Who builds your vision?

A lot of leaders have a great vision.  But actually turning that vision into a success story is another thing.  Many fail because they forget who builds their vision.  Their staff.

As a result, companies suffer low morale which undermines productivity.  Smart, creative workers stop taking risks, so innovation suffers.  New markets stop opening up.

Good staff start taking calls from headhunters.  And managers find themselves flailing under pressure, sinking more time and energy into stopping team fractures than actually building the vision.

Talkshow Managing Director, Jonathan Halls, challenged a group of media executives and senior managers to remember that their staff create their vision.

Two areas leaders must invest

In a challenging speech at the International Newsroom Summit in Paris last month, Halls highlighted two key areas that leaders must invest in to turn their visions into reality.

The first is to put energy into a realistic learning plan.  Many companies are changing so fast that it’s not just skills that need to be learned.  Generally, a mindset change is essential to success.

The second step is to devote time and energy to a communication strategy.  This is as much about education as it is winning hearts and minds.

And the interesting thing about these two issues is that they intersect.  In his speech, he suggested leaders need to take on the role of teachers.

Vision must be led from the top

Citing a number of recent change management initiatives, he said that communicating vision, winning hearts and minds along with changing mindset must be led from the top.

This represents real difficulties for leaders who make it to the top because they’re great engineers, accountants or business planners.

Their core skills become less important when they have others they can trust to take tactical decisions.  Their ability to persuade, motivate, inform and teach become their core skills.

Avoid buzzwords and be smart about training

Enabling communication and learning to work well requires the right people.  Halls advised against hiring people who know the buzz words.  

Instead he said, “Make sure they understand people, learning and how to help their people learn and improve their performance.”

“And make sure they don’t just roll out traditional training courses because smart, strategic solutions are essential in today’s environment of constant, rapid change.”

Such solutions he said, could involve coaching and traditional workshops but they must be clearly communicated and led from the top. 

Responses

The Ifra event was covered by a number of journals.  Below are links to some of the comments.

Session Summary

Ifra Newsplex's Commentary

Journalism.co.uk

Editors Weblog

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