Vision is More Than What You Sell

Vision is more than what you sell. It's more than a product or service.

Sure, it is very important to understand your customer and the value they get for their money. That's a great business strategy. But vision, as a leader, is about something else: it's about understanding why the members of your team should be excellent.

Without that understanding, it is not possible for you to get your people to produce an excellent product or service.

I know this because of my experience in the non-business sectors of the world: emergency services, law enforcement, non-profits. These people do something that can't be measured with money. Yet they have some of the most highly-engaged professionals in the world: people who believe whole-heartedly in the work that they do. (Not all of them, of course.)

But that's the challenge for us as business-owners: how do we get our people to love doing what they do?

Fortunately, there's an answer: vision. An understanding of the connection between the value that the customer receives and the work of each individual team member. When we can explain the path between these two points -- and when actually do so in a way that our team understands and internalizes -- then we create excellence in their work. That's what Redefine calls the story of vision.

Think back over the last few months, with all of the changes and challenges we've had in the world. If you have not thought about how each of your people contribute their effort to produce an excellent product or service, and if you have not then performed a real-world behavior to help them see that connection, you are letting them down.

Telling the story of vision is a critical part of leadership. It's one of the three functions, the overarching responsibilities that, all together, contain the tactics and strategies of leadership. So go make sure your people understand how their individual tasks affect someone else's life in a positive way. And while you're at it, talk to them about how their extra effort makes their teammates work better, too. This is our responsibility when we chose to lead.