Resources - Articles

Creating a Vision and a Mission:
A Co-Created And Co-Shared Experience
~~ Terri Levine

How many times over the course of a 2-3 year period, does a company spend time, energy, and resources creating or re-creating a vision or mission? Most companies do this activity over and over again because the CEO can’t move the organization to get behind the vision. The employees don’t have a desire to achieve the vision, and it is meaningless to them.

The VM Vacuum process (Vision-Mission Vacuum) that has been brought into organizations is making a dramatic difference. It works like a vacuum, where it sweeps the entire organization and attracts energy to itself. The process produces employees who are committed to the CEO’s vision and instills passion and the desire to achieve the vision and mission of the company.

The VM Vacuum process works because all the employees are involved in co-creating the vision and are all a key and equal part of the visioning process. When a vision is co-created in this way, it becomes co-shared and people believe in it… it contains a part of them, so naturally, it becomes believable, realistic and do-able.

Here is the structure of the process:

1. Every employee, regardless of job type, hours worked, or job title, is invited to participate in a visioning meeting with key managers.

2. Key managers act as facilitators with no vision/mission to sell anyone, but simply to gather people and listen to their thoughts.

3. Facilitated discussions are held to invite every employee to respond to questions about what currently is going well or right in the company, why those things are working, and then daydream a description of how things could be perfect. Once there is a clear idea of “perfect”, the facilitator asks the group to pretend it is five years from now, three years from now, and one year from now, and to describe a perfect work day in each year – complete with how it feels, sounds, looks, tastes, smells, etc. Then the group identifies the things right now that aren’t quite right yet within the organization and identifies resources (like time, money, training, space, etc) that could make things more right.

4. All facilitated discussions result in a detailed summary of the conversations above.

5. Key managers bring their facilitated discussion results to the CEO, and the CEO, with no vision/mission to sell, facilitates the exact same process with the managers as was conducted with the employees.

6. All facilitated discussions, including the ones with the managers, are now transcribed and put into one working document.

7. Groups of employees and managers take the document and find areas of similarity and create one large document.

8. That document becomes the vision/mission of the organization.

Organizations that follow these steps and do each thoroughly, believing each employee has value to contribute to this process, now have a vision/mission that the employees helped to formulate, and therefore feel a part of. When employees feel their viewpoints were both heard and considered and that these are now a piece of the company, their morale goes up, they become more productive, and they tend to stay much longer in their employment. What they do, how they do it, and why they do it is now meaningful for them. After all, they helped develop the what, how, and why. It gives them pride and a true sense of belonging and value within the organization.

Considering the benefits to everyone, isn’t this process one that is worth the time?

back to the main articles page

Author info:
Terri Levine, The Guru of Coaching SM, Ph.D., MCC, is the best selling author of several books including the international bestseller Work Yourself Happy, Coaching for an Extraordinary Life, Create Your Ideal Body, the international bestseller Stop Managing, Start Coaching! and her newly released book The Successful Coach co-authored with Larina Kase and Joe Vitale was just released by Wiley. She is the founder the international coach training program: The Coaching Institute, www.CoachInstitute.com. She can be contacted through the web at www.CoachInstitute.com/contactus.html or by phone 877-401-6165.