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Bonus Content: Mission Alignment

Interactive exercises for developing mission alignment with an employee.


Activity 1: Mission and Values Alignment

Objective: Identify your top 3 career aspirations for the next 3-5 years and learn how they align (or don't align) to your company's mission and values.

Part 1: Identify top 3 career aspirations

Imagine your career in 3-5 years write down your top three career-related goals.
  • What do you want to be doing?
  • Where do you want to be?
  • What are skills you want to grow?
  • To whom do you want to be connected?
  • What new experiences do you want to have?
 
Part 2: Align top 3 goals to your company's mission and values

Ask yourself the following questions about how/if your aspirations align to your company's mission and values.

Keep in mind that the objective isn't to have 100% alignment. It is to get clarity about how/if your goals align.

Write down:
  • Which goals align and how?
  • Which goals don't align and why/how?

Next steps: Use your top 3 goals in Activity #2 to inform how you'd like to incorporate them into your next tour.

 
Activity 2: Your Next Play

Objective: Identify ways you can incorporate your career aspirations into your next tour of duty.

The purpose of this activity is to begin thinking about what steps you can take to realize your goals. These ideas can inform what your next tour could look like. The purpose is not to write an entire tour. By identifying clear ways you can integrate your goals in your next play, you lay the foundation for designing a tour that meets your goals.

Brainstorm all possible ways you could realize each goal.

In Activity #1, you identified your top 3 career goal. Now brainstorm and write down all the ways that you can fulfill each goal.

Ask yourself the following questions to begin identifying things you can do and ways you can achieve each goal.
  • What steps do you need to take?
  • What does success look like?
  • What resources might you need?
  • Who could help?
  • What existing skills could you leverage?
  • Are there any smaller steps that could be taken now?
  • Are there any obstacles you'll need to address?


Example goal: Get product design experience and skills

Example next steps:
  • take a product design class
  • attend a product design conference
  • join a product design-related LinkedIn group
  • Observe a product team's design session
  • Job shadow a product designer
  • Consult with a product design expert or mentor

Next steps: Use the output of this activity to inform the conversation when designing a tour of duty.


- Join the conversation in The Alliance's LinkedIn group.


Articles of Note

How To Manage Your Employees' Happiness (Yes, You Can)
It's absolutely true that it's very difficult to get employees to trust you and open up if you haven't had a trust relationship in place already. . .Historically employees feel they have to be very guarded around their manager and the company in general.

The solution? Bring them out slowly. Share your own values and aspirations. Share something personal, even if it's merely who your favorite band is. And don't expect to learn anything the first several times you're speaking frankly. The truth is, most employees fear they're getting fired, whenever a leader wants to speak privately with them. That's why this type of trust-building takes time. It must be sincere and in-person. And it can't be done with an app.