Chapter 13
Faulty Vision
I've
got good news and bad. The bad news is that we're lost. The good news is that
we're making great time.
The point of this old saw is that
team talent, efficiency, intelligence, and clout are pretty doggone useless
unless the team has some clue where it is going and how it is to contribute to
the organization's overall strategies for success.
We're talking about vision here,
one of the most misunderstood and misapplied ideas making the rounds now.
Vision is not a "vision statement." It is not something created in
hindsight, or with an eye toward external consumption. It is not something you
pay consultants $450 per hour to create for you at a weekend retreat by a warm
fireplace and cash bar. It is not printed in bronze ink on a report to
shareholders or in a guarantee to customers. It is not really words at all. It
is a burning thought, and it exists solely in the heads (and hearts) of the
team.
The vision is the thing the team
exists to do, defined in ambitious form. It is the thing that leadership makes
happen. Without team vision, there is no point to a team.
Vision begins at the corporate
level, setting the course for the enterprise as a whole. With the help of
leadership it trickles down, uniting the subunits of the enterprise, helping
them figure out their role in the bigger picture.
The commonest vision problem
teams have is one that is fundamentally beyond their control: the team has a
vision, but the enterprise doesn't. It is a sad thing, but no amount of ambition,
intelligence, and hard work at the trench level can succeed if the vision of
the organization as a whole is a drag. "Returning the greatest possible
return on investment to our shareholders," is the best-known offender.
Vision is the offspring of
hunger. Companies that have succeeded in the past and that had a vision in the
past may think the old vision is still in effect. But in many cases it is gone,
rubbed clean by the passage of time, complacency in high places, and the high-gloss
buffing of corporate communications types.
It is not until a company hits
hard times, some rude awakening of the marketplace, that it learns it must have
a clue why it is in business. This is a perilous moment. Companies in peril,
sensing they need to stand for something, have a tendency to try to stand for a
lot of different things in rapid succession. The resulting wheel-spinning,
drum-beating, and horn-blowing can be devastating to that organization's teams.
They are like fish in a blender, doing their best against woeful odds.
Having a clearly communicated
vision, on the other hand, allows employees and team members to measure their
values and behaviors against a company standard. If there is a value clash,
people are free to either modify their values or leave. Teams are better off
that some people leave -- not that they are deadwood, but because their
resistance to the vision of the team had to have a drag on productivity and
morale.
Pitfalls of communicating the vision
It is the role of corporate
leadership to excite senior management about the corporate vision. It is the
role of the team leader or leaders to keep the vision alive at the team level.
It is a slippery task.
It requires communication, but it
requires more than that. It requires exhortation, a little (a little
exhortation goes a long way). It requires nagging, in a way -- badgering people
with the vision a dozen times a day, keeping it in their face, whatever is
necessary to keep that idea obvious and upfront for everyone.
More than these things, it is
magic: taking an idea that is in your head and subtly and artfully remaking it
in every head on the team. Like the sower and the seed, the leader plants and
nourishes the idea, keeps it alive, and allows team members to understand, each
one in his or her own way, why it is advantageous, desirable, and achievable.
Team leaders can easily fail in this magical task. Here are some of the
standard pitfalls:
ƒ Assigning. Too often, leaders seek to
"assign" the vision. This is what it is, they say. Here are
descriptions. Memorize and replicate! It's not a bad way to spread the word,
provided everyone on the team is a clone of the leader.
ƒ Dullness. Leaders whose pilot lights
have blown out are not likely to light many fires under team members. Vision is
a "must" -- emotion is a natural part of creating and communicating
it. This is not something leaders can turn on or off, like hydraulic fluid. It
must be genuine.
ƒ Waffling. Leaders cannot experiment,
explaining the idea one way to one subgroup and another way to another
subgroup. Leaders cannot learn the vision as they preach it. If it is some sort
of moving, evolving target, everyone will miss it.
ƒ Selling. Another failure is when the
leader, often charged up by some consultant or author, tries to replicate the
process with himself or herself playing the role of consultant, essentially
"selling" the idea to others. It's a bad role, because it positions
the leader as outsider. Better to use the natural leverage of a trusted
insider, and to hold off on the soft soap.
ƒ Non-aligning. The proper way to spread
a vision is to work with people as individuals to bring their wants and needs
into alignment with the team vision. Treat everyone equally. No arm-twisting,
wheedling, or cajolery. Show people the respect they deserve as adults and as
members of your team, and they will treat your idea with the same respect. You
cannot own it for them; they must come to own the idea ... on their own.
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