Thank You, Military Veterans

November 7, 2022

Good morning! Tomorrow — November 8, 2022 — is Election Day in The United States. Be sure to vote, but more importantly, as you vote, reverence and respect the moment — and the privilege. All of the major newspapers in Alabama have stopped their print editions and are totally on-line.  Bellwethers? “Many business leaders are asking when the workplace will get back to normal; if by normal, they mean 2019, the answer is never.”  (George)Take great care to discern the increasingly relentless hyperbolic chambers… best to do your own research; trust and verify.

• If you are among those who served in the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, or Coast Guard — willingly or unwillingly — Thank you!
  • “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”  (Unattributed, this admonition is chiseled on the entrance to The National Archives building in Washington City.)
• Do you close all of your loops?
  • All Hallows’ Eve has come and gone, but how often do you ghost vs. experience being ghosted?
  • Most people think of themselves as excellent communicators and often think of others as less proficient than they.
  • Why do you suppose that is?
  • How can you test yourself and be open to the results?
  • Communication is often at the heart of almost all leadership challenges — big, medium, and small — but it seldom gets addressed straight-on.
  • If your communication plan doesn’t include systemic listening and reflection — and adjustment — as key components, you might want to take a closer, more critical look.
• “What we find is when people hit the brakes, become short term-istic, and become very reactive, they’re no longer able to control their own destiny — be it as an organization, as a leader, even as a parent.”  (Wallach, 2022)
• Trending:  Key Performance Indicators — dreaded acronym KPI  (Hopwood)
  • Keep people interested…
  • Keep people informed…
  • Keep people involved…
  • Keep people inspired.
• What are you reading?
  • A book most unlikely:  The Last Great Walk by Curtis, 2014.
  • See what you think.
• Many readers of these Musings serve on boards of one kind or another — businesses and nonprofits alike.
  • Five truths complicating better board function:
    1. Boards are at the extreme end of the accountability chain.
    2. The Board acts as the agent of a largely unseen, conceptual, ephemeral, and often undecided principal, an entity that expresses itself in curious ways, if at all.
    3. The Board is a set of individuals operating as a single entity; i.e., one voice.
    4. Individual discipline tends to suffer when belonging to groups; a Board is likely to have less discipline than any one of its members operating alone.
    5. Boards are ordinarily far removed from the next organizational level; they are not only part-time, but physically removed from the organization.  Even Board meetings are sometimes conducted physically separated from the organization’s other functions.
• Ten (10) Guiding Principles (Imperatives) for Growth:  (Bradley, Doherty, Etc., et al., 2022)
  • Not a bad list of reminders to put right on the wall — where you glance and sometimes focus each day:
    1. Put competitive advantage first; start with a winning, scalable formula;
    2. Make the trend your friend; prioritize profitable, fast-growing markets;  (Why swim upstream?)
    3. Don’t be a laggard; it’s not enough to go with the flow… you need to outgrow your peers;
    4. Turbocharge your core; focus on growth in your core industry,,, you can’t win without it;  (Remember, Stick to the Knitting?!);
       • (Do more of what you do best!)
    5. Look beyond the core; nurture growth in adjacent business areas;
    6. Grow where you know; focus on growing where you have an ownership advantage;  (Remember, Stick to the Knitting?!?);
    7. Be a local hero; commit to winning on the home front;
    8. Go global if you can beat the local; expand internationally (regionally) if you have a transferable advantage;
    9. Acquirte programmatically; combine healthy organic growth with serial acquisitions;
    10. It’s OK to shrink to grow; ruthlessly prune if you need to.
• Here is a fascinating interactive map courtesy of The Economist:  War

Review and Preview down below… a collection of “the best” from past editions… only if you have time:

• • …Send not to know for whom the bell tolls — it tolls for thee.  (Donne)
  • “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”  (Voltaire)
  • As the CEO or the leader you cannot outsource vision.  (YT)
  • Be more curious; ask better questions.  (YT)
  • Patience and Persistence along parallel paths. (YT)
  • Go figure:  The #1 contributor to a toxic work environment?  Leadership — or lack thereof.  (MIT Sloan, 2022)  Organizational culture is in a very close 2nd place, but guess who has the most influence over culture?!
  • “It’s a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead and find no one there.” (Roosevelt)
  • “This is to everyone who has been consistent.  You are already ahead of 90% of people.  Keep showing up; consistency compounds.”  (Madan)
  • “Those leaders who are authentic in the face of adversity stand out above the rest.”  (Eades)
  • “Take great care to not wake up in your own museum.”  (Birkenstock)
  • “The task of the leader is to get his (her) people from where they are to where they have not been.”  (Kissinger, 2022)
  • “You think he’s angry now, wait ’til we win him over.”  (Ted — Lasso)
  • “Who am I to judge?”  (Jorge Bergoglio)
  • Ever wish you had a better idea of where you were going — or when, or why, or how?
  • On the topic of vision… since that’s what this Newsletter is all about:
    • “You can’t outsource vision or passion — or for that matter, leadership.” (Andrew)
    • “Without a vision the people perish.” (Habiger, Etc., et al.)
    • “At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 (people) to guard the past.”  (Nobel Laureate, Maeterlinck)
    • “What if our best data are flawed?”  (Dilbert/ Adams)
    • “You can never plan the future by the past.”  (A. Lincoln)
    • Vision is a destination — a fixed point to which we focus all effort; strategy is a route, an adaptable path to get us to where we want to go.”  (Sinek)
    • “Vision is the capacity to see that which does not yet exist.”  (Eades)
  • Probably the best mission statement ever written, way back in 1787:
    • We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.
  • Clients often ask, “What is the difference between a mission and a vision?  And why do you need one of each?
    • A mission answers the question, Why do you exist?
      • Your answer should contain both logical and emotional appeal, very briefly stated.
    • A vision is an expression of awe, wonder, inspiration, focuis, possibilities, imagination, intentions, audacious goals… the best-possible outcomes relative to your mission; it draws others in like a black hole vortex or a powerful magnet while inviting them on your journey.  It should result in vertical head nods and goosebumps — or tears of joy.
      • “Vision is the reason we get out of bed each day to come to work.”  (Samantha)
      • A vision answers the question, “How are you going to become bigger, better, stronger, healthier, and happier?”
      • The perfect shared vision should both excite you lots and scare you a little bit.
    • A shared vision is the ultimate motivational and inspirational statement because your carefully chosen words perfectly articulate your message while inviting others to grab hold while making YOUR vision also their own.
    • We do what we can.
    • Very little is forever.
    • Sign on a wall:  May our work, the work of this office — Without A Vision Consultancy LLC — always be focused on results directed toward the achievement of this vision.