Leading with Vision and Purpose

Purpose of a Vision: Commitment

In most cases, excellence is about seven parts commitment and three parts strategy

– William Bridges, Managing Transitions

Let’s face it, while we work passionately and purposefully to make a difference, work is hard. Consider the plethora of organizational dynamics like teamwork, communication, accountability, decision making and human behavioral dynamics that further complicate a work day. No matter what stage of growth or number of employees, work can be excruciatingly hard, frustrating and chaotic. If I’m being honest, on bad days, I can allow fear to ask the question, “Is it worth it?”

Have you ever asked yourself, “Is it worth it?” What keeps you or your company going? If we polled the entrepreneurs at Roam and asked them the secret to accomplishing their dreams, I believe the vast majority of them would express their secret through words like grit, tenacity, perseverance and diligence or through stories that involve examples of risk, failure, sacrifice and adversity.

So what enables entrepreneurs to keep going? What motivates organizations to fight through growing pains to win? What makes work worth it for the individual in your company? It’s your vision. A vision so big and so bold that it has the power to compel an unwavering commitment and an intense willingness out of others. Bad days become simple reminders that nothing worth accomplishing ever comes easily.

Getting to a Shared Vision: Begin with The End in Mind

At Roam, we believe greatness requires intentionality. By starting with the end in mind, hire already motivated people who share your values and inspire them with opportunities to make a difference on a daily basis. But don’t stop there. Allow this framework to inform your decisions in all aspects of the business from hiring to teaming, operations to digital development. In doing so, you create a culture of shared visionaries all striving towards a common purpose.

Result of a Shared Vision: High Performance

The result of such commitment and willingness is what we all long for: high performance. As a relative term, high performance could be defined as profitability for one company and life-change for another—or a mix of both. Either way, it’s your vision that inspires the engagement and work ethic that drives success.

In order to reach the pinnacle of a big and bold vision, it must be shared. Consider that the average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime. Assuming a 50 year working-life and 8 hours of sleep per night, 35% of our waking hours are spent at work. Now, couple these statistics with research on motivation theory that show purpose as an inherent human motivator. Imagine two, twenty, two hundred or even two thousand purpose-driven employees working together towards one big, bold and shared vision for 90,000 hours – they would positively change the world.

So, is it worth it? Worth persisting in light of complicated workplace dynamics? Worth the time it takes to sculpt future ideals that frames your actions today? Worth the energy of sharing your vision with the team? Give yourself the permission to dream big and allow others to join you in the journey. It’s worth it.