In a meeting last week with one of my Platinum clients, Brian, reviewing the goals he had achieved since we began work in January, he shared an "Ah Ha!" he's had.
"Linda, when you kept steering me to simplify my Vision, I didn't want to hear it. I wasn't ready to. But, wow! Once I heard you, once I followed your process and created that simple vision - it's all taken off like a rocket!"
Now, prior to this, Brian had been having difficulty getting his team on board. He couldn't get all their activities pulling in the same direction towards the same goals. When we took a look at the reasons for the weak results, the confusion behind it became apparent. Everyone on his team had a different understanding of what the objectives were.
For the lack of a clear vision, all their time, intelligence and energy was having minimal results. Instead, the was lots of wasted time every day, by well-intentioned professionals...
A real shame to have all those resources wasted. But that didn't have to be the way they operated for the long-term.
What do I mean by 'simplify' your vision?
The reason this is so helpful is that simplicity and clarity at the beginning, from the top, becomes the starting point for every activity in your business. 'Simplify' your vision.. and you can make it easier to identify your ideal target market. Simplify your ideal target market... and you can focus all your marketing efforts so that you're easier for them to find. Simplify your marketing... rather than trying to be all things to all people... and you make yourself easier to understand and an easier solution to buy.
Moreover, while it becomes easy to see the impact that your Vision's simplicity has on your external presence in your chosen market, it's as important inside your company.
Why?
Because you can simplify your operations. Simplify the solution you're trying to offer and you can simplify your delivery of that solution. Your time and that of your entire team, gets used doing the right things at the right time, without needing to spend time straightening out confusion, conflicts, and plain old inefficient time wasting by everyone.
That in turn means you can simplify your systems, the processes you use to get work done, which leads to simpler results, that are simpler to measure and track, and simpler train new people to produce. And so on.
That doesn't mean thinking flies out the door. On the contrary, it means each person can ask "Is this in line with our Vision?" for themselves, to help keep the entire company's efforts pulling in the same direction towards the same goals.
Each person becomes a Visionary and Brilliant Problem Solver for your business.
Whether you are heading a major organization, or a division, or your own small business, the result is the same.
As you set a clear vision, it becomes apparent what is out-of alignment, wasted time and effort, busy work for busy sake rather than the best path to deliver solutions to your customers.
Of course, setting a new Vision, or a cleaned up Vision, or your first one ever, often makes people fearful. The most common reason I hear from my program participants is that "I'll have to stop doing a lot of what we're doing here."
Indeed, that is the exact choice that Brian faced, that I face, and that you will face.
But I ask you, in this economy, do you want to be putting all that time, energy and intelligence into doing things that are expensive busy work, or put them into focused, high payoff activities that are simpler, targeted, lower cost, more highly profitable?
You have the opportunity, right now, to step back. Step out of the business of habit and ongoing activity and take ten to fifteen minutes and look for the simplest vision you can hold, that humms and excites you.
Or, you can keep yourself very busy, and delay achieving the goals you say you want.
My vote? SIMPLIFY your Vision.
Management expert, consultant, and coach Linda Feinholz is "Your High payoff Catalyst." Linda publishes the free weekly newsletter The Spark! to subscribers world-wide and delivers targeted solutions, practical skills and simple ways to build your business. If you're ready to focus on your High Payoff activities, accelerate your results and have more fun at it, get your FREE tips like these visit her site at http://www.YourHighPayoffCatalyst.com
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