How Your Vision can be a Powerful People Magnetizer During the Great Resignation

2015 started off with a much needed family vacation – a time for my spousepreneur and I to recharge our batteries and reset for the year ahead.

As the saying goes, timing is everything. When we returned from vacation, we had one after another of our team members forced to resign for personal reasons – illness, a death in the family, and other personal trauma. Within a few weeks we were down to myself, my husband, and his assistant.

We had to rebuild our team, quickly. Some of our hiring decisions were not optimal as we were not in a position to wait for the best candidates. We took action on some short term solutions to get through the crisis period.

Being an avid book reader and researcher, I turned to Vivid Vision, by Cameron Herold. The book helped me to realize that a well written vision could become a powerful tool to attract and retain the right talent.

I took the time to craft the Vision and to then communicate it effectively, regularly, and systematically.

Instead of keeping it in my head, I shared it so my team had the opportunity to embrace and engage with it.

By using the appropriate language, the Vision attracted team members who found it compelling.

So, how can you magnetize people to your business during the Great Resignation?

It comes down to choosing the right language. As Camerold Herold references, this isn’t a Vision board that is pictures of what you want as an individual person. Instead, it is written words that are precise, clear, and are less likely to be misconstrued.

For example, if your Vision includes language about being focussed on your clients, it will attract client focussed team members.

If it talks about philanthropy, people who value giving back to others will want to work with your organization.

If you mention a particular niche you work with, people who are interested in that niche will want to talk with you about opportunities in your business. (Side note, with hindsight I now see that this was a big gap in my Vision; I completely missed including it which likely explains some of the hiring errors I made).

The Vision became an important part of our hiring process; we shared it with candidates, asked for their buy in, and how they felt they could contribute meaningfully. When I heard and saw the positive indication in their body language, I knew we were creating a win win in hiring them.

One candidate had no insurance experience, but her response to our Vision, combined with her own background, made it clear to me that investing in her would be a really good business decision. Within a few months, she became one of our shining stars handling client inquiries.

As Michael Hyatt writes in “The Vision Driven Leader”, “The right Vision reminds people what we’re building and why it matters. It inspires and energizes people across the organization by stirring within them the motivation to follow and do great things together. People can see how their actions contribute to the organization’s vision.”

Inspired and energized people are far more likely to stay with an organization, and they in turn can act as magnets to attract more talent. (Again, another “do over” reflection here; I could have had my stars get out of the office more to network with other people like them.)

As bigger organizations get more creative ways to attempt to lure staff away, employees re-evaluate their career direction, and more mature workers examine whether retiring sooner is an option, having a clearly communicated compelling Vision is more important than ever.

If you’d like to connect with me to talk bout yours, https://keap.app/contact-us/8454297783092184