Setting a clear vision for your organisation

What’s your mountain? Setting a clear, high-definition picture for your future destination

Some companies have great visions. Amazon’s vision is ‘to be earth’s most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.’ We Now know what that vision looks like—like Amazon.com. But before it was built? Could the leaders at Amazon tell you exactly what they were building?

Every mission that takes place in an organization must have in its line of sight the ultimate high-definition vision of the organization’s destination – it’s strategy if you will, or what we like to call the High Definition Destination (or HDD for short).

Your Mountain

The HDD is your mountain. It answers your purpose, explains your mission, and guides what you should be doing now. It defines fundamental goals that together make certain what you’re offering to what market, how you’ll be perceived, who works for you and how they’ll do it well, how you’re structured, and what your financial performance will be. It’s not so detailed that it limits people’s creativity; nor is it so fuzzy that it allows creativity to prejudice performance. Just right, so that a team leader on a mission can make a judgment call that their mission may no longer be heading for the HDD.

The Balancing Act

The HDD is a sense of purpose that compels us rationally and practically, as well as emotionally and inspirationally. It’s a vision of the future that all who choose to work with us can get behind. Such a vision helps to ‘direct, align and inspire actions on the part of large numbers of people,’ says John Kotter, and that’s exactly what we want. Achieving such a HDD is a fine balance. General, inspirational visions can set the purpose of a company or community, but they’re not enough. Here is an example of great vision that would both inspire us,and be a standard against which we can test everything we do.

‘At the Coca-Cola Company we strive to refresh the world, inspire moments of optimism and happiness, create value and make a difference.’

This vision gives us identity and purpose, and is invaluable both for the people pursuing it and for the communities it serves. It goes beyond ‘being the best at what we do’, and state that ‘what we do matters’. A telco might say ‘we have the best mobile network in the land’, or it might say ‘we connect people’.

Yet pure as this vision is in purpose, would it be enough to guide decision- making on all matters and at all levels of your company or community? We need a little more context and detail, but not too much.We need the vision to be clear, so that it is not confusing or difficult to implement. And we want it to be expressed in simple terms so that anyone in the organization can describe it.

Set a clear HDD, and people will rally round to make it real. Leave it vague and people may draw their own conclusions. As fighter pilots, if we knew exactly what our leaders wanted on the  battlefield, then they could rest easy at night knowing it would get done. If we didn’t have that clearly in mind, then they may wake up to the news that the wrong target had been hit.

Getting Started

It is not easy to paint a vision of something as complex as an organization, with all the uncertainty of the future, and all the possibilities available. What would you include, and what would you leave out?

Regardless of the process or framework you use, there are certain elements and considerations that will help define an organization and guide focused planning and action. A traditional, broader vision can complement a more detailed strategy, so you do not have to replace what is treasured. But you will find it extremely hard to execute your strategy unless you have a HDD in place. This can be achieved by developing a HDD, or testing the vision you have and filling in the gaps. Either way there’s work, very achievable work, to be done.

In my next post we’ll identify 5 key elements anyone can use to define a HDD and guide focused planning and action.

 

The post Setting a clear vision for your organisation appeared first on Afterburner Australia.

source https://www.afterburner.com.au/setting-high-definition-vision/

Is Your Team Distracted? Use Task Shedding to Get Back on Track

Is your team distracted? Get back on track with clear communication and task shedding

A few years back we worked with a terrific sales team. Being millennials, they used live messaging for everything, sharing new leads and information, giving each other encouragement and congratulations—a stream of positive reinforcement and a constant flow of shared information. Yet when they sat back and looked at what was happening, they realized the cost of that interaction may have outweighed the positives. Yes, the new information was coming ‘live’, but was it distracting them from their immediate task? Yes, they were responding to each other and changing their course in real time, but was all the information relevant and clear? And was it thoughtful or reactive, helpful or unnecessary?

Keep communication and minds on mission

There are times for chewing the fat, and teams love them. But not when everyone’s under pressure to perform. When there’s a lot going on, a lot of it uncertain, you can’t afford long rambles and you can’t afford short statements that are unclear. Clear, concise statements also help you and those around you to keep focus. Ramble on, and people switch off. No matter how important your message, it won’t be heard. And you may be taking up the time or phone line for more critical stuff.

Everything has to be clear, concise and certain. That’s especially the case when people are tired or under stress. The other challenge is that as much as 80 percent of human communication is nonverbal: the tone, gestures, body position, and facial expressions. That’s the value of a face-to-face meeting, or being in each other’s line of sight when you’re on an operation. So if you don’t have those visual clues, you really need to get the tone and words right, over the phone or on the page.

There are some clear rules that can help keep your communication and minds on mission.

1.  Work with hard data, not assumptions. When task saturation is hitting you, it’s amazing how an opinion or assumption can morph into a ‘fact’ on which other people’s decisions are based. ‘How long have we got?’ can have only two answers: a number, or, ‘I will find out.’ If Someone then wants your opinion, they’ll ask.
2.  Your own jargon is OK. What is convenient shorthand within the team may well be jargon outside it, but the team should still use it. Pilots use terms like ‘inbound’ to mean ‘I’m On my way, on time, with no issues’, or ‘tumbleweed’ to mean ‘I have absolutely no situational awareness, and something bad could happen any time soon’, or ‘ballistic’ to mean ‘I am out of control and something bad will happen any time soon—stay away!’ That assumes, of course,that everyone knows what it means: it is part of the team’s language, part of its standards.Technical terms weren’t made up to be vague or confuse people. They are created to describe a specific thing in context, more efficiently than before.   In the military, those terms are chosen so that when used in the same situation they don’t sound the same. We reduce the chance of mishearing someone, of making mistakes because of     an accent or a crackling line. So, ‘commit/abort’, or ‘affirmative/negative’ rather than ‘yes/no’, which are so short they might be lost in a crackling line.
3.  Cut the chatter. Fighter pilots support each other by saying only what they have to say, no more, and then get off the radio. That keeps ideas clear and lines free. In business and at home,in most situations, that may come across as abrupt. But remember we’re talking about communication within a team that is focusing on a mission. If you’re on a family road trip and it’s time to turn off the highway, just make the call!
4. Decide on simple patterns for both one-way and two-way communication. For example, in two-way communication, agree on how to check you’ve made contact, that the other person is listening, and that they have heard you. Pilots aren’t shy in asking for a repeat back’ to make sure the word has got through: not the whole sentence, but a coreword, phrase, or paraphrase.  Similarly, agree on a simple structure for one-way communication like emails, if they’re more than one line. Put the point of the email and the desired action at the top, and structure everything else below. If it’s information about an event or process, use your friends ‘who, what, and when’. Set your own rules, whatever they are, and stick to them.

Refocus and shed

It has always taken self-discipline to stay focused through our daily cacophony of personal and work plans, meetings, calls, and emails. That’s even harder now that we have a glued-to-hand smartphone with its world of alerts, distraction, and temptation. So it’s become ever more critical to be able to cut through that task list, and shed whatever you don’t really have to do, now.

Most time-management approaches follow similar themes (and Flex is no exception). We set that out below, but if you prefer your own, go with that. The real difference is with Flex you have wings, there to help keep you focused, shed tasks, and do the tasks you can’t. If you need to, work with your wingman to problem solve how to shed tasks, and how to tap into other resources.

Each day or more often as needed, refocus on what you have to do, and what you can shed. Here is the way we prioritize things:

1. Must do.  Things  that the  law, your boss,  your standards, or  an emergency require you to do. You may not like them, you may rather do other things, but there’s no avoiding these, so best do or delegate them as quickly and as clearly as possible.
2. Should do. Your core job. The missions you’re on, that take planning and diligence,and that your performance will be judged on—by you, your family, your boss, or your partners. Plan your days and weeks around these.
3. Nice to do. These would definitely be worthwhile in the perfect world, but not at the expense of your core job. Things that contribute to the plans of others, to your learning, to your relationships. Do them by all means, but in gaps that emerge in your core program. The ‘nice to do’s are a real trap

Want to take your team’s performance to the next level? Afterburner’s team building days are high energy workshops that educate and energize your staff. Speak to us about your next event and discover why Australia’s leading companies love us (02) 9939 2731

The post Is Your Team Distracted? Use Task Shedding to Get Back on Track appeared first on Afterburner Australia.

source https://www.afterburner.com.au/team-distracted-try-task-shedding/

Want to keep focus…? Find yourself a Wingman

Whether it’s task saturation or overconfidence, the result is the same: a lack of focus that can be fatal to missions, personal dreams, careers, and even lives. Pilots know that threat, and prepare for it as part of their plan. As we’ve explored in earlier posts, they use their checklists, focus on their central indicator and cross-check on the others. There’s another way pilots and some high performance executives remain focused on their objectives at all times….  

Without a doubt, the most important way for you to keep focus on your plan is to have a wingman. Literally, two minds, two sets of eyes and ears, looking out for each other. Call it mutual support, call it a double act, call it whatever you want that doesn’t imply a guy in a plane alongside you . . . just have one.

Don’t leave home without your wingman

Pilots never go anywhere without a wingman. Wingmen check for blind spots and signs of task saturation. It’s all part of their plan. In business, you will have seen the benefits of having two people at a meeting where you can. You hear more things; when one person is listening hard, the other can be preparing; you have more energy in the room; when two people go to a meeting, they are far more likely to plan ahead for it, to consider the threats and contingencies; you can play roles, negotiate better, follow up with more enthusiasm.

Many executives have also experienced the benefits of a true working partnership, or at least a very clear and trusted second-in-command or 2IC to take over the reins whenever needed. The U.S.teamwork software company Atlassian is a great example of the benefits of mutual support, with co-founders Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon- Brookes sharing the CEO role from the firm’s start up days to its 2016 listing on the New York Stock Exchange. They share the workload and the stress of building a business, take the breaks they need, and one of them is always there. Someone who can step in for you whenever needed is just as valuable, eventually, to lead in their own right.

Fighter pilots take that strength further. We don’t go anywhere—anywhere— without a wingman. We Don’t fly a mission, we don’t go out at night, and we don’t take on important roles or personal missions without having someone by our side.

Who’s your wingman?

In our mission teams, wingmen are easily identified. Beyond that, a wingman may be the life partner in your family or our formal business partner. It may equally mean someone who we share experiences with, or someone we work alongside in our work or personal communities. You know each other’s roles and objectives, you know the threats to those objectives, and you know how you can support and rely on each other.

So this mutual support is less an action item and more a mindset that people in the team share. It startswith that old friend situational awareness. Yes, there is that mission awareness, about the environment and potential external threats to the mission. But there’s  also an awareness about the person you’re supporting: their fears and motivations, critical tasks, and what will make or break them. Without That awareness, you’re an observer rather than a wingman: not a bad thing, but not what’s needed.

Where’s your wingman?

Wingmen are not always someone physically close. So many people are out there on the road these days—pushing deals, sales, development, investments, research— and it’s especially important for them to have wingmen. For example, truck drivers, couriers, and cabbies typically work solo, on days that can be as frustrating or tiring as they are long. The most natural wingmen for them could be their dispatch operators – the people who know what the drivers are doing (or should be doing) at all times, have the personal skills to check in every now and then with a banter or a more direct question, and the technology to hand to follow the drivers’ progress. The result of this mutual support is more reliable deliveries, happier drivers, and fewer accidents.

It’s one thing to be aware of something, another again to say something. The U.S. Coast Guard has studied the causes of 389 marine casualties in 1998–99. In 68 percent of cases, it wasn’t that the critical information wasn’t available or known. It was that either the people who had the information didn’t recognize its importance, and so the need to share it with others, or assumed that the others already had the information. Some call this the ‘common knowledge effect’, so common everyone assumes everyone else knows it, but most are wrong. Overcoming this issue is part of a high performance mindset: don’t be shy in speaking up if you see something that may be a problem.

Do you have a wingman?

The post Want to keep focus…? Find yourself a Wingman appeared first on Afterburner Australia.

source https://www.afterburner.com.au/keep-focus-find-wingman/