UBA064 - Small team, big vision.
Meaningful impact within the framework of global corporations.
A few weeks ago, a friend reached out for some advice. He holds a senior position in a global corporation, managing a large team and although he shares my belief in the power of purpose and values, he feels distant from the decisions that shape the wider organisation. Unable to influence the broader direction or make meaningful changes outside his immediate sphere of control, he wanted to understand how he can bring this thinking into his team’s work with a ‘balanced’ level of disruption - connected to the wider organisation while retaining team ownership.
In large organisations, it can be hard to affect change in this way. For leaders in these environments, it’s often a question of how to create purpose and alignment within a small team when the larger framework is already decided for you. The global directives are set, the corporate values are written and the mission is non-negotiable. But within those boundaries, there really is room for leaders to make an impact and cultivate a unique identity within their teams.
Many clients I’ve worked with have faced similar challenges, fighting to create great work despite broader organisational limitations. They have a clear vision for how the overall organisation could be improved but recognise they are just one piece of the puzzle. So how can leaders in large organisations work within the constraints of the corporate framework to empower their teams, especially when working with trusted partners outside of the organisation. How can we use purpose-driven thinking while also aligning with global directives?
Global vs local
One of the most challenging aspects of leading a team within a large organisation is the tension between adhering to global directives and fostering a unique team culture. For many leaders, it can feel like they’re constantly walking a tightrope: on one side, they’re expected to align with the company’s overarching values and mission; on the other, their team has its own personality, needs and dynamics that often require a more localised approach.
In large organisations, global values and directives serve as the overarching framework. These global variables - such as mission statements and corporate values - are typically non-negotiable, designed to provide consistency and alignment across the entire organisation. While this framework ensures a unified direction, it can feel distant or rigid to smaller teams who must work within its constraints.
However, leaders can still find local flexibility within this structure. By interpreting and adapting these global values in ways that resonate with their specific team, they can make them more actionable. For example, if the company’s global value is “innovation,” it may seem abstract, but leaders can translate this into something meaningful for their team’s daily work, such as improving processes or encouraging creative problem-solving.
Contextualising global values
The key is to adapt global values by contextualising them - translating high-level, company-wide principles into something tangible that resonates with the team’s work and culture.
A first step can be to make global values practical by relating them directly to your team’s work - whether that means streamlining processes for an operations team or creative problem-solving for sales.
Engage the Team: Values come to life when the team feels connected to them. Create space for open discussion, allowing your team to reflect on how these values show up in their work.
Keep Values Visible: Reinforce the importance of values by keeping them front of mind. Visual cues, regular mentions in meetings or creating a simple team charter based on the values can embed them in the team’s culture.
Relate it to your team’s work: A sales team may express “innovation” through creative problem-solving for clients, while an operations team might focus on refining efficiency. The goal is to align the global values with what your team actually does.
Make them actionable: For example, if “innovation” is a core value, define what that looks like for your team. It might not be groundbreaking inventions but small improvements to daily processes or new ways of collaborating.
Evolve with the team: As the team grows and changes, periodically revisit these values. Reflect on whether they still align with the team’s needs and adjust how you apply them if necessary.
Crafting a team vision
Even with a fixed corporate mission, teams can craft their own vision - a direction that reflects the team’s values, goals and personality. This vision can complement the global mission, rather than necessarily subverting it.
Building a Vision That Resonates
Creating a team vision is about distilling the company’s broader goals into something inspiring for your specific group. The team’s vision should answer 2 simple questions:
What do we want to achieve?
Does this align with the company’s goals?
By narrowing the focus, the team can define its purpose and create a sense of ownership over their direction.
Grounding the vision in values
A strong team vision stems from shared values. While the company may dictate certain values, your team can emphasise the ones that resonate most with them. For example, if the company values innovation, your team’s vision might centre around how they’ll bring that innovation to life in their specific projects or processes.
Collaborating on vision
A team vision is most powerful when it’s co-created. Leaders should engage the team in developing the vision, encouraging input and discussion. This collaborative process ensures that the vision feels real and relevant to every team member, making it easier for them to commit to it, and feel ownership.
Connecting vision to action
Once the vision is set, it must be actionable. It should influence how your team operates, how decisions are made, and how success is measured. A vision that only exists on paper doesn’t drive real change. Embedding it into daily practices and meetings can be really meaningful but sometimes vision can feel distant from day-to-day actions. Implementing a strategic framework (e.g. OKRs) can be the necessary bridge to bring vision into the action layer.
Shaping the wider organisation
One of the most overlooked opportunities in large organisations is the ability of smaller teams to influence broader change. While top-down directives typically shape the company’s overall direction, successful, purpose-driven teams can become examples that inspire shifts across the whole organisation. By thriving within the framework, smaller teams can model best practices, lead by example and subtly reshape how the larger organisation interprets its own mission and values. One thing I’m sure we all recognise from our day-to-day work is that smaller teams can be faster, more agile and more experimental on behalf of the wider organisation - so lets not slow down to match the pace of a wider organisation’s evolutions.
Teams as models of success
A purpose-driven team that is aligned, engaged and high-performing doesn’t go unnoticed. Often, when smaller teams innovate, their success becomes an internal case study. These teams demonstrate that it’s possible to thrive without deviating (too far) from the company’s core mission, while still maintaining a unique vision and culture.
As a leader, it’s crucial to showcase these successes both internally and externally. Team results - whether it’s through improved performance metrics, employee engagement or creative problem-solving - can inspire other departments and influence leadership decisions. This influence becomes even stronger when supported by external consultants or agencies, who bring fresh perspectives and help frame these internal successes for communication within a wider context.
External influence
When a team proves that adapting the global mission locally can lead to success, it can serve as a blueprint for scalable change across the organisation. Leaders within these teams can present their methods to higher-level decision-makers, demonstrating how their approach - whether it’s in communication, values alignment, or process improvements - can be applied on a larger scale.
External consultants bring fresh expertise from their work with various organisations. They can articulate the new methods, bringing new language and engaging visualisations to support the communication of these changes internally. By working in partnership with these external experts, teams can refine their strategies and build stronger cases for why certain methods should be adopted company-wide.
Feedback loops
Strong feedback loops are key to bottom-up influence. It’s important to show how local successes align with the global mission and highlight areas where the team’s unique vision or approach has positively impacted both performance and culture.
Conclusion
In large organisations, it’s easy for team leaders to feel limited by global directives and corporate structures. But the truth is, even within those constraints, teams can create their own identity, shape a unique vision and ultimately influence the broader company. By contextualising global values, crafting a localised team vision and leading by example, teams have the power to drive meaningful change from the ground up.
While top-down decisions set the foundation, it’s the innovative, purpose-driven teams that often spark real evolution within a company. Through small wins, adaptive strategies and successful alignment with the global mission, these teams become models of success.
At the heart of it all, leaders have the ability to empower their teams, not just to thrive within the corporate structure but to influence how the organisation itself grows and evolves.
Written by Russell