An essential aspect of understanding the answer to “how do companies grow?” is getting clarity on where you want to go and how you’re going to get there. As a leader, you then have to find a way to communicate those two things and achieve buy-in from the group
The notion of vision gets tossed around a lot, everybody knows it’s the thing that they should do, but they’re not clear about how to do it effectively. Building a clear vision for your organization, when you really zoom in on it, has three defined components:
- Purpose
- Values
- Mission
When you set a clear vision as a leader, you’re setting out the purpose, the why and how we do things around here, and bringing the values of the company front and center. We need to get clear on the specific mission we’re invested in as a business and the objective that we’re facing next and communicate them to the individuals in our team.
Communicating your compelling vision and getting your team to buy into it is the challenge. Doing that successfully begins with engaging your team in your vision before it’s even entirely crafted. What I mean is that this isn’t a movie; the lone genius, the founder, the entrepreneur doesn’t ascend to the top of the mountain and come down with the stone tablet inscribed with answers. That would be far too easy…
Leadership isn’t like that in the 21st Century; you have to get people involved and enrolled from the start. Leaders can’t bring a blank canvas and say to the team, ‘hey, I need you guys to help me craft a vision.’ You’ve got to find the happy medium where you open yourself to suggestions. Let them help you flesh it out, take your seed of an idea, and make it crystal clear. It’s that sort of enrolling leadership that allows people to co-create a vision that they can be super passionate about because they helped make it real.
How do companies grow? Keep reading to find out more details.
Companies Grow with Good Leaders
The leaders who build a successful vision learn to set aside ego and realize that the more significant thing is that the opportunity to lead others requires putting themself aside as the primary focus. If it’s ever just about them, everything falls apart really quickly, but if it’s about something bigger than them, then we can see this is bigger than all of us.
Asking “How do Companies Grow?” Throws Up Plenty of Insight, but What Should We be Prioritizing?
There is a separation between the person and the company, it can be challenging for some founders and small companies to see the separation, but it needs to be there. There needs to be an identity with the company, with the business itself.
The values and mission give the organization life; even if it’s not articulated that your business has a life, there’s a culture, there’s an identity. If you really want to scale a company, if you’re going to grow something meaningful and significant, you have to be intentional about the company’s purpose.
Teams have to be aligned with the overarching goals, objectives, and purpose of the company. There has to be a singleness of purpose in aligning your personal core values with the organization’s values. Teams also have to be aligned with the overarching goals, objectives, and purpose of the company.
Growth Boiled Down to the Individual
Every team member has a similar version of the alignment needed from the team. Business leaders know the importance of recruiting individuals who understand the mission and vision of the team. We don’t want to bring somebody into the company who’s not excited about the purpose. Of course, they can come in and punch a clock and do a good job, but they’re not going to give any of their discretionary time. People aren’t going to be all in if they’re not excited about the purpose. And you just can’t afford that on a winning team because elite teams have the total commitment of the group. They’re all in on a common objective or “singleness-of-purpose” as we call it.
We don’t have to be a perfect match on the complete set of values; there are as many combinations of values out there as there are unique people. But on a set of core values in the company, we’ve got to have a commonality of purpose and a commonality of values. The whole team, including the leaders, has to operate consistently within the company’s values.
If you’d like to learn more about answering questions like “how do companies grow?”, you can continue to enjoy our blog posts and head over to the podcast The Athletics of Business where I discuss all aspects of leadership with a variety of insightful guests.
