Learn how to create a shared vision across different teams that aligns with your strategy and fosters a culture of collaboration. (original) (raw)

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Cross-team collaboration is essential for delivering complex projects and achieving organizational goals. However, it can also pose many challenges, such as conflicting priorities, miscommunication, and silo mentality. How do you create a shared vision across different teams that aligns with the overall strategy and inspires everyone to work together effectively? Here are some tips to help you foster a culture of collaboration and alignment in your organization.

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Understand the big picture

The first step to creating a shared vision is to understand the big picture and the purpose of your project or initiative. What is the problem you are trying to solve, the value you are creating, or the impact you are making? How does it fit into the broader mission and vision of your organization? Communicate this clearly and consistently to all the teams involved, and make sure they understand how their work contributes to the common goal.

• Having the "alignment conversation" is important to ensure that your team understands the big picture, the direction, and the priorities of your team and the greater organization. Communicate clearly, frequently, and transparently about the strategy, the challenges, and the opportunities you’ll face. When you have shared alignment across your team, it can create a shared sense of accountability, commitment, and direction that can contribute to camaraderie and motivate your team to work collaboratively to achieve common goals.

Involve the teams in the visioning process

The next step is to involve the teams in the visioning process and co-create a shared vision that reflects their perspectives, insights, and aspirations. This can be done through workshops, brainstorming sessions, surveys, or other participatory methods. The aim is to generate a vision statement that is concise, compelling, and actionable, and that captures the essence of what you want to achieve together. A good vision statement should answer the questions: What are we doing? Why are we doing it? How are we doing it?

• Laurent Therivel the CEO of U.S. Cellular told me a fascinating story. Years ago when he was working at another organization, he was brought in to turn it around which he did. He told everyone what to do and how to do it and the business was a success. One day, the board invites him to a meeting where he thinks they are going to celebrate his success. Instead he got fired! Why? Because he alienated everyone in the process. Through command and control he was able to turn the business around but they felt no sense of ownership, teamwork, or buy-in. He turned the business around but damaged the culture in the process. The lesson he learned was that you have to bring people along with you instead of just telling them what to do.

Align the teams on the objectives and outcomes

Once you have a shared vision, you need to align the teams on the specific objectives and outcomes that will help you realize it. This means defining the scope, deliverables, milestones, and success criteria of your project or initiative, and assigning roles and responsibilities to each team. You also need to establish a common framework and language for measuring and reporting progress, and set up regular feedback loops and checkpoints to ensure alignment and accountability.

• Be sure to onboard new hires on where you’re at with the vision, giving them an easy way to catch-up on work so far. No one wants to feel like they’re on the sidelines looking in, and you don’t want to miss out on new perspectives into the project.

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