• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Great Leadership by Dan
  • Blog
  • Popular
  • Recent
  • About
menu icon
go to homepage
  • Blog
  • Popular
  • Recent
  • About
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
  • search icon
    Homepage link
    • Blog
    • Popular
    • Recent
    • About
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
  • ×

    You are here Home » leaders

    Leaders Should Define More Than the Mountain Top, but Less Than the Whole Plan

    Last updated on Oct 20, 2016 by Dan McCarthy · This post may contain affiliate links

    Guest post
    from Hamish Knox:

    When it comes to defining their vision, leaders tend to fall into two
    camps. Camp one can clearly articulate a mountain top they want to reach, but
    create zero clarity on how they’re going to get to that mountain top. Camp two
    has their mountain top defined and they also have a step-by-step guide to get
    from where they are today (base camp) to their mountain top.

    Both camps fail to create sustained motivation in their people. Camp one
    fails because they haven’t defined base camp so some of their team will draw
    their own conclusions about the likelihood of getting from base camp to their
    leader’s mountain top and give up because they feel it is unreachable or
    unsustainable. Camp two fails because their team feels no connection to their
    plan and while they may go through the motions of following their leader’s plan
    they aren’t fully bought in.

    To create buy-in and sustained motivation in your team for executing
    your vision make sure you:

    1)    Clearly
    define your mountain top

    Humans are story-based creatures. On the negative side this causes your
    team to take a snippet of information, which may be inaccurate to begin with,
    and weave an entire novel-length story that they will share with their
    colleagues. On the positive side this enables leaders to create buy-in by
    weaving a story that each member of the team can identify with in whole or in
    part.

    When you are defining your mountain top ask yourself:

    ·        
    Where am I?

    ·        
    What am I hearing/seeing?

    ·        
    What am I saying/doing?

    ·        
    How am I feeling?

    ·        
    Who am I there with?

    ·        
    What are they hearing/seeing?

    ·        
    What are they saying/doing?

    ·        
    How are they feeling?

    Using those questions you can weave a story to share with your people
    that will create more buy-in than any slide deck filled with statistics.


    3)    Define base camp

    Without a clear definition of where your organization is today your team
    may not even be able to see the mountain you want to climb much less the
    mountain top. This isn’t permission for you to lower your goals, but it is a
    warning that unveiling your ultimate mountain top to your team (e.g. pivoting
    your business model from transaction-based to subscription-based with an
    entirely new set of customers) may cause decreased motivation and turnover.

    If you discover that your ultimate mountain top is too far from base
    camp to create sustained motivation in the majority of your team, define 2-4
    interim mountain tops and roll each out as the “ultimate” destination. A
    mountain top summited becomes your next base camp on the journey to your
    ultimate mountain top.

    3)    Define
    waypoints to the mountain top

    Years ago I set a really stupid goal, which was to triple my business in
    12 months. The goal wasn’t stupid because of the mountain top. It was stupid
    because my response to “how ya gonna get there” was “I’ll figure it out.”

    Winners don’t “figure it out” they at least have a clear mountain top, a
    clearly defined base camp and defined waypoints (camps 1-X) that will indicate
    they are on the right path to achieving their goal.

    Defining your waypoints will give your team comfort in having smaller
    targets to reach on the way up your mountain and create sustained motivation
    because their next destination isn’t too far away.

    4)    Co-create
    the path between camps with your team

    Humans have a preference for editing over creation. Give your team a
    complete step-by-step guide from base camp to the top of your mountain and
    they’ll spend time editing it instead of executing it.

    Instead, share with your team your mountain top, base camp and waypoints
    and challenge them to create the path to the top. You’ll likely discover that
    they have more effective or efficient ways of achieving your vision that you
    could have come up with on your own, and because they were involved in creating
    the path, your team has greater buy-in.

    Great leaders not only have great vision they can clearly articulate the
    vision from where their organization is today to where they will it to be, but
    they also create buy-in and sustained motivation in their team by lowering
    their anxiety about stretching to achieve their vision and enrolling them in
    creating the path to their mountain top.

    Hamish Knox is author of CHANGE
    THE SANDLER WAY:  Understanding The Human
    Dynamics

    That Cause New Initiatives To Succeed.  He currently heads a Sandler Training Center
    in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. For more information, visit
    www.sandler.com/resources/sandler-books/change.

    « Great Leaders Embrace Innovation, and Innovation Demands Risks
    How Adversity Affects the Backbone, and Soul, of a Leader »
    AFTER ENTRY

    Reader Interactions

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Primary Sidebar

    dan-mccarthy-great-leadership-by-dan

    About Dan

    Dan is an expert in leadership and management development. For over 20 years Dan has helped thousands of leaders and aspiring leaders improve their leadership capabilities. Read More

    ebook-dan-mccarthy

    Trending:

    • Top 12 Development Goals for Leaders
    • How to Write a Great Individual Development Plan (IDP)
    • 25 Great Leadership Development Quotes
    • The Performance and Potential Matrix (9 Box Model) – an Update

    Footer

    ↑ back to top

    • Home
    • About
    • Contact

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    Copyright © 2022

    • Disclosure
    • Privacy Policy