In any organization it is easy to get caught up in the small portion your tasks deal with on a daily basis. If we are in accounting or marketing or customer service then we tend to only see those departments and their needs and issues. Part of this problem is because those are the problems we are trained to see. The other part of the problem is that often leaders in the organization don’t share the big picture of things with their staff.
How often does customer service know marketing’s goals and their plans for implementation? Or Sales understand how the technology department is going to upgrade? Now this may seem overwhelming to think that every department needs to know the coming and goings of everyone. Well that answer to that is absolutely not! That would be extremely time consuming and certainly not effective.
Everyone in your organization does though need to be able to see the big picture. Often the only people that are allowed or have been educated on where the organization is going are those in leadership positions. They however are not the only ones that would benefit from know what the plan is.
Instead imagine if everyone in your organization knew they goal the company wanted to accomplish. Imagine your guys crunching numbers would be more excited about what they are doing cause they see the impact their job will have. The people talking with customers will value the customer more as they see how important the customer really is to the goal.
If no one knows what the goal is then they are simply doing their job because someone told them they needed to. If they have a vision though of what the bigger picture is then they can work at their job because they want to achieve that goal.
There is power in sharing the big picture with an entire organization because then they can be united under one goal instead of just under a name. It takes strategically management to create an environment that will successfully share this big picture. Leaders have to know the picture and then continually convey that message to their teams.
There are hundreds of ways to do that. Hold a monthly meeting that reviews the goals and the new efforts being made to reach them and include everyone in the organization. Train leaders to focus on those goals when giving feedback to employees. And print up signs and posters with sayings and slogans that visually remind people of what we are all suppose to be working towards.
Bart Icles loves discussing, researching and writing on anything that will help businesses improve and become more successful. He recommends CMOE’s training material particularly their Strategic Management
and Teamwork philosophies.