You’ve Got to “Set the Vision”

By the Linkage Editorial Team

At the conclusion of our recent Thought Leader Series leadership broadcast, we sat down with best-selling author Mark Samuel to learn more about how individuals and companies can end blame in the ranks to create a place where people want to work. Mark’s unique approach to diagnosing root causes for the most complex organizational challenges identify many factors that can cause individuals, teams, and organizations to derail. Here, he shares his insight on the importance of individuals, teams, and organizations setting a “vision of excellence.”

“Probably the most important thing that we can do is to get clear on what our intention is. I literally create a vision of excellence for myself. And when I get down or I get in a rut, I go back to my vision to remind myself, ‘What am I committed to?’ We’re going to have off days but I need my barometer, my foundation that I can keep coming back to. It’s critical. And I’ll create new visions of excellence so I keep revitalizing and refreshing myself. It’s exciting to say: ‘Hey. This is where I want to be a year from now and this is what I want to be accomplishing, and this is what I want to be doing and changing’. I get all excited.”

“And that excitement gets me running and then about six months later, I’m like: ‘Oh. What was it that I was going to do?’ I’ve got to take my vision out, review it and then refresh it. Now, for a team, that’s also important.

“When I work with teams, we actually have them create a picture of success or a vision as well. But, it’s not platitudes, it’s not ‘world-class’ this or that. It’s very meaningful behaviors of how we’re going to serve our customers better. What are we going to do to have better teamwork? And how do we provide better value to the organization? We literally set it up by asking ourselves: ‘Well, how do we want this to be a year from now as a stretch?’ We’re not looking to be the best of what we’re doing today, but where do we want to go? The real important thing is having a clear direction and working towards that. And then, we can see what our actions are, whether it’s our teamwork that’s off track or whatever. Then, it becomes pretty easy to hold people and teams accountable because we all created the vision together.”

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“What’s your vision of excellence?”

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Linkage’s Thought Leader Series is a convenient and cost-effective way to bring world-renowned thought leaders right into your organization. The 90-minute live broadcasts include an interactive Q&A session with the featured presenter and the broadcasts are available on-demand after the live events.