Be Mean About the Vision: Preserving and Protecting What Matters

With this month’s focus on Planning the Future, a critical piece is Vision.  At work, we’ve focused a lot on understanding organization purpose and leveraged Simon Sinek’s famous TED Talk on “Start With Why.”

As Dr. Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research put it, “Casting vision is one thing, but vision without the ability to back it up ultimately becomes a pipe dream.”

Vision gathers people together for a common purpose so they might be focused on something greater than themselves.  Shawn Lovejoy has identified one of the biggest challenges any leader faces: how to gather people around a vision and stay true to that vision.

Click here for my summary of Lovejoy’s Be Mean About the Vision: Preserving and Protecting What Matters

Full Steam Ahead: Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life

This month’s focus is on planning the future.  A key success factor is having clarity of vision, as you plan for the future.  I like the approach Ken Blanchard outlined in his book Full Steam Ahead: Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life.

Patrick Lencioni, President of The Table Group and author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team penned the foreward to the book and noted that anyone who wants to create a transformation—in either one’s personal or professional life—will have to overcome the fear of rejection and can do so through the wonderfully powerful and simple lessons Blanchard outlines.

Lencioni explains, “In our work with organizations worldwide, we have observed that the biggest impediment to managers becoming great leaders is the lack of a clear vision:

  • Knowing who you are (Your Purpose);
  • Knowing where you’re going (Your Picture of the Future); and
  • What will guide your journey (Your Values).

In fact, less than 10 percent of the organizations we visited were led by managers who have a clear sense of where they are trying to lead people.”

Our world desperately needs visionary leaders.

Click here to learn how to become one