Using consensus building techniques to create a clear vision and mission that sticks
Melinda is CEO of Puchlik Design Associates, the award-winning architectural firm that specializes in Healthcare Institutions, Higher Education and Senior Living. The firm itself opened in Pasadena 60 years ago and was a founding member of the American College of Healthcare Architects.
Melinda recognizes the importance of having clear vision, mission, values goals and expectations company-wide. Equally important, she says, is clearly communicating and reinforcing these items to the entire team, not just the leaders.
A vision and mission the whole team believes in
Melinda saw an opportunity to inspire, motivate, and get everyone enthusiastic about what the firm does and why it's important, by coming together to create vision and mission statements everyone believes in. So she conducted a Vision and Mission workshop with the entire office. She started by spending a little time educating the group on what vision and mission statements are and why it's important to have them. She broke the big group into smaller groups to come up with a vision statement, each small group leader presented their groups ideas. Then they used the consensus building technique 1/3 +1 to vote on the preferred statement and did the same thing with their mission.
A workshop with lasting results
There was a lot of great dialogue during the workshop and the feedback Melinda has since received has been positive. She says that it was interesting to see how the breakout groups worked because some of the people involved don't typically work together - she feels it was good to mix it up.
Melinda has focused on ensuring that she and everyone else is living the vision and mission. She reinforces it and brings it up frequently and uses it as the basis for decisions. She is also planning to put together task groups to come up with strategies and action plans on things the team can do to achieve the vision. This will get the office involved, give them more ownership, improve morale, and hopefully produce innovative ideas that increase profits/cut costs and increase customer satisfaction.