By JuJuan Buford Entrepreneur & Author @JSBUFORD
A Good Vision Statement Helps You Stay Focused on Your Focus
Be honest. Ever wake up first thing in the morning, and find yourself reading random (or not so random) text messages, emails, posts from various social media portals? Then gasp…you actually start responding, liking, saving content, and before you know it 10 to 30 to 60 plus minutes have lapsed?
Never mind the lost time for a moment (though that is important). Who just determined your agenda for the day? And did their agenda serve your purpose for the day, sharpen you, accelerate your progress to a given destination, and or result in activity that was profitable for you? We all know the answer to this question the uber majority of the time. Well consider for a moment, imagine the aforementioned being your modus operandi every day?
A good vision statement is kind of like your guiding light in the sense that it helps to determine your priorities, and the direction you and your team is headed. It becomes your measuring stick determining how you spend your time, and what you spend your time on. If you feel like you are drifting, how liberating would it be to simply read your vision and ask yourself, is this course of action consistent with my vision for myself and or my organization?
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. (Proverbs 29:18 King James Version)
It is One of the Essential Building Blocks for Creating Culture
Having a difficult time finding or attracting the type of staff, business partners, and advocates you desire to work with? Are you incessantly communicating to the team the type of energy you expect, what projects or endeavors are helpful versus antithetical to success, or worse yet, having to quash ideas that do not coincide at all with the direction you’re leading?
A properly written, conspicuously placed, and communicated vision statement serves as your and the team’s internal compass and ultimately a well where all core objectives, standards, and ideas can spring. It also serves as a beacon to those whom you’d like to work with and interact with more frequently, and repels those who would be disinclined to buy in or advocate for your endeavor.
It is vitally important.
Have you ever set your sights on a particular vehicle, and seemingly as soon as you’ve made your mind up, you begin to notice how many other people are driving the same vehicle. Did the number of individuals driving the vehicle all of a sudden increase? No. You’ve primed your mind, and like the well trained super computer it is, it goes to work identifying the object you’ve primed it for. Multiply this within your organization and you’ve primed your team to identify and pursue the object you've primed them for.
And now you're beginning to create the culture you desire.