How will you know you’ve been successful in 2 years time? Start with the end in mind.
We have all heard and understood the importance of strategic vision, providing the workforce with the clarity required to make good decisions. There are innumerable articles that describe strategies for creating a compelling organisational vision, but many of them fail at providing tangible outcomes, they tend to be more aspirational. I believe in the value of intent based leadership. Which requires competent people, with sufficient clarity on what is required, exercising to the limits of their control. That control is defined by their competence and organisational clarity. David Marquet talks to this in his compelling book “Turn the Ship Around”. I have had success with the V2MOM strategy promoted by SalesForce’s Marc Benioff in bringing clarity to the required organisational outcomes.
But what about personal clarity? What does your future look like in 2 years time? How do you get personal clarity? You could use the same V2MOM strategy development, but this may take to much to develop. You could also use the method found successful by Brian Scudamore and Dan Lionelli with the Painted Picture. This is a detailed but creative method of describing your dreams and visions. A simpler method, that can still be effective is to just right down your goals, and then turn them into something creative.
One tip is to think of the award narrative you are receiving in 2 years, your acceptance speech, or the performance report you receive in the next period? If you write your goals out, and be creative about it, the more ‘real’ or ‘stronger’ the visualisation the better. Some people have had great benefits from sending their goals and progress against them to a friend, allowing then to leverage the bonus of external accountability.
The thing is, with being creative you can focus on the important things. Things like; how you feel at that point, how you worked through that difficult transition period (from duress to success). The clearer you can be here in how you work through that problem, how your story plays out in that situation, the more you will see opportunities to navigate it.
This is a realisation that all things are created twice; once in your mind (mental creation) and once in reality (physical creation). Stephen Covey in his famous book called this habit 2 (7 Habits of Highly Effective People). So how can you create it in your mind? Goals that are written down are more likely to be achieved. Goals that are turned into art, like an award transcript or an acceptance speech, or an end of year report are more effective again.
So, sit down and write down the impact you want to have, personally and professionally. Write it in an emotive and descriptive way, then read it out loud. Embed it as the future you want, and before you know, you’ll see opportunities to achieve it wherever you go. This can be used in short term goals, like how you feel after an important meeting or presentation, or longer term like end of year reviews. Starting with the end in mind will allow you to identify little opportunities as you go to get there.
Remember, if you create a game with your 11 year old daughter about a small punch in the arm for every yellow car you see and call “Spotto”, you’ll start to notice yellow cars everywhere (or punch-buggies). Write down your goals, the end you have in mind, and you’ll start to see opportunities to achieve them everywhere!
The below YouTube video is great at conveying this through Isaiah Hankel’s story.
Stay safe and keep smiling, Leon.
[high-five]
