A vision achieved but not as I expected

For anyone who has worked with wattsnext or has heard me speak will know how important I think it is for every business to have a clear vision.  A vision in my view, is a goal/s the company wants to achieve in the future. At the time it is set it is usually ambitious, sometimes even unrealistic to others, but is what the Founder would like to see the business become one day in the future.

10 years ago when I set the vision for wattsnext from my spare bedroom, there were 3 elements to that vision.  It was to be internationally recognised and respected, for changing the way business utilize HR, whilst inspiring and developing our people.

When I set this what I envisaged ‘being internationally recognised and respected’ to be was mostly around ‘offices’, physical locations, reception areas with our name above them as you walked in.  Because at that time the only way to have an international footprint or influence was on the ground.

However as I write this today I can say that we have achieved that vision, we are global HR influencers that are recognized and respected across the world in our field BUT we only have 2 offices and neither of them are outside of Australia.

So how are we doing this?

Over the past 3-4 years wattsnext has focused intensely on being leaders in today’s workplace, not only in the space of HR and the future of work, but in how we as a business grow and meet our goals.

We made the decision to take the risk and invest heavily in two key areas – building a digital presence and consistent global education.  Where this has lead surprises me every day.

Many of you will know we have strong KPI’s internally where every member of our team are responsible for digital marketing.  Yes, our staff have to be on social media as part of their job description.  What this has led to has been invitations to be global influencers and speak at international conferences (not just me, my team also), write for leading global publications, participate in intimate leadership gatherings, meet heads of HR departments of some of our most well-known leading organizations and ultimately positioned us to secure clients that we want to work with, those that are focused predominantly on fast growth and innovation who are open to move with the times.

We believe that it is imperative to our clients that we are at the forefront of HR because there is such rapid change happening in our workplaces, (especially in the areas of multi generations, the gig economy, and diversity).  So I am now spending even more time overseas meeting with leaders to enhance that global education and keep our clients at the forefront of workplace success.  This is possible because we embraced digital media and started thinking globally, not just locally.  We did this without having costly bricks and mortar everywhere.  Our international ‘expansion’ occurred without what was once the only option.

I truly believe we have never lived in a better time to be in business.  We are a 24/7 global community where we can easily access anyone, anywhere, anytime and this means that we can be leaders, not only leading our state but leading our industries across the globe.

How often do you review your vision and check your progress? Make sure that just because you are not following the path you once thought, that you think you have to change that vision. There just may be another path to get there which could be even more exciting and enjoyable.