The Power of Shared Vision: How to Cultivate Staff Commitment & Accountability

A shared vision has the power to transcend individual self-interests, personality, and work style differences. When commitment to the shared vision is strong, people simply find ways to effectively communicate and cooperate with one another in order to achieve desired results. When employees help establish boundaries by agreeing to reasonable standards of conduct, they take responsibility and accept the consequences of their actions. This in turn creates a safe and secure work environment that is conducive to achievement.

The alternative to establishing a culture of employee engagement and accountability is to accept mediocre performance, a litany of excuses, and a plethora of unhappy people who feel immune from the consequences of their actions. Without a strong belief system and an adherence to bedrock principles that are the foundation of all effective work teams, staff unity splits into disparate parts; different factions form as personal agendas get served and pettiness thrives.

The Power of Shared Vision addresses how to:

Develop goals that unite people around a common cause and secure employee ownership of changes that improve the quality of their work.

Create a retribution-free communication environment where people can tell the manager what she needs to hear without fear of retribution. In turn, the manager will be able to help her team distinguish problems that can be solved from those work realities that are outside of her control.

Understand the reasons why some employees cannot or will not meet job-related expectations and what the manager can do to close the performance gap.

Mike Cohen is a nationally recognized workshop leader and consultant specializing in leadership and team development, organizational communications, employee relations, conflict management and customer service. He has taught Interpersonal Communications, Group Process and Organizational Behavior at Northwestern, Roosevelt, and Dominican Universities, and conducts leadership effectiveness programs for organizations throughout the United States.

Mike served as Director of Employee Relations and Development and Vice President of Human Resources at Weiss Memorial Hospital, Chicago, for 12 years. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Communication Studies from Northwestern University. He is the author of numerous articles and four previous books, On-the-Job Survival Guide, What You Accept is What You Teach, The Power of Self Management, and Time to Lead.