Management for Beginners - Team Vision

Ordinary teams respond to a mandate from outside their team, making them entirely internally focused, whereas high-performance teams define their own team vision.

In an ordinary team, the manager is the backbone and is the support system for teamwork and collaboration. In a ship analogy, managers are the people with their eyes on the horizon; managers are the ones reading the map. The manager of an ordinary team plots the course and shows team members how to get there. However, this does not apply to high-performance teams where the whole team reads the map and determines the team’s direction. Without a clear purpose or team vision, a team will wander, uncertain about what is important. The team vision exercise allows you to work together, sharing honest views, feelings, and opinions that you may not otherwise share. This is because the conversation around setting a team vision allows you to express what you like about the team, what you do not like.

Common problems experienced by ordinary teams:

1. No common goal or purpose.

2. Mixed understanding of why the team exists.

3. Different views as to what success looks like.

4. No sharing of views, opinions, fears, gripes, and frustrations.

Most teams exist with little understanding of why they exist, what their actual purpose is in terms of how they contribute to the larger organization. Therefore, a team needs to define a meaningful, measurable goal or team vision, something that acts as a target and gives direction to all the team’s activities. Such a vision needs to consider likely changes in the organisation’s business environment, competitors’ movements, and the future behaviours of consumers, combined with the team’s aspirations. It needs to answer the question of why the team exists. People can’t work at their highest standard if they are unsure of what they are working towards.

The absence of a clear and well-communicated team vision means a team will fail to align itself for mutual success. Without a common vision team members may go off in different directions, not knowing why they are working together. This leads to everyone forming different views as to what success looks like. A common team vision on the other hand acts as an initiator to discussing and developing common ways of working, like adopting new processes and developing guidelines.

High-performance teams define their own team vision, they always have a clear view of where they’re going and their purpose - clarity on why they exist. Reasons why a team vision is necessary:

1. It’s crucial to the success of a team. One highly rated manager at Google explained that “having a compelling team vision is crucial to the success of your team, as it allows all of you to stay focused and move forward in the same direction. Conversely, not having a vision can dramatically hurt your team through lack of focus and a commensurate lack of momentum.”

2. A clear team vision means that everyone on the team knows where they’re going, if they’re on track, and what success looks like.

3. It helps teams decide what to work on. A clear team vision helps teams make trade-offs and prioritize. Managers should tie back to the team vision when communicating decisions.

A team is made up of individuals with individual motivations, a team vision unifies these varying agendas giving the team a single, shared purpose. This is one of the key steps in creating high-performing teams. It’s about taking a group of talented people and turning them into a team that works for each other and the organization. The team members become individually and jointly accountable for the achievement of the team vision, they accept mutual accountability for the team outcomes, whether success or failures. It becomes a matter of one for all, all for one.

When the team sets a clear team vision, it communicates what role each team member plays in achieving this objective. When the vision the team is aiming to reach is not defined, it leads to confusion and wastes effort and time.

The team vision needs to be strong enough to inspire, and it needs to be realistic enough so team members believe it can be achieved. A compelling team vision describes ‘This is what we’ll achieve, and this is how we’ll achieve it’. The team vision is the reason the team exists, its own vision, mission, goals, or aspirations. It provides a purpose for the team members to rally around, and shapes both the team’s strategy and tactics. A clear team vision provides team members with an anchor for their commitment to the team. Consequently, it should be framed in such a way that encourages team member buy-in. It has long been accepted that an effective team vision must be clear and challenging but achievable. Recent thinking also highlights the importance of the team vision being ethically aligned.

A team should understand and be able to articulate the team vision, they should frequently refer to it, define it vigorously with stakeholders and explore its implications. It is important to make the team vision short, meaningful, and memorable to reinforce its importance.

Most organizations have a mission statement which is the corporate objective. The mission is usually set by a Chief Executive Officer - the team vision is a subset of this. The team vision should clearly state what a department, business unit or team does to help the organization achieve the mission, it should highlight the work goals which inherently imply their reason for the team’s existence. The measure of the team vision is that all work contributes to the team vision achievement. The team vision creation process is physcologically important in that the team is agreeing on shared values and targets. They are giving meaning to their existence, and this has a significant and positive impact on job satisfaction and personal feelings of being a contributor, not just a worker.

Creating a team vision allows each of you to subconsciously work together, sharing honest views, feelings, and opinions that you may not otherwise share. This is because the conversation around setting a team vision allows you to express what you like about the team; what you do not like. It also helps start the process of open and honest communication. It allows you to agree on shared values and targets and give meaning to the team’s existence, which has a significant and positive impact on job satisfaction and personal feelings of being a contributor, not just a worker.

The team vision is important as it acts as a target to direct and motivate team members and their staff. It gives direction to all actions and acts as a measure of success after a task is completed. Creating a team vision as a team, aside from creating the goal itself, also has several important team building aspects:

1. Everyone on the team knowing the team vision becomes committed to it and has a stake in it. When each team member and their staff buy into the team vision and how their specific role contributes to it, productivity goes up.

2. If team members understand and believe in the team vision, the team achieves better results as it gives team members extra motivation to push that little bit more when dealing with difficult situations. They’ll also put their own interests aside to achieve the organization’s goals.

3. A good team vision stimulates teams on both the emotional and intellectual levels. It challenges and excites them, which inspires them to work towards it.

Team Vision Exercise

Break into groups and answer these questions:

1. What is the purpose of the team?

2. Why does the team exist?

3. What would be missing if the team did not exist?

4. Who are the beneficiaries of the teams' activities, and who are its stakeholders?

5. Where does the money come from to pay the teams salaries?

Using the answers from the questions:

1. Create a list of keywords that describe the team's operation, purpose, and outputs.

2. Add keywords that describe the teams’ stakeholders and beneficiaries.

3. Next merge all of the keywords into one or two sentences that describe a team common goal - the team vision. A test of the vision is that all teamwork is consistent with it.

Examples.

1. Alphabet Mission: “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

- A team within Alphabet could have a team vision of “We provide quality and timely information.”

2. Southwest Airlines Mission: “Dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit.”

- A team vision could be” Our friendly and supportive customer service will exceed your expectations.”

3. IKEA Mission: “Offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”

- A department within IKEA might have a team vision statement of “We build low-cost home furnishings that you will love.”