Aligning for success

Did you know that an average executive spends 23 hours a week in meetings? That’s nearly 50% of a work week gone in meetings.

Perhaps some of those are really important meetings where work happens, but it is safe to say that nearly one-third of these meetings fall into the boring, unproductive, wasteful category.

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But let’s face it, we cannot do away with meetings. Not all meetings are a waste of time. There are situations where meetings are perfect. When you want to launch a new initiative, or drive a new strategy to execution, meetings are a great way to align the team and make sure everyone is on the same page and ready to go. Especially in a post-pandemic online world, driving alignment within teams is all the more challenging. We no longer have access to the subtle non-verbal cues that you could pick up to see if the others understood what you are trying to say or not.

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What is v2mom?

I recently came across the V2MOM framework that was created by Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce. This is a simple framework that he effectively used at Salesforce to align his entire team around the company’s goals.

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V2MOM is an acronym that stands for:

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Vision - What is our goal? What do we want to achieve?

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Values - Why does it matter? What are the fundamental principles that will govern us?

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Methods - How will we achieve it? What steps should we take?

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Obstacles - What are the challenges that might impede progress? What are the problems we might encounter along the way?

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Measures - How will we measure our performance? What are the metrics we will track? How often? Who is responsible for measuring success?

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Marc Benioff wrote his first V2MOM salesforce on an American Express envelope when the company was initially founded and has used this simple but effective framework to align his entire team and collectively move in the same direction. Judging by how Salesforce has grown into a billion dollar company over the past 20 years, this is obviously an incredibly successful technique.

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The beauty of V2MOM framework lies in its simplicity and hence the higher chance of adoption. It is also a well-balanced framework and addresses all aspects that need to be considered. While V2MOM's has been popularly used to set quarterly and annual goals for a company, it can also be used to drive a new strategy or initiative. Why not write a V2MOM before convening a meeting to discuss a strategy? Wouldn’t this be a great way to get everyone on the same page and save precious minutes in meetings?

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At Kriyadocs, we have done just that. We have evolved the habit of writing a document (V2MOM template) for any new initiative that we want to launch. Prior to calling for a meeting to discuss any new initiative, a v2mom document has to be first circulated so that the participants in the meeting have an opportunity to understand and think about the topic and contribute to it. By storing the V2MOM as a shared document, we invite participants to add comments to it and keep updating it periodically thereby making it a living, breathing document. This simple and effective framework has helped us shave off several minutes off our strategy meetings.

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Get started with this V2MOM template for your team.

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If you want to read more about the V2MOM framework, here are some links that you might find useful:

1. V2MOM: Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, & Measures | Salesforce‍
2. How to use the V2MOM framework to align and inspire your B2B SaaS marketing team – Aaron Beashel

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Connect with us to know more about Kriyadocs

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