Getting started
Think of vision in terms of the execution pyramid
The way these ideas often come up when we talk about vision and strategy and the way we think of it at ResultMaps, is that it's really kind of a pyramid. If we look at this pyramid, we have a, a why, and a what at the top, we can use that information, the answers to the questions "what" and "why" to create a three-year vision. And that's what we're really going to focus on in these sessions to start off with. Once we have a three-year vision, now we can use it to get our one year goals and set our 90 day objectives - "rocks" or whatever terminology you want to use for the targets - that start to align day-to-day execution. So if we look at that a little more closely, this part of the pyramid should really be driving what happens today, what happens this week, and how we prioritize.
Tell a good story about your vision to save time and frustration
Now let's make sense of that, so that you're not going and having to explain every aspect of this to your people. It really comes down to how we tell the story. And the story can be told very simply because of our why and our what. So we're going to fill in those blanks so you can have the format "because we believe X, Y, Z. we're committed to building a world where A, B, and C are true" We'll look at how you set that up and to do that, this is what we see happening in the next three years, and I'm going to give you some specific tools to unpack that in a way everyone can understand. And that allows you to get your why, your what in a fairly simple and specific format. With that part of the story, we can now say, "and that means we have these three priorities for the year."
Vision provides priorities
I'm a big fan of three priorities for the year. You'll hear me say this over and over: "because of our why and what we have a vision for where we're going to be in three years. That means we need to hit these three priorities." These are our must-win battles, as my friend Rebecca Homkes likes to call them. So if we're going to win these big three battles, What do we need to do in the next 12 weeks?"
Vision guides every day focus
That is what's going to inform your day to day. That's what's going to allow you to keep your team focused and executing. The only way you get that though, the only way you really get that in an effective way is by having this information. Because now you can start to give people what they need to be productive, without micromanaging them or worrying that you have to be there every step of the way to push them back inside these boundaries.
Communicating vision is essential for leadership
The better we can get as leaders at telling the story in a way that's easy for people to take in. The more success we're going to have, the less stress we're going to have as leaders, and the better we can take ownership of the direction of everyone in our charge.
How vision integrates into your business operating rhythm
For my process oriented brothers and sisters that are integrators and operators, we're offer one other perspective using a flow chart. What does it look like as a flow chart? We've got our big vision out here to the left. That that leads us to our three year vision, then our one year goals, and we're able to break things down along this path. It works exactly the same as the pyramid it's just been laid out sequentially in case you need one more way to take it in visually. These are the same story balloons I had back on the, on the pyramid slide. This is what strategy execution is from vision all the way to strategy. And along the way we're creating very clear ways to communicate what success looks like, and we're able to see progress and measure it. This is the whole picture. What enables this whole picture is coming back to that vision. For our next session, our next module, We're going to start to look at what goes into creating this vision, and I'm super excited for you guys because this is such a powerful unlock for aligning your teams and driving better execution that just gets better and better and better as you go.