Mission and Vision Come Second For Engagement (PFL Part 4)

In this post we’ll continue the breakdown of my People First Leadership Framework and discuss the 2nd step: Mission and Vision Come Second.  

After putting your people first, you’ve created commitment to you as your team members’ leader. That’s great, they want to work for you! Now you need to create in them the same affinity for their work.

Mission and Vision Come Second – The Engagement Step

The outcome of the Mission and Vision Come Second step is that you create engagement in your team members to their work.  It’s about creating a very strong connection and excitement between each team member and their work so that they work hard, take ownership, and achieve the desired results. You do this by incorporating two critical elements…

The Why and The Where

Mission and Vision are separate elements that when tied together and effectively implemented create an engagement producing superpower.

• Mission: The Why – Mission asks the question, “Why are we doing what we’re doing?” It’s about the important purpose behind the work.  
• Vision: The Where – Vision asks the question, “Where are we going?” It’s about the exciting future destination the team is working toward.  

Mission asks the question, "Why are we doing what we're doing?" It's about the important purpose behind the work. Vision asks the question, "Where are we going?" It's about the exciting future destination the team is working toward. Share on X

Applying Mission and Vision Across 3 Perspectives

To create maximum engagement, you must apply mission and vision across three distinct perspectives – (1) Their Work, (2) Them, and (3) The Company/Organization.

1. Their Work

Each team member must understand the mission and vision of the actual work that they do every day.  You want your team members to know “The Why” and “The Where” for everything they do. For example, if they’re working on a project, you want to ensure they know why the project is worth doing (the why/mission/purpose) and where the project is going to end up (the where/vision/exciting future). This should help them see the bigger picture, create excitement, and lead to engagement in them for the work they do. It’s your responsibility to connect these dots for each team member. (Side note – If someone is doing something that isn’t important, then find a way to stop having that work done.)

Each team member must understand the mission and vision of the actual work that they do every day. You want your team members to know "The Why" and "The Where" for everything they do. This leads to engagement in them for the work… Share on X

In this perspective, you also want to ensure your team members know how their specific work contributes to the overall team mission and vision. You have a responsibility as the team leader to create and communicate the overall mission and vision of your team.  In the next post we’ll talk more about how to do it, but for now just know that each team member must understand “the why/mission/purpose” and “the where/vision/exciting future” for your team. This should help them see the bigger picture, create excitement, and lead to engagement in them for the work the team does.

2. Them

Each team member must understand how the mission and vision of the team and their work applies to themselves. This one can be tricky because your team member should own their personal mission and vision, but as their leader you should coach and guide them along the way. Once your team member has that, it is your responsibility to show each team member how the mission and vision of the team and their work applies to them being a fit on your team and how they will be able to achieve their vision.

(Side notes – If they are not a fit on your team based on their mission or won’t achieve their vision by being on your team, help them get to a team that is and will. Also, make sure you hire team members that will be a good fit based on the intersection of their mission and vision with your team/company mission and vision.)

3. The Company/Organization

Each team member must understand how the mission and vision fits into the overall company/organization. You may not be creating the company/organization mission and vision but you are responsible for knowing them, communicating them, and ensuring your team members understand them. You should ensure your team mission and vision align directionally with the company/organization mission and vision.

Move From Understanding To Adoption

Up to this point, I’ve said that your team members need to “understand” the mission and vision of their work and the team.  BUT there is actually more to it. 

If you want to create ideal engagement in your team members, you need them to not just “understand” the mission and vision you’re telling them but to actually ADOPT them as their own.  In other words, they need to embrace them with a sense of ownership and responsibility that creates such strong connection between them and their work that you get super-engagement.

If you want to create ideal engagement in your team members, you need them to not just "understand" the mission and vision you're telling them but to actually ADOPT them as their own. Share on X

Up Next

In the next post, I’ll talk about HOW to develop and deliver mission and vision to create engagement.

Discussion Questions – Let me know what you think

• What’s the hardest part of getting your team members to “adopt” the mission and vision of their work?
• What’s your top action item or takeaway from this post?

This post is the fourth post in the my People First Leadership Framework series.

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Photo by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen on Unsplash