Archive for the ‘Vision’ Category

“Why” and “Why Not”

November 16th, 2010

At the Build­ing Cham­pi­ons Expe­ri­ence in Sep­tem­ber there were many dis­cus­sions about find­ing our “why.”  In essence, what is our pur­pose, and is what we are doing each day as mean­ing­ful as it could be?

These are crit­i­cal and dif­fi­cult ques­tions to answer. How we think about them can uplift us, shape our atti­tude, guide our direc­tion, influ­ence the actions we take, and help us improve.

One of my col­leagues, Steve Scan­lon, pointed out that, “in life there is no such thing as stand­ing still; you are either mov­ing for­ward or back­ward.” If we think we can tread water in pur­suit of our goals, we are sadly mis­taken. The world around us will con­tinue to evolve and move for­ward, and if we are not advanc­ing toward our goal then we are falling behind.

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Think Big, Execute Small

May 17th, 2010

It’s impor­tant to dream big, to cre­ate a vision that causes you to reach for some­thing greater. But once that vision is cast, you need to take action if you’re ever going to see it fulfilled.

Too often, big pic­ture think­ing and strate­gies are trans­lated into projects that become too cum­ber­some and com­pli­cated to ever be com­pleted. Actions may be vague and unde­liv­er­able, or time­frames may be ill-defined.

When tack­ling large projects, break them down into man­age­able pieces, with a clear plan for account­abil­ity and mea­sur­ing results. Think in 100 day or quar­terly time­frames, and stay focused on get­ting these actions done on time. You’ll find that more gets accom­plished at less cost.

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The Forest and the Trees

April 5th, 2010

How many times have we heard the expres­sion “you can’t see the for­est for the trees?”

I have worked with man­agers, includ­ing chief exec­u­tives, who stug­gle to see the big pic­ture and keep con­sis­tent focus on their over­all goals and busi­ness strat­egy. They become so immersed in day-to-day oper­a­tions that they don’t take time to sit back and view the landscape.

Most man­agers like the details; it’s what they know best. But when they don’t mon­i­tor how indi­vid­ual actions are fit­ting into the accom­plish­ment of their over­all goals, they may lose sight of their strate­gic vision.

As with so many things in life, bal­ance is important.

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Begin With a Clear Vision

January 18th, 2010

VisionMost every­one knows that orga­ni­za­tions need a vision and mis­sion state­ment.  But for many, they are no more than words on paper, an annual strate­gic exer­cise that is done and then for­got­ten, or a slo­gan that no one oper­ates by.

Your vision must direct the way you run your busi­ness every day, all the time.  It is the key that will guide your strate­gic deci­sions and the spe­cific actions that fol­low.  It must be spe­cific, mean­ing­ful, and rep­re­sent a wor­thy pur­pose that you and your team can embrace and be pas­sion­ate about exe­cut­ing and achieving.

This applies to indi­vid­u­als, too. The objec­tive is to live an inten­tional life, accom­plish­ing what’s impor­tant to you.  If you can envi­sion where you want to go, then you can achieve it.

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