CULTURE VISION and 5 (CLEAR) Steps to a Powerful Team
Do you want to finally reach a point of true sustainability, where you are thriving on an unimaginable level day after day, week after week, and are not impacted by any changes in the economy, politics, seasons, or storms?
When I first was asked to start consulting, I was perplexed. Yes, I had 5 clinics, 2 gyms, and owned much of the real estate so should’ve felt like I had a whole lot to share with others, but I did not know precisely why I had seen the success I had and what truly differentiated my business from somebody who wanted my help.
Then a man who has continued to be a teacher, coach, and mentor in my life, Dr. Mark Chironna, came into my office for care, and after he had started the program with his whole family and immediately asked me to speak at his church, I asked him: “OK, Dr. Chironna, what worked for you here? What did you experience that caused a famous, uber-intelligent, extremely busy man like you to drive 45 minutes each way, not use your insurance, walk in the door, trust in us, and choose me over many other options?” He responded immediately, “Culture vision.”
I asked, “What is culture vision?” He explained that everyone he met was “Mini-Me.” All the staff in our office embodied my enthusiasm for what we offered, used the same language, and had the same caring tone, he said. Each staff member possessed the same overall vision for what was delivered and a commitment to keep delivering it that permeated the atmosphere.
That was when I first realized that stability, growth, becoming, and remaining relevant and attractive to consumers started with my team embodying my mission.
At the time I was untrained as a leader, but I made up for it with an enormous mission and a clear vision for how we could save our community. The mission and the vision were infectious and ubiquitous. As I learned to manage larger and larger teams, employee engagement in the mission became reproducible and predictable. The mission requires an engaged team to be a success.
BIG people are not inspired by small vision – or small visionaries
In a desperate world getting only more desperate, your life and your business require a powerful, BIG mission to survive. Your mission should be so great that it is too BIG to ignore and too BIG to do on your own. Your team and your patients/customers/members/
“The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.”
—Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce
Successful leaders know that they influence others by intentionally empowering and equipping them with the required skills to develop. Leadership guru John Maxwell argues, “The one who influences others to follow only is a leader with certain limitations. The one who influences others to lead others is a leader without limitations.” A Bible scripture shares to “equip the followers until they reach maturity” Eph 4:7. Empowering or equipping others changes them from followers of the mission to leaders of the mission.
Here are 5 steps to CLARITY in developing and equipping a powerful team:
1. Clear roles and goals
I wrote my Master’s Thesis on corporate health. I discovered more than 100 studies revealing that when team members have a clear role, well-defined goals, and the resources to achieve them; they are most satisfied and engaged with work.
2. Clear opportunity
Your team is trusting you with their finances, career, and economic future. You need to consider what the opportunity to work for you really is, make it a great one, and continuously invest in the staff. They are your most important customer. The Leadership Challenge by Barry Z, Posner, James M. Kouzes, Patricia Renwick, and Edward Lawler III lists different factors that result in people motivation and excitement:
- The opportunities to do things that make people feel great about themselves
- The opportunities to accomplish things worthwhile
- The opportunities to learn new things
- The opportunities to develop new skills
- The opportunities to do things that you like
- The opportunities for economic and lifestyle growth in the future
3. Clear authority that is equal to responsibility.
A major complaint of team members is that their responsibilities don’t match their authority. Leaders need to trust those people they ask to do a certain job by allowing them to have the authority to perform the job. Once the authority is given, the leaders mustn’t interfere with the members or short-circuit the process. Authority should be increased when performance earns it.
4. Clear vision, mission, and code
Any rock-solid, quality organization with a stable future has:
- A vision-statement
- A mission-statement
- Written set of core values
Just like any ship without a rudder or plane without a navigational system has no effective way of staying on course or ever reaching their destination, if you do not have clarity in this area you are unlikely to thrive when there are high seas, storms, turbulence, chaos, and strong gusts of wind.
5. Clear on-boarding, training, and support to develop and sustain the skills necessary to achieve the vision and mission
I live near Disney World, one of the largest companies and most recognizable brands in the world. Rather than get thrust into a role when you are first hired, you go through an on-boarding process called “History and Traditions.” This is where you spend weeks immersed in the vision and mission of the Mouse and truly understand what it means to be a “Disney Cast-member” (not employee). From there, you go into a very well-designed training program to only be released to the public when you are proficient at the role.
Great leaders create even better on-boarding and training tools. The top organizations in the world have the world’s top manuals, training videos, and well-designed programs to support their employees on their way to mastering their position.
On the other hand, the very common, poor leader method is to bring on new people and throw them into a role without generating a passion for the mission, no manual, no videos, little training, and primarily asking them to learn by observation and osmosis.
Training is vital to the success of any team; therefore, make mentoring and training a priority. No team succeeds without training and practicing. A great leader doesn’t do the job alone, one has to mobilize and equip people for the organizational work.
A base training model for weekly meeting and trainings of process should be:
- I do it.
- I do it as you watch.
- You do it as I watch.
- You do it.
GO BIG – ON VISION AND MISSION!
You reap what you sow in leadership. A lack of clarity, a team off-mission, and with no well-defined vision leaves you susceptible to governments, economies, pandemics, and crisis. Thankfully, the solution resides within you as leaders to change and does not require the environment to improve – because it may not.
Have fun saving the world
Dr. Ben
