Session 8 – 4 Things Every Leader Needs When Creating Vision

 Action Steps

1. Share these four concepts with somebody.

• Clarity
• Courage
• Commitment
• Confidence

2. Tell us about your experience in the Guidestone University Leader Community page on Facebook.

Post your response to this question in the GU Leader Community by clicking here. Share one of your new Actions and ask for feedback.

Session Transcript

Welcome back to Guidestone University. In this new session, we’re going to be talking about four things every leader needs when creating vision. I want you to take just a second, watch this video real quick.

Donkey: Alright, hit it! Move ’em on! Head ’em up! Head ’em up, move ’em on! Head ’em on! Move ‘em down, rawhide! Move ’em on! Head ’em up! Head ‘em up! Move ’em on! Move ’em on! Head ’em up! Rawhide! Ride ’em up! Move ’em on! Head ’em up! Head ‘em up! Move ’em on! Rawhide! Knock ’em out! Pound ’em dead! Make ’em tea! Buy ’em drinks! Meet their mamas! Milk ’em hard! Rawhide! Yee-haw!

Donkey: Are we there yet?

Shrek: No.

Donkey: Are we there yet?

Fiona: Not yet.

Donkey: Okay, are we there yet?

Fiona: No.

Donkey: Are we there yet?

Shrek: No!

Donkey: Are we there yet?

Shrek: Yes.

Donkey: Really?

Shrek: No!

Donkey: Are we there yet?

Fiona: No!

Donkey: Are we there yet?

Shrek: No, we are not!

Donkey: Are we there yet?

Shrek & Fiona: No!

Donkey: Are we there yet?

Shrek: [mimics]

Donkey: Hey that’s not funny.

Shrek: [mimics]

Donkey: That’s really immature.

Shrek: [mimics]

Donkey: See, this is why nobody likes ogres!

Shrek: [mimics]

Donkey: All right, your loss!

Shrek: [mimics]

Donkey: I’m going to just stop talking!

Shrek: Finally!

Donkey: But this is taking forever, Shrek. It ain’t no in-flight movie or nothing!

Shrek: The Kingdom of Far Far Away, Donkey. That’s where we’re going. Far far away.

Donkey: All right! All right! I get it. I’m just so darn bored.

Shrek: Well, find a way to entertain yourself.

Donkey: [sigh][deep sigh][popping]

Shrek & Fiona: [exasperated sigh]

Shrek: For five minutes, could you not be yourself? For five minutes!

Donkey: [popping]

Shrek: Ugh! Are we there yet?

Fiona: Yes!

So, our team members spend a lot of time like the donkey, right? Are we there yet? Maybe we spend time thinking about, “When are we ever going to get there?” We’re thinking, “Is the team there yet? Are we done with the vision, are we done with this initiative, or have we sealed the deal with this new company yet? Have we received the donation or have we stopped losing money yet?” We’ve got all these things that we’re focused on.

The longer we live, the more we realize that our life and our work is this long journey, and, yet there are times when we also feel like our life is all about this — like it’s just loading, we’re just waiting for it to load. Sometimes, we feel like we have to figure it all out before we move forward.

I remember my first truck, it looked something like this — this picture here. When I drove down the road, the sides of the bed of the truck — it was all rusted out, it was so rusted out the sides of the bed of the truck — would flap in the wind when I would drive down the road. The point is, I made a lot of money with that truck. I used it to run a landscape company, run a lawn maintenance company through high school and into college, and through college I paid my way through college. While that thing looked terrible at times, I would even spray paint the sides of it, I would spray paint the rims, I would try to get it looking as good as I could, but it still looked like a piece of junk at times. Again, the point is that we don’t have to have everything fixed or have the best of everything in order to make progress with vision.

You don’t have to know everything that’s ahead. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to have the best of everything.

Here’s what you do need: four things that every leader needs when creating vision. In fact, these four things you can use nearly every time you want to communicate vision, communicate a significant training, significant mind-shift for your organization or for your people. These four things are super helpful. The basis for these things I’ve first heard from Mike Hyatt when he was doing a presentation for the Platform Conference, and I think they’ll be super valuable to you. We’ve revised them a little bit but I think these things would be super valuable to you.

Number one: Clarity. Each of us need to get crystal clear about how we can accelerate results. If we’re going to create vision, bold compelling vision, vision that people had the opportunity and the desire to buy in to and to champion with us and for us, we’ve got to get crystal clear about how we can accelerate results. Every word of that is really important. We do need to get clarity because clarity allows us to get movement. We need clarity that leads us to results. See, if we just have clarity but we’re not making progress, we’re not getting results, it’s going to frustrate us, it’s going to frustrate people working with us and for us, it’s going to not move us toward our vision and to our goals as an organization or as a team or as individuals. Getting clarity, getting crystal clear about how we can accelerate results is critically important to developing vision.

Number two: Courage. Number one, clarity. Number two, courage. Courage to act on what you learn, what we’re going to learn as we go forward as we create vision, and what we already know to do. Courage. Again, the courage to act on what we already know to do and what we’re going to learn as we go forward. Many people — you share something with them they say, “Ah, man, I knew that! I knew that’s something that I needed to do,” and yet we don’t do it or yet were not doing it. Many times the courage is to actually do something that we already know to do, or to be reminded of something that we already know to do but we’re not doing. The courage to act on what we know, and then number two as we go forward, as we create and develop vision, as we collaboratively work together to create vision, we have the courage or we need the courage to act on what we’re going to learn in the process. Number one, clarity. Number two, courage.

Number three: the commitment to stick with it long enough to get to real momentum. This is important, especially for leaders. See, with many leaders — and I’ve been guilty of this myself — we are committed, we come up with this huge vision, or as we’re developing vision we get excited about it, we get committed to it, we start communicating it, we publish it in writing, we put it online, we send it out in emails, we communicate it, we start moving forward, we start making progress, and when we do — of course, moving part to create friction, we know that’s true — people begin providing feedback. Often, it’s unsolicited, and then there are times it is solicited.

They start providing feedback and then it becomes negative and people are wondering what in the world is going on and how come we’re changing things. Then we start thinking; did we misinterpret things, are we going in the wrong direction? We start pushing the pause button, we start unplugging things, we start ripping the rug out from under things, and before you know it, the excitement is gone; before you know it, what we’re doing is no longer compelling or fulfilling, because we lost sight of the vision.

It’s so critically important for leaders to make the commitment, and to lead their teams and their organizations to make a commitment to stick with it long enough to get to real momentum. Once we reach momentum, then we can say, “Okay. We’re moving forward pretty fast. Is this really the direction that we wanted to go, is this really where we want to be?” Then it’s easier to make tweaks when you’re at momentum.

Many of us are old enough to have driven a car or a vehicle, maybe a golf cart or a construction vehicle, some type of vehicle that did not have power steering. It is almost impossible to turn the wheel of the car or turn the wheel of a vehicle while it was sitting still, especially, when it wasn’t turned on or moving. But, when the vehicle got moving, it becomes significantly — especially when the vehicle is moving fast — it’s significantly easier, almost without effort, you can turn the wheel. You can steer it in the direction that you want to go.

The same thing is true with momentum. If we make a commitment to stick with it long enough to get to momentum, when we have movement and we have momentum, it’s a whole lot easier to make course corrections when we need to. Rather than as we’re working through the chaos, working toward momentum, we start pulling things off, and we start getting frustrated and then frustrating our teams and organizations. Commitment to stick with it long enough to get real momentum.

Number four: the confidence to know that the direction that we’re headed in is the right direction. Again, we’re talking about four things that every leader needs when creating vision. Many times, we want to know everything. Confidence doesn’t require us to know everything. It just requires us to know what we already know. We think that confidence means that we have to know everything about where we’re headed, and everything about where we’re going. Confidence really has more to do with what we know about what we already know, and then being confident to at least take a step and to continue taking steps to creating vision and then to implementing vision and to communicate vision.

Four things every leader needs when creating vision: Clarity, getting crystal clear about how we can accelerate results. Number two courage, to act on what we already know and what we’re going to learn through the process. Number three, a commitment to stick with it long enough to get to real momentum. And then number four, the confidence to know that the direction that we’re headed in is the right direction.

These four concepts when you get a hold of them and you make them a part of how you share vision, and how you communicate with your team and your people, these four concepts can revolutionize your work, your teamwork, your organization, how you view the future.

Action Steps

Take the opportunity today to share them with somebody. Pick up the phone, call a peer, call a friend, call a coach or a mentor. Share these four concepts with them. Share with someone on your team, share them with someone in your family, and share these four concepts, walk through the four concepts with them, just like I did with you.

Tell us about your experience by going to the Guidestone University Facebook Community, briefly explaining your experience sharing these with someone else.

So, take a look at these things, review them.

We’ll see you here in the next session of Guidestone University.[/text_block]