In challenging times, most leaders spend the majority of their time playing defense. This means time spent reviewing cash flow, sales reports, and financials so they can make the best reactive and tactical decisions in order to survive. Cost cutting, expense control, layoffs…..ugh!
Dealing with these very real scenarios can really bring a leader down. And the unfortunate thing is that, if he spends too much time each day focused on these activities for too long, he and his team will begin to lose sight of why they do what they do. They will lose sight of the mission, they will no longer see opportunity, and they will lose hope.
Ultimately, if the leader has both eyes down on the data, the organization’s health and culture will suffer.
For the last few years, I've been saying that the best leaders have what I call bifocal vision. They have the ability to keep one eye down looking at reality while keeping the other eye up looking at the future. They do spend time managing to the very real challenges of today. But they also spend time playing offense, sharing vision and executing plans that will help them and their teams to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I know from personal experience that this can be very difficult for a leader. But without bifocal vision, I have seen leaders kill their organizations - long before they ran out of cash.
Action Plans:
- Schedule time to review your key reports or scorecard. Weekly is usually enough, but during times of crisis you may need to see the data daily.
- Schedule time weekly to review your vision. During times of crisis or real challenge, you might need to review it daily.
- Share a portion of your vision with your team weekly. This can be done by discussing a conviction and its corresponding behaviors during a weekly team meeting. Or you could communicate one key element of what you see the organization or team becoming in an email message (or for even greater impact, try recording a short video from your desk). The purpose is to keep the team balanced between dealing with the very real and sometimes painful changes of today, and remaining passionate and engaged with the possibility of tomorrow.
Keep one eye down and one eye up!
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Tags: Bifocal Vision, Crisis, Culture, Leadership
From someone that has spent the last three days reviewing Profit and Loss statements and 2010 Projections, this is a welcome reminder. This time of year it is so important for us to be reviewing our vision statements as we are writing our plans for 2010. Thank you!
This is indeed a nice reminder to remain focused on both the present and the future. Leaders must keep the focus on both of these so their employees have a sense of where the company will be headed, as well as the plans to get there. If not, as you point out, the impact on the health and culture of the company will not be good, and present problems will take much more of the leader’s time. Thanks again for the timely reminder.
Bill
Home run, Daniel! I love spending time in the future vision category, but in all my endeavors right now, find myself diving into the ‘now’ frequently and necessarily. I do; however, have 2 days set up in the next 30 days to go out for ‘future’ planning. Really looking forward to it.