What are you becoming?
Whether you are an individual contributor, a leader in the middle of your company, or an entire team or organization, you are on a journey. A journey to somewhere. Aren’t you?
If you are not becoming something beyond what you are today, stay in bed.
In today’s business environment, deadlines and deliverables are the order of the day. Constant streaming of information and communication, continuously moving targets of business strategy, quarterly fire drills on hitting the sales number. These and other factors create noise and fog for you in pursuit of your higher order goals and objectives. They are real. You cannot ignore them. So how do you keep these distractions from knocking you completely off your course?
Maintaining a long term focus, locking your vision onto your destination, is a must if you are to satisfy the short term demands while staying on track to reach your long term goals. In order to do that you have to be clear of mind in terms of what it is you, your team, your organization are becoming.
Merriam Webster says that to become is to come into existence, to undergo change. It starts with a vision of the future and relies on you placing yourself and your team into that picture. If you are to make the change and transform your current existence into something more aspirational and satisfying, you have to be intentional about what that state is. You need to think and collaborate to define your future state. You need to combine science, art, romance, and dedication to get there. To guide your team there. To move your company in that direction.
The line to that state is not straight. It curves. It breaks. It hits dead ends. Your job as a leader is to remind your team of the destination so that when you begin heading in alternate directions you can get the team back on the path, or perhaps forge a new path that gets you there in the end.
I’ve seen this work and I’ve seen it fail.
When your team is united about their destination it shows. It becomes part of your team’s identity. You help your team define the destinations and the conditions that must be met in order to get there. You develop language that supports your plan. You use that language in casual conversation. You make t-shirts and coffee mugs and cow bells. You create a culture around the destination you have chosen together. You inspire each other. Your team feels like it knows something special and the energy becomes self-sustaining. You set a course and enjoy the journey together.
Or you don’t.
Teams that don’t create this identity, this common bond, this shared sense of mission, tend to run into trouble. They run into trouble when there is a product shortage or recall. When the team misses a quarterly number. When a major customer moves their business to another supplier. When they face budget constraints or layoffs. When they hear the alarm bell for another end of the quarter fire drill to go make short term sales and deliver the number.
For teams that don’t know where they’re going, their compass heading, the fog and noise of short term deadlines and deliverables make it nearly impossible to stay on a course. On any course. Their existence becomes wrapped up in solving whatever problem shows up today. Thinking about tomorrow becomes a luxury. For those that can regroup and try to do some long range planning, they are often undermined by the urgency of the next crisis. It becomes a vicious cycle. The team becomes demoralized and begins to disintegrate. It breaks up into smaller parts, factions. Ultimately the team becomes more and more individualized. As a leader you have very heavy lifting to restore long range strategic thinking and cohesiveness. More than likely, you have a broken team.
But the team that is always becoming is different. This team understands that today’s crises, while critically important to address and solve, are only steps along the path of the ultimate goal. Their destination. Their higher order purpose. They will rally to meet these emergencies head on, because they know that when the storm passes they’ll be right back on their larger mission. They know that when they reach their destination and achieve their goal, the crisis of that day will seem insignificant. It may be forgotten altogether.
That’s because they are once again in the process of becoming. Becoming something beyond what they imagined way back when.
The team that is always becoming is not derailed by today’s deadline or deliverable. It isn’t deterred. It is focused and intentional about arriving at its destination. And at that time it will be just as intentional about its next destination.
Are you the leader who can guide your team to its higher order purpose? Can you create the culture of success that sustains beyond today’s deadlines and deliverables? Beyond even your tenure as the leader of this team?
Yes. You are that leader. Involve your team in charting a higher order mission that is aligned with your company’s mission. Make it a part of who you are. Your brand as a team. The fabric of your success model. Your leadership signature.
Decide to be the leader who is always becoming. Becoming the best leader you can be.
Get out of bed and lead.
Lead well.
(Please share your comments below.)
Click to visit Jim’s book page:
“The Modern Compassionate Leader – 12 Essential Characteristics of the Rising Sales Leader”
Follow Jim on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.
© Jim Martin and www.jamesmichaelmartin.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jim Martin and www.jamesmichaelmartin.com
