Reverb Consulting

The purpose of a compelling vision statement is to inspire and guide in a cohesive way the actions of a group. Once a vision statement has been decided (an intentional, intensive process), it is paramount that it be communicated in a consistent and effective manner. The goal is for the vision to take root and take hold within the organization, and to be known and confirmed by your users’ experiences as they experience your organization. Additional happy users can become your best marketers and must be able to communicate your vision consistently and effectively.

This blog entry from The Practice of Leadership blog lists communication tactics that leaders can use to communicate their vision. It would be hard to improve upon their list:

• Stories. When you tell a good story, you give life to a vision. The telling of stories creates trust, captures hearts and minds, and serves as a reminder of the vision.
• The elevator speech. Every leader needs to be able to communicate the vision in a clear, brief way. What compelling vision can you describe in the amount of time you have during a typical elevator ride?
• Multiple media. The more channels of communication you use, the better your chance of creating an organization that “gets” the vision. Use the newest communication technologies, but don’t forget the tangibles: coffee mugs, t-shirts, luggage tags and whatever else you can think of that will keep the message in circulation.
• Talk to me. Individualize the vision by engaging others in one-on-one conversations. Personal connections give leaders opportunities to transmit information, receive feedback, build support and create energy around the vision.
• Draw a crowd. Identify key players, communicators, stakeholders and supporters throughout the organization who will motivate others to reflect on and be engaged with the vision.
• Go outside. Communicate to external customers, partners and vendors with advertising and public relations campaigns, catalogs, announcements and other statements.
• Make memories. Create metaphors, figures of speech and slogans — and find creative ways to use them. Write a theme song or a memorable motto.
• Guide the expedition. Use visual aids and updates to keep everyone aware of the progress you are making toward your vision.
• Back it up. If you’re talking it up, be sure to back it up with actions and behaviors. If people see one thing and hear another, your credibility is shot and your vision is dead.

“Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them.”
– Dr. Ralph Gerard

Dr. Ralph Gerard was devoted to scientific inquiry his whole life. Gerard had a mighty mind and terrific energy that he used to continually ask and answer questions of scientific inquiry. Gerard epitomized creativity. He used his imagination to envision new questions. And, new questions always lead to new answers.

I recently facilitated a visioning session for the American Choral Directors Association in Oklahoma City. Their leaders from all fifty states gathered to discuss the future. I led them through a day-long imaginative process not to find answers, but to discover new questions to ask. It takes courage and creativity to discover what the new questions that will guide your thinking should be. The leaders of ACDA showed tremendous imagination and courage and enthusiasm.

I always start this process by helping groups develop their external awareness, within their industry and within the culture at large. Organizations must be internally focused with budgets, projections, and personnel issues, but it is imperative that they are also externally aware. This process requires you to hold the vision and the strategic tactics and details in your minds and your decision-making all at the same time. It is a new demand upon our well-worn skill sets, but this synthesizing skill, or as I described it to the choral directors, the skill of symphony, is one that can be cultivated.

Once you have the right questions, the answers come. Using our well-practiced skills of logic and pragmatic reasoning, the answers come more easily than you think initially once the right questions are excavated.

One of my favorite questions to ponder comes from Ram Charan, one of the great business thinkers of our time . It sounds like an innocent, throw-away question on one level, as if the questioner just wants you to assert your self-confidence, to re-sell the expertise that got you where you are. But, I think it is really a profound question because of the reflective work one most do to give this question an honest answer.

The question is: Would they hire you for your job today?

Here’s how I parse this question. First, they — you must really understand to whom you are accountable. When you are at the top leading an organization, sometimes to whom you are accountable is not an ever-present consideration. Instead, you dwell more often in the mental space that says I am the boss and everyone answers to me. But, even the Boss answers to someone, be it the board or the shareholders or the customers or the marketplace. We all act differently when we are closely attuned to exactly what others expect of us. Being beholden to the people that hire you and their expectations is a great beacon.

The second big part of this question is your job today. So often, once we get a job and start doing it, we lose touch with how the goals of the job are constantly changing because the target moves. Once we learn the routine and the job speak, we do it and keep doing it, and we take our eye off the big picture, which is the relationship of your job to the whole. We focus on the day-to-day when the needs of the future (the target) are being re-defined as each day passes. In doing our job, we can become protectors of the status quo instead of dynamic responders to the needs of the economic environment in which we work.

The third component of this question is you — or, do I have what it takes to do the job at hand? If you are out of touch with what the job at hand is, then you don’t really ever ask the part about you. Thus, another elusive layer to this question. But, suppose you are able to render a frank and honest assessment of the job at hand, what power in asking yourself do I have what it takes to deliver! And, if you ask this of yourself all the time, what motivation to keep current, to grab every opportunity to learn and refine your skills, to risk your mettle on that reach project or assignment — because it makes you the most competitively and comparatively qualified for the job! If you do not ask yourself this question often, what risks are you inviting?

Can you give a thoughtful, honest answer to this question, whether it is yes or no?

Questioning is powerful. It is subversive, bold, and not always welcome. In years of working with business leaders, I have found the simple question why? to be an effective tool to fetter out assumptions and beliefs that need to be challenged, re-considered, dispelled, or retired. I am amazed by the number of times when asked why he/she did something in a certain way, I am told the person before me did it this way or it’s just the way it is done around here, or simply, I don’t know, I never thought about it. For me, this is a huge red flag because it tells that the person-in-charge has not thought for himself and does not really take ownership of what is being done. That person-in-charge is a disengaged, not-reflective conduit, more of a manager than a leader.

A leader is reflective. A leader is hyper-aware of what she is doing and how she came to make the decision that she made. A leader is aware of all of the perspectives that he has considered in reaching a plan. A leader uses the power of questioning to reach full, expansive decisions that are as void as possible of faulty assumptions and myopic thinking. A good leader uses the power of questioning to push himself and his team to new heights. A good leader welcomes being questioned because it creates space for reflecting, re-grouping, and re-committing oneself to a course of action.

Notice the questions being asked around you, of you, out of your earshot. Do they question authority? Do they question outcomes? Do they question assumptions and priorities? Do they question process? Notice what questions are there but not voiced. Notice who questions after the decision is rendered. Notice who never questions. Notice who is defensive upon being questioned, and who welcomes a question. Notice how elucidating noticing is. Why does your group behave like this? What is lost due to lack of questioning? What would be possible if everyone valued questioning?