You are much more powerful as a company if everyone is pushing in the same direction. The first step in defining your Core Ideology is setting up a meeting with company leaders who don’t all think alike but who respect one another’s opinion. Then navigate through this detailed process:
First, you have to define the terms. This is what we decided at Gainesville Health and Fitness — VISION defines who we are at our highest level; MISSION determines what we need to do to get there; CORE PURPOSE defines why we exist; CULTURE is how we do things; and CORE VALUES are the guidelines that forever determine the rules we play by. All together we wanted to describe the impact we wanted our company to make on our world. We were willing to make the emotional commitment it would take to get us there.
Now, ask the questions, “What is the highest level of performance we can imagine attaining? What is the value of our work to our community? What will the story of our company be 10 years from now?” One way to determine the future is to write it. Ask everyone to imagine it’s 10 years from today and a national magazine is writing a major story about our company. Then ask them to write the lead paragraph for the article, and make sure it captures the readers’ attention about the special things that have taken place. Go through the stories and write down the major themes. The vision will start becoming clear. Once the vision is in place, you can move toward defining everything else.
GHF Vision: To become known as one of the best companies for the world.
GHF Mission: To make Gainesville the healthiest community in America, one person at a time, one business at a time.
GHF Core Purpose: To create an experience that helps people get the most out of life and inspire them to become their best.
If you do this with your company it’s important to understand that if there’s a small gap between where you are and where your staff wants to go, it shows very low energy. If there’s a large gap between the two, it shows your company really does have some energy.
Shawn Stewart is the Operations Manager at Gainesville Health and Fitness Center. Contact him at shawns@ghfc.com
