The Mindful Manager

I was managing a five-person startup. We had put our mission, company values, goals, and strategy in place about 6 months ago. We had spent several days together in a small, windowless conference room nailing down these things. No distractions. Just focused on making sure the mission, values, goals, and strategy were all well defined.

Since there were just five of us, I figured that communicating those things again wasn’t necessary. Then about 6 months later, we were talking about current projects and future projects when suddenly, Kevin said in a frustrated tone, “I don’t know where we are going. How can we determine what projects to do next if we don’t know where we are going?”

I was stunned. We had all agreed on our mission. It hadn’t changed. That mission certainly defined our end game, what we wanted to achieve over time and we had defined goals to get us to that end game.

I suggested we take a break. When we got back into the room, I said I wanted to review our mission, values, goals, and strategies just to make sure nothing had changed. We went through them and didn’t even tweak one. I then asked what new projects we should consider and we had a productive conversation.

It hadn’t occurred to me that I would need to repeat our mission, values, and goals periodically. We were only five people – how could we not all be on the same page? But I found it doesn’t matter if you are managing five, fifty or five hundred people. As a manager, I have to constantly review these things with my organization. Communication takes effort and I have to invest my time in it constantly.

I need to remind myself that as a manager these things are important for me to know and track. But employees are focusing on other aspects of the company and projects and it’s not their job to keep these things up front and visible.

So now I always review the mission and goals with my teams and tie it to what they are working on right now. Most people like knowing they are contributing to the company mission and goals. You can also review progress toward goals. I’d rather have people say they are bored with hearing the mission statement and goals than them saying they don’t know where the business is going or what we are trying to accomplish.

Constantly communicating the mission, value, goals, and strategies helps keep people focused and on target. And helps them to see how they are contributing.