What’s Your Leadership Roadmap?

Years ago, after losing more than 50 pounds of weight in six months, I participated in a short bicycle race. It was a 15-mile individual time-trial, a race where each individual competes against the clock for time. To my surprise, I was leading the race, until… 

…close to the finish line when I turned down the wrong road with a dead-end! 

Yogi Berra included this, now legendary statement, as part of driving directions to his house in Montclair, New Jersey. There is a fork in the road, and whichever way you take, you will get to his house. In other words, he was saying “make a decision”. 

If you want to lead well, you’ll use proactive planning to make informed decisions. If you don’t, you’ll lead your people into a dead-end situation with no options and probable failure. 

It has been said that if we’re not careful, dedicated people may find themselves running real hard to catch the wrong train. 

Also, in building your team, there is a big difference between hard work and teamwork. 

To minimize the risk, as leaders, of either catching the wrong train or just pure hard work, each of us should continually work ON, not just IN, our business. 

So, why is it important to… 

Every leader can achieve the success they have always searched for by understanding the following two truths. 

Know Where You Are Going 

My good friend and mentor, Jim Lundy, would often say… 

If you don’t know where you are going 

…any path will get you there, 

…but you won’t realize if you’re lost, 

…you won’t know what time you’ll arrive, 

…you won’t know the dimensions of your challenge, 

…others won’t understand how they could help, 

…and since you could pass right by without recognizing it, 

…you won’t get the satisfaction of having arrived! 

I finally learned in those early years that it was important for me, as the leader, to pause, reflect, plan, and prepare so I knew where I was going. 

But I also learned that it was even more important to get every employee involved in the planning and decision-making process, so we did not go down a wrong road. 

Focus on Effectiveness and Efficiency 

Working ON the business involves focusing not just on doing your work, but also considering how your work could be done more effectively and efficiently. 

It involves identifying your core values, purpose, vision, mission, strategies, tactics, and measurable goals. It also relates to constantly searching for ways to improve the value you provide your customers. 

The ultimate evidence of the success of such efforts is your ability to profitably achieve customer delight – giving a customer an experience that exceeds their expectations. 

Effectiveness… 

• Is doing the right thing 

• Will determine your success 

A person’s (or group’s) effectiveness is determined by the extent to which purposes, vision, mission, strategies, tactics, and measurable goals are achieved. In other words, have the targeted results been achieved? 

Efficiency… 

• Is doing things right

• Will determine your survival 

Efficiency is the extent to which results have been achieved with minimal use of available resources (labor, equipment, materials, etc.). 

Having a roadmap by working ON, not just IN, the business helps you, as the leader, and most of all, your employees, know where the organization is going. This understanding enables your organization to become more effective and efficient. 

Please see below my Values-Driven Organizational Hierarchy that I have spent about 20 years refining, adding to, subtracting from, changing the look, changing words, stacking the circles differently, etc.   

I have used this roadmap illustration for all these years to help our employees understand how independent each circle was, and at the same time, how interdependent all the circles were in relationship to each other. 

By the way, after that individual time-trial, I did win the prize in another contest for being able to stand still on my bicycle the longest without my feet touching the ground! 

How about you? Do you have a roadmap? Do you ever spend time working ON your business or are you too busy working IN your business?  Please share your comments <here> and share this article with a friend and/or co-worker. 

Click <here> or the image below to download a free copy of my Values-Driven Organizational Hierarchy.