The Vision Thing: It’s a Must-Have

Every company needs a vision. And not just a lofty pie-in-the-sky, fifty thousand foot vision. Salesforce had a vision the founders wrote down on paper the first year the company came into existence as a startup in the founder’s apartment. It described the methods by which the company planned to achieve that vision. And measurable goals to define if success had been achieved.

Today, more than fifteen years later, the V2MOM: Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles and Metrics, written anew every year, is a corner-stone of the company. It starts right from the top, from the CEO and the company leadership, and acts as a unifying theme that permeates every corner, every employee in the company.

Sounds too formulaic? Some companies, especially startups, feel that this is too structured an approach, too much a “big company” thing. They feel that the vision needs to be organic, ever-evolving with the creativity of the employees. As one CEO of a tech startup told me, he felt that companies could stifle this creativity with an overly structured approach.

What they fail to see is that, especially as a company grows, the vision, shared among the first five or ten people, does not organically spread through the rest of the company; this can result in confused employees, frustration and wasted effort. As another startup CEO said, every time the company doubles, you need to rethink how communication within the company occurs; “water cooler” virality no longer works.

And when it comes to creativity and innovation, Salesforce is a stand-out…having a V2MOM clearly has not stifled the creative DNA of the company as it has gone from a single-product CRM startup to a broad solution-selling juggernaut.

Every employee has to write his or her own V2MOM, with a clear view of the company’s and the team’s V2MOM. It is a simple formula with which to guide the company, and to give employees at any level clear line of sight as to how the work they will be doing aligns with and supports the company. It’s a great way to measure accountability against goals. And a great way to give everyone a view of how their efforts are meaningful to company outcomes.

Over the years, it is clear that every next V2MOM builds on the last, while also incorporating the next “big thing” on the horizon. And the need to create the V2MOM means the leadership team has to agree on priorities in the coming year, and employees then gain clarity over the focus. In a rapidly changing environment, the V2MOM becomes a vital tool in communicating direction to employees.

As Benioff says, “the biggest secret of Salesforce is how we’ve achieved a high level of organizational alignment and communication while growing at breakneck speeds.” And he attributes this to the V2MOM.

As I advised one startup CEO, putting pen to paper on a company V2MOM can incite meaningful discussion in its creation, and enormous clarity for a fast-growth company in its execution. The vision thing works!

Originally published on LinkedIn