4 Reasons Your Company Vision Isn’t Shared Throughout Your Company

By EOS Implementers on May 30, 2018

Before a leadership team begins its EOS journey, we ask each member of the team, “How aligned is your organisation around the company’s vision and plan?”

The average answer to that question is 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, and it’s not at all unusual for the owner (or company Visionary) to offer a score several points higher than anyone else on the team.


There are four root causes of the potentially fatal disconnect between the vision in your head, and what everyone else in the organisation is doing every day.

1) Your vision isn’t simple. As your company grows, it becomes more complex at the same time that you’re rapidly adding people and levels of communication. Great leaders use a few clear words that make sense to everyone, not lots of words and abstract concepts that create confusion and ambiguity.

2) You don’t all agree. No truly entrepreneurial company lacks vision; the real problem is that too often, each member of a leadership team has a slightly different view of where the company is going, and how it plans to get there. The only way to achieve agreement is through discussion, debate, and real conflict.

If you and your team haven’t yet had any real conflict around your company vision and plan, it’s highly unlikely your team is 100% on the same page.

3) Your vision isn’t written down. Getting the vision and plan clear in your heads is a major accomplishment, but it’s only a start. Once you’re all on the same page (often after resolving some conflict), the next step is writing it down, using clear, simple words. A written document ensures that you all present the same vision and plan, appearing as one team, with one vision and one voice. You should also plan to revisit your vision each quarter to confirm and realign your team to make sure you’re rowing in the same direction.

4) You don’t repeat yourself often enough. Humans need to hear something seven times to truly understand and internalise it for the first time. When you get tired of hearing yourself talk about the company’s Core Values, Core Focus, and 10-Year Target, then you’re almost doing it enough. Because at the end of the day, a great leader knows their only job is clarifying, simplifying, and achieving the company’s vision through its people. When your people don’t know what the vision is, what your plan and priorities are, and how they can help achieve it – you’re just alone, spinning your wheels.

These are four common mistakes. If you’re making one or more of them, there’s no reason to panic – it just means you’re human. It is possible to clarify, simplify, and achieve your vision. It’s possible to instill discipline and accountability throughout the organisation, and to ensure everyone is consistently executing on your vision. Thousands of entrepreneurial companies running on EOS are proving it every day.

Next Steps

  • Request a free 90-Minute Meeting for your leadership team to learn how EOS can help you clarify, simplify, and achieve your vision.