I have written about the power of visioning in recent blog posts. Gino Wickman, in his book, Traction:
Get a Grip on Your Business, explains in a very practical way, how entrepreneurs can turn a vision into reality in their businesses. Wickman’s book is like a manual for doing very useful strategic planning; not the kind that is handed down from on high or is one more document collecting dust on the shelf. Rather, this is about involving employees in the visioning, planning, and implementation process. Not only for the entrepreneurial founder of a new business, this book is also good advice for any leader trying to take a department, unit, or team to the next level of performance.
The book is intended to address five common frustrations of entrepreneurs:
- Lack of control over time, markets, and the company
- Employees, customers, vendors, and partners not following through on what needs to be done
- Not enough profit
- Inability to grow the company past a certain point
- New strategies and remedies not working
Wickman argues that entrepreneurs have these frustrations because they lack vision and a plan that is shared by everyone in the company. I have my doubts that Wickman’s approach will resolve the control issues of many entrepreneurs. After all, that’s why they are entrepreneurs. However, it might allow some entrepreneurs to feel a greater sense of control in the short term.
What Wickman calls a vision, I call a strategic plan. But I’ve never been hung up on terminology. People use vision, mission, core values, and objectives differently. What matters is knowing where you are going, how you will get there, and bringing everyone else along with you. Often, entrepreneurs fail to clearly communicate their vision to others which results in a lack of employee engagement. Wickman emphasizes creating a strategic plan with the leadership team and sharing this plan with all employees. A company needs everyone rowing in unison. He writes:
… you must communicate it to everyone in the organization, and every person must understand it and share it. When everyone’s energy is going in the same direction, their accumulated drive will kick in and create an exponential force.
Wickman relates his approach to Jim Collin's notion of "getting the right people in the right seats." In Traction, we get some guidance on how to do that. It provides some harsh but valuable advice:
- Be careful what you wish for because you'll get it. if you want to grow, you have to understand that not eveyone is going to be able to keep up and remain in the same seat forever.
- Keeping people around just because you like them is destructive. You're doing a disservice to the company, to everyone in it, and to the person. People must add value. I realize this may sound cold, but to the degree people are in the right seats, everyone is happier, especially them.
More than anything, this is a book about alignment. After clarifying values and setting goals, Wickman asks entrepreneurs to develop a short and long-range plan, consistent with those goals, that puts the company on the road to achieving those goals. He offers tools for doing this, but I think the message is more important than the tools. That is, take the time to step back and clarify, in very specific terms, what you and your employees want the company to become and then identify the steps to getting there. Focus all of your company’s energy and attention on where you are going, not where you have been.
