Direction Needed. Please Give Direction
Getting everyone pulling in the same direction is no simple trick. Direction needed and lacking is one gap.
The difficulty goes way up as you grow. Getting heart commitment from workers will never be easy. So getting everyone pulling the same way is not common.
One Key Way to Give the Direction Needed
If you or leaders you hire do not understand how workers can get lost, then the workers will be checking their passion at the door each day or even going the wrong way. Yes, they will feel aimless at least. Then, they will feel their work is meaningless. They can feel others going different directions, and they stop working hard. And really aiming different directions means that working hard does not take the business very far anyway.
To achieve buy-in, there needs to be something clear and true to buy in to. Ideally, they will also have a chance to speak their peace about the direction as well. However, regardless, the business needs to have clear and true direction.
Directional clarity and follow through is big. Plan for it, do it, and follow through. Also, develop your company vision and values carefully. Recruit people who specifically can buy into your vision and values, really buy in and not just talk well. Once you have them, you and your vetted leaders need to push out the vision and direction to clear the fog that costs commitment.
Lack of direction also makes the silo issue go deeper. Each department goes its way and gaps between departments get bigger. Conflict between departments grow. No one is happy with that and commitment goes down and turnover increases.
Vision Leaks
I used to create vision and tell people and let it sit, but later learned that vision leaks. When it leaks, passion for the work fades.
So develop vision beyond a goal for how much revenue you can do. Then talk about it and the values every chance you can make. Use the values and vision in every hire you make, in every evaluation you do and every other business decision you make. Talk about it at meetings. Make it real and you can start to get people pulling the same way. Of course you will still have managers who seem OK, but never really follow you. We can help you to fix that problem. See our video on how we make you look smart.
That will carry your business. It is worth any investment you put in.