Where are we going?

One of the stories that the CEO and all leaders in any organization must constantly share with the team at every given opportunity is the "where are we going" story.

This is the story that embodies what the organization is aiming to do and how it is going to do it. It is like your battle plan or what we call a strategic plan in management consulting.

Your strategy must be translated into a simple narrative for everyone in the organization to respond to, both on an emotional, intellectual, conceptual, and action level.

It must be that simple! Forget that 50-page strategy document. You don't need it.

So, last week, I had the pleasure to facilitate a Strategic Planning Retreat and work with the team at NOLT Finance- a rising fintech startup here in Lagos, Nigeria.

During the visioning session, I showed the video of President John Kennedy’s "We choose to go to the moon" 1962 speech at Rice University Stadium in Houston, Texas. If you have listened to this speech, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZyRbnpGyzQ JFK’s lofty aspirations were reduced down to one single goal:

Land a man on the moon and bring him back safely

Records suggest that there's a widespread feeling among NASA employees during the 1960s that they were all working toward the same lofty goal of helping the US to reach the moon, no matter their individual job. In fact, there is a famous story I read about President John F. Kennedy’s first visit to NASA’s headquarters back in 1961. During his visit to the NASA space center, as the story goes, President John F. Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and asked: “What are you doing?” “Well, Mr. President,” the janitor responded, “I’m helping to put a man on the moon.”

Having worked with leaders, what I often see is that most leaders assume that employees must make a connection between their daily work and the organization’s overarching purpose on their own. No sir! It’s the leader’s job to do this and must be done constantly!

What I have seen is that when an individual’s day-to-day activities are marked by a deep sense of significance, that individual is poised not only to thrive but to weather the most daunting elements of employment, including challenging tasks, low wages, and stigmatized work. Likewise, when people's day-to-day activities are meaningless that is one of the primary reasons for employee disengagement from their work.

As a leader, even if your organization doesn't have a NASA-style mission, you must communicate to employees the stepping stones that connect their work to the overarching vision of the organization in simple narratives and not in that grand style strategy document.

Adedoyin Adebayo is the Managing Consultant at Insel Consulting