Leadership Blind Spot #11 Not Sharing the Vision with Those Who Have to Implement it
Martin Hill (mISP)
Sandler West Midlands | Empowering ambitious business leaders to grow their business | Leadership | Sales Performance | Associate Lecturer, University of Worcester | Global Strategy | International Operations | NED
This blind spot is not sharing the vision with those who have to implement it. You know we all have dirty little secrets, right? Well, the dirty little secret shouldn’t be the vision; It shouldn’t be where you want your company to go in three and five years; It shouldn’t be, “This is the way I want my department to look like.” It shouldn’t be, “This project is so important to our organisation.
Here’s what it needs. Here’s where it fits into the overall scheme.”
Those shouldn’t be dirty little secrets, and here’s the other thing that we fall prey to under this blind spot. “But I told you.” That is terrible. By you sending one email out two years ago explaining the vision on a one-year project, shame on you. You should be reinforcing this message by videos, by audios, by meetings, by having other people stand up and share what they were doing and why it’s important. The more you talk about it, the more it’s at the front of their mind. By not sharing the vision with those people who have to do the work they tend to forget. They become demotivated. They don’t know why they’re doing certain things. They’re not giving you 100% of their capabilities, their expertise, because they don’t know where it fits.
The greatest genius attacks that I’ve had in our organisation are from people that are doing some work way down here on the left. They say, “Do you know, have you thought about X, Y, and Z? Because that’s going to affect us if you’re doing this.” Bing, bing. Light bulb goes off. “Never thought about that,” but if we hadn’t shared the vision, we would have never known that. It would have cost me more time, more energy, and customers would have been unhappy. If you want the whole company to work on your vision, you must share it. You need that top to bottom and horizontal clarity of that vision. You have to reinforce it, and you have to make sure it goes from “you” to “we.”
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