Mission-driven

As my students will attest, I am a strong believer that progress only begins in any walk when three components are firmly integrated into one's life or business.  There must be a simple yet compelling Mission that defines our reason to exist.  I use the analogy of mission being an automobile we can get inside, seat belt on, radio off, adjust the mirrors and start the engine. We are ready to go! 

I remember very hot day in 1970 doing my one millionth push up of the day at Fort Bragg, NC, thinking I was about to depart for Heaven when I looked up and saw a sign on the outside of my barrack that read: THE MISSION OF ARMOR IS TO CLOSE WITH AND DESTROY THE ENEMY THROUGH FIRE, MANEUVER AND SHOCK EFFECT!  Wow, I got it and it has stayed with me from that moment but what has truly remained in me is the compelling nature of a Mission. So the question, for you, right now, what is your Mission, your reason to exist?

But the challenge of a perfectly tuned, well fueled, ready to go vehicle is that it must be going somewhere, right?  So it is determining our destination and describing in very compelling terms that destination which I prefer to call the Vision. Vision must electrify, illuminate, compel, empower those about to embark on the destination of our Mission / our ready to rumble vehicle. See how Mission and Vision must intersect for one drives the other?

Yet perhaps the most important element of our car / destination analogy is being all dressed up and ready to go, we know where we are going, Vision, but what is lacking is the pathway from the Mission to the Vision, right? Right!  That pathways determined to arrive at the Vision are the strategies.  These strategies should be profound, focused, easy to comprehend and well articulated for the more people you can get to hang their hat on the door knobs of the strategies, the more successful and adrenalin provoking progress will be experienced. 

The speed bumps of progress on the strategic pathways are what I call the Goals and a Goal is not a goal unless it is SMART = Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-driven.  Tell a five foot person they will arrive at the gym tomorrow at 0730 with a regulation basketball and slam dunk a basketball on a regulation basketball goal which is ten feet high is, well, you are only going to frustrate and disappoint, right? It is right for while the goal is Specific and certainly Measurable, it is not Attainable nor Realistic but yes it is Time-driven. 

Here is what I have learned as the difference between managers and Leaders: managers give goals and expect them to be accomplished whether they can in reality be done or not.  Leaders negotiate goals around the framework of the Mission / Vision / Strategy house and then invests in a very personal Partnership with the led to be a success for it is the wins that drive accomplishment.

To make my point if I at 6 ft 4 assign the slam dunk goal to the five footer, then for the five footer to be a success, I should meet with him at the gym at 0730 and put him on my shoulders, let them stand on by back or whatever I can do to ensure the five footer accomplishes the slam dunk goal ... is thus a winner for I provide the Partnership. Leadership is about Partnership I have come to realize more clearly in my teaching.  Everybody wants to be a winner but it is leaders that invest in the led to support, encourage, embrace, drive, cheer lead, discipline, push; whatever is required for the five footer to be a successful slam dunker!  This I believe and this I teach!

So the question .... what is your mission, what is your vision, what are your strategies to reach that hallowed place called Vision? But the real question, Leader, is, are you willing to take enough of yourself to invest in those you are leading to meet them half way to the journey of Success?  If the answer is no, please, spare us the words of ambition for they are only hollow statements of utterance and there is far too much of that in our world.

Inherent in all of this is the model Jesus taught us that you will never learn to lead until you learn to serve. Leadership is about serving.  Find a way to serve someone in a very special, unexpected, unplanned way this day! Try it, you will love it, Leader!