I regularly get the privilege of welcoming new employees into our company. As part of our orientation and new hire training process, I go over our company history (three generations!) along with a deep dive of our company’s mission, vision, and core values statements.
I had dinner with a friend of mine recently and the story he shared with me was eye-opening! In fact, if you have ever experienced a drop in sales, reduced margins, increased turnover, and general frustration among the employees in your business, then his story could have an impact on you as well! It is a story of lost and restored vision.
God got my attention over ten years ago and made it clear to me that He expected more from me than I was giving Him. You can read more about that series of events HERE, but just know that I was changed virtually overnight. He gave me a clear picture of what our business should look like and I began working hard to make that vision happen.
In my opinion, entrepreneurs are the backbone of our country and the economic system as we know it. Without entrepreneurs, our economy would fall apart. At the same time, being an entrepreneur is not an easy path to take. There are many challenges and hurdles to overcome before an entrepreneur can truly be successful.
Recently, I was meeting with our Strategic Ministry Team for the purpose of relaunching our mission and vision for doing ministry through our business. We had completed the mission statement for the team and moved on to the envisioned future. I explained what I had envisioned for our future and then asked for feedback from the rest of the team. That was when I was told that my vision for the future was not big enough!
Probably one of the top five books I have read in the past ten years is called Visioneering by Andy Stanley. In my mind, this book ranks with classics like Good to Great by Jim Collins and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
In Stanley’s book, he goes into great detail about why vision is so important to Christian leadership. He also gives solid advice about how to go about casting that vision to your organization. If you have not read this book, I highly recommend it! I would loan mine to you, but someone borrowed it several years ago and has failed to return it. I am hoping they read this post and get the hint!
This is my third post in the series on Credible Christian Leadership. In this series we are looking at the four building blocks of Christian leadership proposed by James Kouzes and Barry Posner in their book, Credibility. We started with honesty in my last post. Today, we are talking about being forward-looking, or casting vision.
Anyway, let’s talk about vision from a couple of perspectives. First, we need to discuss why it is important as a building block for Christian leadership. Second, we need to address what it looks like in a Christian leader.
If you read much about employee engagement, you will find that compensation is not always the most important issue affecting job satisfaction among employees. In many cases, the desire to work for something that is bigger than themselves turns out to rank higher than compensation for employees.
People want to be a part of something. That is one reason the Olympic Games are so interesting to people in all walks of life. When they watch the events on TV, they feel a part of the team. Americans, regardless of economic status or job position, feel like they are a part of a national team. It is invigorating to most everyone and the vast majority are not participating in any way other than as spectators.
If you want to tap into this passion with those you are leading, then they need to know you are looking into the future. They need to know you are seeing a better picture ahead and showing them how they can be a part of this vision.
Assuming you want this, let’s take a look at what this should actually look like from a Christian perspective.
For a Christian leader, our vision for the future cannot simply include things like more money and a comfortable retirement. If this is all it is, then we are showing them nothing any different than what the world is showing them. This just cannot be.
Instead, this vision, coming from a Christian leader, needs to extend into the future on two levels – both the temporal (this life) and the eternal (the life to come). If we can cast a vision of a better future on both levels, we will have people eager to follow we and hear what we have to say.
Just like Jesus did with those He ministered to, we do need to provide for their physical needs in our vision. We cannot expect to lead people with no consideration of their physical existence and the needs that go along with it. If we ignore their physical needs when we are casting our vision for the future, then we will end up walking alone.
The difference for the Christian leader is that we are not painting a picture for them that only includes their own needs. We are instead showing them a larger picture that includes the needs of those around them. We want to show them that they can be a part of improving the community in which they live. This community includes their coworkers, neighbors, etc.
At the same time we are casting the vision for a better life here and now, we should also be casting the vision for a better life to come. As Christian leaders, we should be leading them to consider their life beyond this life.
In July’s C12 segment, the author describes it this way:
We need to believe, in our own hearts, that this earthly life is one of struggle and that the good life awaits us in Heaven. We lead based on the eternal perspective.
If we can cast this dual vision in a compelling way, we will draw people to God. Again, we are not looking for the spotlight. Instead, we are looking to cast that spotlight on Him and give Him the glory for it all.
Do you have a vision for a better future?
If not, are you praying for God to reveal it to you?
If so, are you casting this vision on both levels?
I have posted recently about some issues going on in our business and how one of these issues related to one of our core values: Integrity. Well, I want to talk about the other situation a little more in depth at this point. This situation is related to another of our core values: Employee Development.
As I mentioned in a recent post, a key, long-term member of our company’s leadership team (my inner circle) gave me their resignation. While there is never a good time for this to happen, this announcement came at a particularly bad time for me.
We are less than 60 days away from beginning a total renovation of our Honda dealership facility and this leader was to be one of the key drivers of this project. He was also a leader in ensuring the smooth transition into the temporary location from which we will operate during construction.
We are also just over six months into a new management team under his leadership. This leader has played a critical role in their development. Though the team has shown amazing progress during this six-month period, there is still a distance to go before this team truly realizes their full potential.
As I said, this is not a good time for him to leave.
At the same time, one of our company’s five core values is Employee Development. We describe this core value this way:
We strive to create an atmosphere that inspires and enables people to reach their full potential.
In addition to this core value, our Vision statement is “Moving people.” We explain our vision by first pointing out the connection between “moving” and transportation – in our case, selling and servicing automobiles. But the true meaning of this vision applies to the people that come into contact with our business – the stakeholders. These people fall into three categories – employees, customers, and community.
We want anyone, from any of these three categories, that comes into contact with our company to be better off having done so. We want to help “move” them from one position into another, better position as a result of their interaction with us. We want every decision we make to reflect this vision.
Let’s go back to the leader that has now resigned. When he first told me, he generously offered to work a month’s notice. He was willing to help in the transition in any way I wanted. He explained how this new business opportunity was not one that he sought out, but was simply too good for him to ignore.
As he explained the opportunity, I quickly saw that he was right. I realized that I could never offer him the same chance to reach his full potential in our company as he could reach in this new job. I was disappointed in losing him, but I could not blame him for saying yes to the offer.
It was at this point that I had a choice. I could get angry and do what the majority of owners would do in our industry – tell him to pack his things and go ahead and exit immediately. I could cut off his compensation and benefits that very day and do only what I was legally bound to do.
OR, I could embrace our core value of Employee Development and our “Moving people” vision. I could congratulate him on his tremendous opportunity and begin laying out a plan that would maximize his effectiveness while he worked his notice, benefiting both of us in the process.
I chose the latter. In fact, I used the opportunity to reinforce our commitment to our core values by going to every department individually and explaining the whole situation. I tried to show, by example, that we are indeed serious about these core values and our vision.
The results? Well it has not been long enough yet to give a full report, but I can give you some of the immediate benefits…
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As I began listing these immediate benefits, I realized that there are longer-term benefits as well. Here is a short, not exhaustive, list of these benefits…
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Have you had similar opportunities to live out your company’s core values?
What would you have done differently?
What benefits did I overlook?
Recently, I included the following brief message in our monthly employee newsletter. Read the message and then I want to explain how this fits into employee engagement through employee recognition.
No organization cares about you. Organizations aren’t capable of this. Your bank, certainly, doesn’t care. Neither does your HMO or even your car dealer. It’s amazing to me that people are surprised to discover this fact.
What are your thoughts at this point? Do you agree with what he says? Aren’t we part of a dealership “family” that cares about each other and our customers?
The truth is we are not!
The truth is (and Seth goes on to say this later in the blog) that only people care. Organizations, companies, and teams are incapable of caring, but the people that make up these groups are the ones that care.
Here is the difference…if you think and act like the groups are capable of caring, then you are actually attempting to relieve yourself of the responsibility for caring. If everyone else does the same thing, then no one cares.
If, on the other hand, every individual in the organization takes personal responsibility for caring, then it ends up looking like the entire organization cares.
It is in this kind of organization that we all prefer to work. It is this kind of organization that draws customers. It is this kind of organization of which we can be proud.
What about you? Do you care?
This message is one of many that I send in an effort to get our employees thinking outside of just doing their job and going home everyday. I want them seeing the world around them and getting involved…engaged.
Our company’s mission is to honor God by impacting the lives of our employees, customers, and community. Our vision statement is “Moving people.” This plays on the transportation theme in our business, but carries a deeper meaning as well.
As people movers, we want to take other employees, customers, as we as those in the community, and “move” them from their current position or circumstances to a better one – whatever that looks like.
I also want them to feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Not only does this reduce the likelihood that they will leave to go to work somewhere else, but it also gives them fulfillment that we all so desperately need. A good way to do this is with employee recognition.
In addition to consistent communication through the employee newsletter and other methods, we created a couple of awards to reinforce this idea.
The first is called an RPM (Recognizing People Movers) award. This award recognizes anyone that has shown care for someone else by doing their job exceptionally well and going the extra mile. They are nominated by the other employees. We typically give out four to six of these awards in an average month. All of the award winners each month are put into a random drawing. We give the winner of the drawing a gift card for $100.
One example of a winner of an RPM award was a salesperson that responded quickly to a crisis with a customer. Something went wrong with a scheduled after-hours delivery of a new vehicle to the customer’s home and it did not happen. The problem was that the customer was an elderly lady that had to drive herself to the doctor the next morning. That new car was her only way to get there.
With little time to respond, this salesperson piled her family into the car and delivered the new car to the customer herself. This delivery was over two hours away and happened at 10pm…on her day off!
The second award is called a Lightning Strike. This award goes to someone that has shown extraordinary care for someone else. They have done this outside of the normal course of the job…often not even related to their job or our company at all. Each winner of this award gets a $100 gift card.
A notable Lightning Strike winner was a young member of our detail department. My brother received a call from a well-to-do older lady from his church. She asked about this employee by name. She wanted to know if he indeed worked for us. Sensing trouble, my brother answered that he did and then waited for the complaint.
Instead of complaining, she explained that she had been at McDonald’s earlier that morning, had placed her order, and went to pay. That was when she realized she had forgotten her wallet. As she stood there wondering what she was going to do, this employee stepped up and told her he would pay for her breakfast.
The kicker is that this position is an entry level position that is responsible for washing cars and therefore does not earn much money. Also, when the older lady asked the McDonald’s cashier if she knew our employee, she said she did not, but she did know that he had done that same thing on multiple occasions before!
These two forms of recognition are not all we do, but they do play a role in helping us to get our employees engaged in our mission and vision. As long as I keep hearing stories like these, I will feel we are on track!
The material for the following post comes directly from the chapter titled “Vision Leaks” in the book by Bill Hybels called Axiom.
I told my wife that I loved her on my wedding day. Do I need to keep telling her after that? I told my children when they turned 10 years old that I expect them to participate in the household chores. Should I have to tell them again? I am sure you have your own examples of similar situations. This is especially true in a Christian business. The bottom line is that vision leaks!
Imagine that everybody in your company has a bucket and you have poured your vision for them into that bucket. The bucket is now full of your vision. That should be enough, right? There should be no need for further filling. You should be able to move on to the next idea, right?
Wrong. You see, those buckets leak! They leak vision from small holes in the bottom. They lose vision from people running around and spilling your vision wherever they go. Whether you like it or not, that one-time filling of their bucket is not enough. For them to keep enough vision in their buckets to stay on track, you are going to have to constantly refill and top off their buckets.
You may think that is unfair. You may think that is someone else’s job. You may even find your own bucket leaking and cannot see how you can possibly have enough to spare. Regardless, the filling must go on if the vision is to continue.
This is especially true in a Christian business. Unfortunately, the vision of a Christian business is in direct opposition to normal business vision. While traditional businesses look at the monthly, quarterly, or even annual picture, the Christian business considers the eternal picture. While traditional business considers the benefit of the stockholders, a Christian business considers the benefit of everyone with whom it comes into contact. When your vision is so opposed to the normal mindset, it is even more prone to leak.
So let’s take a look at some ways to prevent empty buckets.
1. Acknowledge that vision leaks. If you do not first acknowledge that leakage is a problem, then you will never go any further to correct it.
2. Accept responsibility. If you do not accept responsibility for the maintaining the vision buckets, then no one will. If you cast the vision, you must maintain it.
3. Assess the leakage. Take the time to ask your leaders about their current grasp of the vision. Ask people on the front lines about their focus. It will likely become very clear fairly quickly where the vision levels currently stand. Keep in mind, this is not a one-time thing. Due to continuous leakage, this is an ongoing responsibility.
4. Overcommunicate the vision. Use various methods to do this, but do it. Tailor your message to the audience you are addressing. You should use different language and examples when talking to your top leadership versus your entry level employees. At the same time, maintain high expectations for both. Here are some examples of some ways to communicate your vision.
5. Recognize “Heroes” of the vision. Catch employees doing things that fit the vision and publicly praise them for it. Give them a small token gift or reward for their actions. Encourage others to follow their example!
6. Spread the vision DNA. This is especially more critical as your company grows beyond a handful of employees. As growth happens, you cannot be in enough places at once to maintain the vision on your own. You must appoint DNA carriers to help you spread it. These are people that are completely bought in to your vision and can teach it to others. Charge them with helping you keep the buckets full. However, keep in mind that DNA carriers still have leaky buckets as well!
7. Keep your own bucket full. While you are likely the person carrying the bucket with the fewest leaks, you cannot assume your bucket will always stay full. You must schedule time alone on a regular basis for the purpose of refilling your own bucket. From daily quiet times to quarterly retreats, there are various ways to accomplish this. Whatever your method, just make sure you do it!
How do you keep the vision buckets full in your company?
When is the last time you refilled your own bucket?
What action step should you take right now to strengthen your company’s vision?