I once facilitated a leadership team that was in disarray in bad way. They showed up late to meetings, scrolled on their blackberry phones instead of paying attention, and the leader had no control of this meeting.
On top of that, the team was facing a looming crisis. If a certain level of production was not reached by year-end, consequences awaited.
I asked the team to put away their distractions and close their eyes. Some were hesitant. After some coaxing, they closed their eyes. Then I asked, “Who can tell me the vision of this organization?” You could have heard a pin drop. Nobody could repeat the vision.
So, first things first.
1. Get a vision that leadership owns and buys into – A cool way to accomplish this might be to put up butcher paper around the walls of a room and start outlining the history of the organization. What the leadership team is doing is creating a story that has a beginning, present state, and five years into the future vision. Everyone gets to add his or her input. The outcome will be one vision (message) that the entire team buys into and can share with those they lead.
2. Learn to “Act as if” and create a crisis before the crisis shows up – Why wait for doom when you can do something about it today. Pressure is a good prescription for success because you don’t have so much time to think about all that might go wrong. You only have time to discuss what it takes to fix that crisis today. Now if you bring it closer, not only do you get the pressure to succeed but you get added time on the end to fine tune the decisions needed to move past the crisis. This is what we did with this leadership team. We brought their loom crisis forward.
3. Ask everyone involved to suspend disbelief – When you are asking for a mulligan on the organizations vision or to own up to a crisis and “act as if” you will usually find one or two champions for the process and a few skeptics. It is important that you not attempt to bully the skeptics into your line of think, rather you invite them to suspend disbelief and go along with the team for the benefit of all on the team.
4. Leaderships is bravery – As a leader you are taking chances. These may be calculated and yet there is still some element of risk. Make a decision, own your decision, and lead your team forward not as a know it all but rather as a visionary who needs everyone involved in help the team realize success.
5. As a leader you must take the first step – Talk and planning are good and they are cheap. The value is in “acting as if” and moving on your ideas. Take action and get your team to help you meet your goals.
This leadership team was able to realize that the organization vision was dysfunctional. The leaders did not connect with the words and those that followed were smart enough to understand that if the leadership team didn’t buy into the vision, why should they. The first step was to create something that mattered to everyone in that organization.
This team was able to bring their crisis closer and begin putting measures in place to have a better chance of meeting or exceeding the target. They did this by “acting as if” for this crisis.
