Leveraging a Company Direction
A primer for curious, action-oriented leaders
What’s in this knowledge article?
What is Company Direction?
Why You Should Leverage Your Company Direction Regularly
When and How to Formalize Your Company Direction
How to Improve Your Alotten Score
Resources
In the dynamic landscape of business, the importance of company direction cannot be overstated. A company’s direction serves as its guiding compass, steering operations towards a specific destination and fostering a unified purpose among employees. When organizations align their activities with their direction, a powerful strategic advantage emerges, propelling them ahead in the competitive race.
What is Company Direction?
When companies align their operations with their direction, it creates a significant strategic advantage. Often, companies define their direction but fail to articulate it clearly and act on it.In this article, we’ll cover how to leverage your company direction. To get us started, let’s break down and define the elements that comprise a company direction.
Mission: A company’s mission is a written expression of its reason for existing. It defines a company’s purpose in one or two succinct, inspirational sentences.
Google’s mission: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful so people can get things done.
Vision: A company’s vision describes the goal the company seeks to achieve as a result of realizing its mission. It details the world the company will make possible.
Google’s vision: Instantly deliver relevant information on virtually any topic.
Values: A company’s values are its core beliefs about ideal behaviors and principles. Values are often meant to describe company reality, but frequently describe aspirations instead.
See Google’s values here. A Google value: Fast is better than slow.
Business goals and objectives: Business goals and objectives identify ways to fulfill the company’s vision over time. Business goals focus on desired outcomes. One way to structure goals is using the SMART goals template. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable (but challenging), relevant, and time bound. Business objectives detail how to achieve those outcomes.
Why You Should Articulate Your Company Direction Regularly
Creates actual alignment. An HBR study found that only 23% of managers, employees, and leaders described corporate strategies similarly despite the fact that 82% of them reported “strong alignment.”
Makes the implicit explicit. Motivation and retention increase when employees see how their work impacts company success. However, this relationship isn’t always obvious. Managers should discuss how their employees’ daily tasks support company performance and express appreciation to their direct reports for their contributions.
Keeps meaning fresh. Even when leaders directly state how daily tasks support larger goals, these connections can be quickly forgotten. To keep employees’ motivation and sense of appreciation fresh, discuss these connections often.
Adapts to the market. Alignment is not a one-time task! Changes to the market can impact a company’s ability to achieve their goals. Inevitably, some actions will lack the impact leaders anticipate. To nimbly adjust to changes in the external environment, it is critical that leaders and their teams sync regularly.
The graphic above shows how providing clarity and direction fits into the executive alignment framework. An aligned executive team is a critical first step to propel your organization forward to achieve your goals.
When and How to Formalize Your Company Direction
Timing for defining your company direction
Formalize your company direction as soon as you can, and discuss it frequently!
In the startup phase, companies are still discovering which solutions they offer and to whom. Accordingly, their missions and visions frequently evolve. Given that startups typically feature a fairly “flat” design, employees are more likely to “feel” these changes. However, what employees want to prioritize and what leaders decide may not actually align. Timely discussion of any changes in mission or vision keeps everyone aligned.
In the growth and mature phases, companies have found their niche market and products. Once formalized, their mission or vision are usually more stable and formalized.
How to articulate your company direction
The graphic below shares how leveraging a company direction differs by maturity phase.
Articulating a Company Direction: Step-by-step
Unveil your mission, vision, and values statements at a company all-hands meeting. Explain how and why you created them, with whom, and how you’ll live them.
Make your mission, vision, and values accessible to employees and the public. Place mission, vision, and values statements on your company website. Share them with employees, and display them where employees are likely to view them often.
Align your business and people processes to your mission, vision, and values. This is the step most companies fail to execute. Creating and posting a company direction is easy - weaving it into your operations is hard.
-Identify and discuss operating principles that best uphold your values
-Audit your hiring, performance management, onboarding and development, total rewards, and recognition processes for alignment with your mission, vision, and values. Integrate your operating principles into these processes where appropriate.
-Audit your business operations and note where processes or outcomes are not aligned to your mission, vision, or values. Establish alignment where needed.
Create time-bound, specific goals for the company to bring your vision to life. Break the vision down into discrete, time-boxed milestones. Include important stakeholders and teams to make sure these goals are challenging but achievable. Justify these goals by sharing how they fulfill your mission and vision.
Share, monitor, and discuss your goals in company-wide and team meetings.
-Designate someone to track goal progress and report on the status of the goals
-Discuss the successes and learnings around company goals when they are set, throughout their duration, and at their completion
-Managers should align work to these goals and provide progress updates in team syncs, employee 1:1s, and stakeholder syncs
Discuss your mission, vision, and values whenever you communicate changes, goal progress, or share important information. Connect and discuss the alignment between company initiatives and your company mission, vision, and values. Take time once a quarter to review how the company is fulfilling its mission, living its values, and advancing its vision - even if no major changes are occurring.
In conclusion, the importance of company direction lies in its ability to provide a clear sense of purpose, guide decision-making, and foster a cohesive and engaged workforce. By formalizing and regularly leveraging your company direction, organizations position themselves for sustained success.
How to improve my Alotten Score
Did your Alotten Score suggest you focus on your job architecture? Are you implementing a compensation strategy, hiring processes, or performance management processes which require a job architecture? We can help!
Contact us at support@alotten.com.
Resources
External How-to’s
Indeed Writing a Mission Statement for Your Team or Business
Asana How to Write a Vision Statement: Steps and Examples
Asana 5 Tips to Set Great Company Values that Reflect Your Unique Culture
Turnover and meaningful work
Great Place to Work Purpose at Work Predicts if Employees Will Stay or Quit Their Jobs
Further reading on the importance of company missions & goals
McKinsey Corporate Purpose: Shifting from why to how
Operating principles
Stewart Leadership 4 Essential Elements in Developing Team Operating Principles
