It’s no secret that aligning personal goals with business goals is a crucial step for business owners to create harmony between their professional and non-professional lives – but how does this process work when your ownership team includes diverse people with very different lives?
In our experience, it works in exactly the same way.
While there are certainly challenges to overcome and differing perspectives to consider when leading a company with multiple partners, this is the process we used to align three unique sets of personal goals into one cohesive business vision.
Focus on commonalities
Whether you draw out a Venn diagram or just do it in your head, finding common ground when looking at a varied set of personal goals is as simple as identifying the shared underlying value that relates to unshared personal goals.
As this shared value is what drives each personal goal, it can then be aligned with business goals to harmonize with our full ownership team.
Here are a couple examples:
We are all at different life stages, with different hobbies, and different long-term goals – but by focusing on values, we have been able to make major business decisions that work for the company and all three of our personal goals.
- Switch to a more flexible time off policy
- Invest in technology to enable remote/hybrid work
- Emphasize future firm valuation when mapping out strategic initiatives
- Develop systems to better support our team to work autonomously
And the more work we have put into finding where our personal wants and needs intersect, the easier our decision-making process has become – because as a business owner, every decision you make impacts both your company and your personal life.
We no longer have to guess what our partners need, because we’ve taken the time and effort to determine and document where we align.
Identify specific ways our business supports our personal ideals
One of the driving forces that compelled us to merge Accountability Services with Boulder Valley CPAs was our shared passion for helping business owners succeed. That’s not just a cliché or marketing speak. We really do love making a powerful impact on clients’ businesses – and ultimately on people’s lives.
And on the lives of our incredible team, too.
But how we make that impact is a little different for each of us.
By pinpointing the type of guidance we each enjoy sharing, we are better able to divide our work in a way that allows each of us to maximize not only our skills and efficiency, but our daily enjoyment of what we do.
Create a unified vision
A map only has usefulness when it’s printed on a piece of paper (or displayed on a screen).
And so, the above exercises are for naught if you don’t take the time to write a business plan that ties it all together.
With this unified vision in hand, putting in the work and ensuring we’re all paddling in the same direction is easy.
Of course, this plan must be revisited on an annual basis – but a yearly realignment is an incredibly small ask compared to trudging tirelessly through persistent misalignment.
Personal goal alignment is a foundation of company culture
Before going through this exercise, we often found ourselves falling into the trap of making business decisions based on dollars at the expense of cultural alignment. Fortunately, we knew that bonding over this type of dialog with a prospective partner was the right move prior to merging our firms – and today, we credit the “better together” culture and synergy we have as a combined team to these efforts – so much so, that we continually revisit the exercise to ensure that nothing has changed.
Bringing in a new partner and team will never be smooth sailing, but an overlap in what we each really want out of the business vehicle helps us stay in directional alignment.
Get along and get ahead
Alignment of our personal and business goals has brought benefits beyond a strong personal bond within our leadership team. It’s led to deeper meaning and satisfaction in our work and a shared willingness to make necessary sacrifices, contributing to long-term sustainability, a strengthening of our vision, and clarity for the path forward.
Reduced conflict between personal and professional priorities has fostered stronger relationships. With each other, and the loved ones within each of our separate lives.
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Accountability Services’ Behind the Puzzle series shares honest thoughts and stories from our own business journey. Like you, we have a vision for our company that goes beyond turning a profit – and like yours, our path to success has been lined with obstacles and triumphs, frustration and joy, problems and solutions. As our team works to solve our own business puzzle, we hope this candid look behind the scenes provides useful insights to help you solve yours.
