s mission everyone on the team instantly knows what they have to do: organize information and make it accessible and useful.

“My mission is to make the best leadership ideas simple to use.” David Ferrers, Leadership Coach

Now it’s your turn - you now have a template. Gather your team together and create a magical vision that excites, energizes and focuses their energies.