Let's begin with a quick recap of material we covered in the self module. You may recall that after questioning and confirming our purpose, we identified our priorities, our individual level rocks, the 3-5 things we needed to spend time on to lead a high-quality connected life. We use these rocks to create a vision of our future potential. What could it look like? What could it feel like to be a person who has successfully prioritize those things a year or two from now? Then we looked at how to review our progress toward achieving that future vision of ourselves with a clear-eyed view of the present and a bridge of focus tasks to move us forward. We talked about the importance of getting all this information readily accessible and life on one page. Now, how can you apply this strategy to achieving your priorities at work or on a project? You can apply this to your job or project or school, for example. This can be applied towards the work you already do, or the work you want to create in the future. How can you connect more meaningfully to your work and get your work-life on one page? Looking now at the team level, let's start by taking a look at the first P and applying the concept of purpose with a group of people trying to achieve a goal. We know how knowing your purpose or having a clear why is important at the individual level. But why might it be important at the level of an organization or team? When I asked this question in workshops, I typically get responses like, a clear purpose helps provide direction or inspiration, it motivates and energizes attraction, gets talent in the door and retains them, attracts investors or donors, builds trust, and so on. These are all useful functions of a clear team or organizational purpose. In addition to all of these functions, a clear purpose can guide the team's choices. It enables any member of the group to confirm or challenge what they do or don't do. A clear purpose is even more important as working from home trend advances because it can foster empowerment and coordination among team members who don't meet so much face-to-face. As a team, we can say this is our North Star. This is where we're heading. Now, can we decide on what to do? Allocate our resources and talent accordingly to head for that destination. We know that as any group, we're all deciding what to do, how to allocate time and treasure as time passes. But as anyone who has worked in an organization knows, it's more than just its purpose. What about values? What is the role of commonly held values and norms in an organization? Shared values are important in many ways. But a key role is in cultivating trust and bonds among team members, particularly in teams with diverse backgrounds. However, things can get tricky when shared values reduce diversity in people and/or thinking. Groups walk a fine line between reinforcing shared values and closing in on themselves. At its core, shared values should allow a diverse set of individuals to behave in a way that can be predictable and constructive for each and every one in service to the groups larger purpose. Let's take a look now at a visual representation of purpose and values and how they can come to life in service of a strategy. If you do a browser search for strategy pyramid, you'll see lots of different ways these layers can come together. But this is one of my favorites. Our team vision, mission, and values are built-in to the top and bottom of the pyramid with purpose at the top leading the way, and the whole strategy success underpinned by how the team shows up for each other. The crucial pieces of bread that creates the strategy sandwich. In my coaching and consulting, I've seen the exercise of creating this strategy pyramid to be informative and worthwhile for a single person startups through the long established organizations revisiting strategy, a key pivot points in their life. So how do we create a team vision and mission? Interestingly, the research points to quite an inconsistent treatment and methodology across organizations. An article by Katie Adele in organizational development journal noted, although there is not necessarily a right or wrong way to use labels such as vision, values, or mission, this variation can lead to confusion. Organizations are using each of these tools in many different ways with different techniques and with different levels of success. While over 80 percent of orgs they surveyed had mission statements, 40 percent of those appear to represent reality. They noted a less than 50 percent hit rate. Other research has shown, while those within the organization seem to agree purpose statements are important, the treatment varies with worldview in size. From my own experience working in and advising a variety of organizations and across sectors over the years, I suggest the following, a clear separation and crafting of a vision, a mission and values. For vision, it's good to be big and bolt. It's the state of the world when you and others like you are successful. The vision itself is typically a goal bigger than you, and it may not be wholly realized even if you are successful. Yet, it's one of the big reasons that you and others like you get up every morning. When crafting it, can you make it feel possible, even the inevitable? If that's the North star, the mission then flows from the vision. Your mission is your underlying purpose, your chosen path to make the vision happen. Back to that North star analogy, our vision is where we're headed no matter how far away it looks. Our mission helps define our chosen path. When done really well, it helps guide not only what the team will do, but it also implies what it will not do. The mission clarifies how the team is going to contribute to making the vision a reality. When embarking on this process our revisiting and refreshing a pre-existing pair of vision and mission statements, it is advisable to eliminate any unnecessary words. The less words, the more likely you and your organization will remember them. There are some good sources on the suggested word range and most agree that anywhere from as of 3-15 word description is ideal. According to Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start, an organization's purpose should be more of a mantra than a long paragraph. He's at the short end. And Chris Anderson, founder of TED, has a requirement for all of those submitting a talk. They need a through line, a reason to watch the talk in 15 words or less. Peter Diamandis, when addressing entrepreneurs talks about their MTP, or Massively Transformative Purpose. I think these are all helpful frames as you think about vision and mission. And finally, if you're going to add a powerful visual, it reinforces the image in our hearts and minds, so we can literally see the vision and mission coming to life. My personal excuse to put Edinburgh Castle in to the example here. Before you reconsider your own vision and mission, I want you to do a short exercise. Pause the video here, and take some time to do a little research and reflection. See if you can find organizations whose vision and mission statements resonate with you. Either in a good or bad way. What about them draws you in? And what do you find compelling? Is that an apt concise phrase? Does it dream big? Might you consider replicating or not as you develop a revisit your own vision and mission? I find that the best vision and mission statements create a strong reaction and obviously a positive one with who they're trying to appeal to. If you are looking to work for an organization, researching their purpose statements is an important element of the search for a connected leader. Does your purpose map to the organizations? Once you've organized your thoughts, please share them on our discussion board and take a moment to read and respond to what your peers have found. Use their research to further refine relevant vision and mission statements for you. Just as we talked about leadership from a variety of positions, you can also approach this exercise in different ways too. You could be starting something up so there's a blank slate. Revisiting or refreshing a pre-existing purpose. Creating a team purpose that nests underneath a larger organization or group or just looking for vision and mission statements that help guide your job search. Whatever angle of approach intrigues you, I'd encourage you to look around and notice how organizations define their purpose and reflect on how that makes you feel. We already discussed how Katie Adele, noticed the disconnect between half of the mission statements they surveyed and reality, so post your own research. It's good to check if the purpose statements are driving meaningful and related work. While we know employees feel that an organization vision and mission is important, many say that their companies either don't have one or the one they have doesn't make them more impactful. Here's a snapshot of some McKinsey data. You can see how overwhelmingly employees value an organizational mission and vision. But then when we get to whether employees feel that the mission and vision drive impact, less than half of the respondents agree. As you rise through an organization, keep in mind not only whether your organization has a vision and mission, but whether the statements inform what you do and whether the inspire you and the people around you and encourage diversity.
