{"id":1175,"date":"2017-08-15T16:16:40","date_gmt":"2017-08-15T20:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2026-01-30T11:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T16:04:07","slug":"shared-vision-central-everything-small-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/shared-vision-central-everything-small-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Why your small business needs a \u201cshared vision\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tWhy your small business needs a \u201cshared vision\u201d\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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Why should your small business go to the trouble of developing an explicit declaration of its values and principles; vision and goals; and mission and purpose? After all, it\u2019s a challenging, time-consuming process: You have to facilitate an open dialog with your staff (preferably, every employee); address some tough questions about your company as it is and how you wish it to be; and then\u2014most important of all\u2014actually apply<\/em> the values, vision, and mission you\u2019ve so laboriously crafted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve helped more than 100 organizations develop a shared vision (which is the umbrella term I\u2019ll use for values, vision, and mission); I can categorically say that the effort is worth it\u2014but only if the organization is willing and committed to applying its shared vision to everyday operations and strategic decision making.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s good news! Small businesses have a distinct advantage over their larger competitors when it comes to developing and<\/em> applying a shared vision. Small businesses have fewer employees, which makes it easier to get the input you need. Small businesses can also apply their shared vision more effectively because they\u2019re, well, smaller and less complex than big businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s another advantage small businesses have that ties to shared vision. Chances are, as a small business, your competitive advantage is based on doing things differently than your competitors; we might go so far as to say you\u2019re out to destroy the status quo. Yet without a shared vision, it\u2019s just too easy (even for a small business) to revert to the preservation of the status quo<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of pressing their advantage by doing things differently, small businesses often find themselves with a defensive focus. \u201cDon\u2019t screw it up\u201d becomes the unspoken but powerful mandate. As a result, businesses can drift toward an excessive focus on maintaining the status quo. In many cases, that means an outsized emphasis on preserving sales levels, market share, and renewals\u2014all very worthy objectives but, in the absence of a shared vision, often inadequate to ensuring a small business\u2019s ongoing viability and vigor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how does a small business go about creating its own shared vision, and how can that shared vision then be applied to good effect? We\u2019ll answer those questions in an upcoming\u00a0webcast\u00a0<\/a>I\u2019ll be hosting called, naturally, \u201cCreating Shared Vision in a Small Firm\u201d In the interest of full disclosure, I should emphasize that the webcast will focus mostly on the concept<\/em> of shared vision in a small business; we\u2019ll cover the nuts and bolts of how to apply the shared vision, but implementation is a bigger topic than we could cover in this webinar (I will, however, recommend resources to help with effective deployment of a shared vision).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLearn more<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In discussing the concept of shared vision in the webcast, however, concept and implementation will often intersect. A great example of this is how I\u2019ll begin the webcast: with a discussion of how most organizations approach operational questions versus how they should<\/em> be answering those questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most important lessons I\u2019ve ever learned about business is based on the work of Peter Block<\/a>, who proposed that when dealing with questions of operations and even strategies, businesses rely too often on \u201chow\u201d questions, such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 How do you do it?
\n\u2022 How long will it take?
\n\u2022 How much does it cost?
\n\u2022 How do you get those people to change?
\n\u2022 How do you measure it?
\n\u2022 How have other people done it successfully?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow\u201d questions like the ones above aren\u2019t wrong<\/em>, but they\u2019re often asked too early in the decision-making process. There\u2019s an inherent judgment underlying each question that too often derails the kind of creative, innovative decision making that can help small businesses optimize their advantages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the webcast, I\u2019ll discuss the question small businesses should answer before they get to the \u201chow\u201d questions: What do we want to create? Having a shared vision is crucial to answering that question. A shared vision helps an organization answer the \u201chow\u201d questions without contradicting the principles and values that every organization lives by, whether the organization knows it\u2019s living by them or not (i.e., every organization has principles in place: the question is whether those principles are explicit or understood, and whether those principles reflect what leadership and employees actually wish for the organization to embody).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Subscribe to our Sage Advice Newsletter<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Get our latest business advice delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Working\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why should your small business go to the trouble of developing an explicit declaration of its values and principles; vision and goals; and mission and purpose? After all, it\u2019s a challenging, time-consuming process: You have to facilitate an open dialog with your staff (preferably, every employee); address some tough questions about your company as it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1258,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sage_video":false,"post_featured_image_hide":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,44],"tags":[170,253,34],"business_type":[40,312,41],"lilypad":[],"context":[102],"industry":[56,57,55],"persona":[98,96,97],"imagine_tag":[234,233,230,231],"coauthors":[644],"class_list":["post-1175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growth-customers","category-strategy-legal-operations","tag-business-strategy","tag-performance","tag-small-business","business_type-small-business","business_type-accountants","business_type-growing-business","industry-ecommerce","industry-financial-services","industry-professional-services"],"sage_meta":{"region":"en-us","author_name":"Ed Kless","featured_image":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/UK_CannyMilk_SageOne_181215-84.jpg","imagine_tags":{"234":"Enterprise Management","233":"Medium Businesses","230":"Small business","231":"Start up business"}},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice US","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"business_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/business_type?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"lilypad","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/lilypad?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"context","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/context?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"persona","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/persona?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"imagine_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/imagine_tag?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}