Corporate Coaching Brian Schroller Corporate Coaching Brian Schroller

Horizon

The most powerful thing about a clear vision is how precisely it illuminates the things you must do today in order to achieve that powerful future.  It inspires and elicits excitement while breeding the elusive employee engagement we are all seeking.

Horizon-Where Are You Going?

30,000 Foot View: A broad or general look at a problem, project, or subject as opposed to focusing on the details.

In the movie “Seabiscuit”, based on the extraordinary book by Laura Hillenbrand, they take us back to Depression-era America and the earliest days in the life of this amazing horse.  Seabiscuit was abused and wild, but naturally one of the fastest horses in the world when he was rescued by a similarly banged up owner, trainer, and jockey.  

Watching him launch out for the first time under stopwatch, moving aggressively in one direction and then the other, the owner noted how fast he was.  The trainer grinned and replied,

“Yeah, in every direction.”

That is what we find with most companies and leaders we encounter. People are working really hard… in every direction.  When we talk about taking a step back or ascending over the clouds of the day-to-day, climbing to the proverbial 30,000 foot view to get a larger or longer term perspective, we are often met with incredulous responses:

  • Our industry is changing too rapidly.
  • I have no idea what is going to happen in 3 years.
  • I am too lost in the weeds to think beyond the day-to-day.
  • Vision is a worthless exercise.

Let’s be honest, you and your team are already working really hard.

  • But what are you working on?
  • To what end are you working toward?
  • Are you dictating your future or allowing the vagaries of the marketplace and industry to decide it for you?

The most powerful thing about a clear vision is how precisely it illuminates the things you must do today in order to achieve that powerful future.  It inspires and elicits excitement while breeding the elusive employee engagement we are all seeking.

We spent the day with a subset of an incredibly high integrity leadership team in Del Rio, TX.  

  • We wanted to get out of the weeds.  
  • We needed to get our heads above the clouds.  
  • We needed to see even beyond our very clear 3 year vision that we are executing toward.  
  • We needed to see generationally beyond the leadership of the founder/owners.

The team was privileged with an incredible line of sight.  From the hunting lodge where we were working, we could see for miles.  From the high walls of canyons nearby, cut by moving water over thousands of years, it felt like we could almost touch the U.S./Mexican border 30 miles away.  Our host said that the Sierra Madre range, another 50 miles further, could be seen on a very clear day.  It was the perfect site for this type of conversation.

The most humbling thing about this team is that they haven’t just operated with the kind of mature leadership that determines a 3 year destination and works toward that future.  They weren’t just focusing on the generational impact of change related to transitioning owner/founders.  Their line of sight extended clear into eternity.

Their success isn’t just marked in revenue, profitability, or even in number of locations or people employed, their ultimate benchmark is changed lives.  And they’re not just focused on changing the lives of the clients they care for, but also their client’s extended families and all the team members they employ that serve them.  We spoke of generative governance (life-giving leadership) and what needed to change to realize that more fully.  We spoke of nobility, stewardship, and a God-sized understanding of who they desire to become.

They are not a publicly traded company, but if they were, I’d already be placing my bets.  This is going to be an extraordinary story to watch unfold.  I am humbled to be holding a ringside seat.

Where are you going?

Have you identified a clear spot on the horizon you want to reach?

Are you starting to make the changes you need to get there?

Do your team members know the roles they are to play and how they fit into that future?

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Corporate Coaching Brian Schroller Corporate Coaching Brian Schroller

Outsource

 

An inspired vision can be cast that both inspires and motivates a team to reach for more. This is not something an outsider can craft and design, but merely cultivate from the team.  A well defined vision provides the destination from where you can craft powerful strategic initiatives and action steps to make sure it is realized.  With our clients, we commit to work for as long as it takes to get them in a strong rhythm for execution of those plans and any other issues that incidentally occur.

At the end of the day though, company leadership is going to make sure all this happens or not. It doesn’t matter how powerful, comprehensive, or well-defined the processes are, success will still be contingent on the endorsement and support of your leadership. That cannot be outsourced.

When internal leaders outsourced the work, they made the mistake of outsourcing the leadership of the work as well.
— Harvard Business Review

I have seen lots of lists of the things that a company should never outsource. The three that seem to show up the most often are:

  • Creating culture
  • Crafting vision
  • Providing leadership

With the right people in the room and an articulated process led by trained facilitators, the essential boundaries of core values and mission statement can be drawn out from a leadership team to help define their culture. Mission statements and core values become the litmus test for hiring, firing, rewarding, and virtually every decision a company makes.

An inspired vision can be cast that both inspires and motivates a team to reach for more. This is not something an outsider can craft and design, but merely cultivate from the team.  A well defined vision (a clear picture of the future) provides the destination from where you can craft powerful strategic initiatives and action steps to make sure it is realized.  With our clients, we commit to work for as long as it takes to get them in a strong rhythm for execution of those plans and any other issues that incidentally occur.

But we’ve had to face a sobering reality.

  • We can walk a company toward crazy clarity, but we can’t make them live there.

  • We can define the clear boundaries of values and mission, but we can’t control their decision-making.

  • We can define a process for articulating strategic initiatives and action steps. We can even offer to help assist the team in creating them, but we can’t actually write them.

  • We can establish a meeting rhythm and even attend the meetings (which we do), but we can’t force them to meet.

At the end of the day, company leadership is going to make sure all this happens or not. It doesn’t matter how powerful, comprehensive, or well-defined the processes are, success will still be contingent on the endorsement and support of your leadership. That cannot be outsourced.

We’re humbled and overwhelmed by the success we’ve seen our clients find. To see a company move from...

Owner to team led
Lack of clarity to clear vision
Uncertainty to defined and articulated culture
“Tyranny of the urgent” to execution on key strategic initiatives

From discouragement to hope

...has been incredibly rewarding.

But we’re a coaching organization, not a consulting one. We don’t roll in with large teams in suits, with six and seven figure price tags. We provide the coaching and establish the tools for your ongoing success.

Our coaching imperative means that...

  • We don’t catch fish for you, but teach you to fish.
  • We work to develop independence, not dependence.
  • Breed an ownership mindset among the entire leadership team.

But we can’t fulfill the role of leadership for someone else’s company. Only you can do that. Thankfully, except for the very rarest of exceptions, we get the appropriate support and endorsement from leadership, the team takes their appointed seats around the conference table, a regular meeting rhythm is developed, the strategic plans get executed, and they find a newly inspired future.

  • Is your conference table full of leaders, life, and execution? (or is it as empty as the one pictured above)

  • What would it look like if you offered the essential leadership to ensure success? 

Are you ready to...

  • Establish a leadership team?

  • Create a defining culture and craft an inspired vision?

  • Determine strategic initiatives, action steps, and a meeting rhythm to make sure they are accomplished?

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