So let's talk about self managed teams. When it comes to a self managed team, a team that you can, um, they can execute on their own, that they're able to make decisions on their own, that they're coming to you with solutions instead of problems. One of the biggest gaps that I see for them lacking the ability to do that is that they don't have clarity around a direction.
So here's the thing, if your team doesn't understand where you are trying to go, why do we expect that they're going to take ownership in being able to get there? It's like you're, you have an end destination in mind. You put your team members in a car. You don't tell them what that end destination is.
You don't give them a map. You don't give them anything. You say, I just want you day in and day out to get in this car and drive. Until you find me. Like we've completely set them up for failure. They just get in that car every day and drive around in circles, aimlessly wandering, trying to figure out like, Oh, have we been in this area?
Yep. Let's try a new area. Like just trying to figure out how to make you happy. It's a complete. An utter waste of their time. That is why they show up every day, just running on the hamster wheel, going through the motions of checking boxes. That's why they get caught up in the nitty gritty details of like, just, they get so caught up in the tasks and, like, problems that don't even matter.
Because they don't understand the bigger picture we're driving towards and how to prioritize against that, and it's because it's stuck in your head. And for a lot of us as leaders, we were never taught how to take a strategy, a vision for our team. And to cascade it to our team in a way that they can, that actually directs them.
All we've experienced are these super fluffy, vague, buzzwordy vision statements that don't tell us anything. All we've experienced is companies. Rolling out their goals, um, at the beginning of the year. And we're all just supposed to cascade from them, but let's be honest. The goals that they roll out are really focused more on making sure that everyone's happy and no one feels left out and they're super freaking vague.
And they don't actually tell you what you're supposed to prioritize. In fact, you read through those goals and you're like, I don't even know what this tells me. It's just like propaganda to make sure like, Hey guys, we're all in this together. Everyone's accounted for in these goals. No, just go keep doing what you're doing.
And we're all looking at each other. Like what they don't actually help. And yet we're all expected to cascade based off of those goals. When it's like, keep our customers happy, keep our employees. And this being the best place to work. And it's like, how? Like, but like, how are we going to do that? Because that has been the same goal or some variation of that goal for the last five years.
And like here we're still here. So coming back from my rant, we need clarity for our teams. What does clarity look like? One, they need to understand the impact that they are trying to make long term over the next three to five years. Yes. Long term. What is the impact your team is trying to have? If there was only one thing that they could achieve over the next three to five years, what would it be really tap into?
Is it some sort of impact on your customer? Like, what is that? One problem that you just, if you solved this for your customer. It would like 10 times the impact you'd be able to have on them. Or is it an impact in the company? Is there a problem in your company right now that your team, particularly for my service based teams, my teams who serve other teams within the company.
Is there a problem right now within your company that if you solved, would 10 times the impact everyone would be able to make, is it a problem? An industry impact, like you're going big, you want to be the benchmark everyone else is talking about. Is there a problem within your industry that no one can figure out, that if you solved, It would, you would be the people that people are talking about.
You would be the company speaking at the conferences on, um, product development on tech, on how you're doing sales, like get clear on the level of impact you want your team to have over the next three to five years. And I say three to five years, because I want it to be bold. I want it to be ambitious. It should be bold enough that it feels stretchy writing that statement down.
It should be bold enough that there are clear challenges you are going to have to overcome to achieve this. If your team is fully prepared to knock this vision out of the park tomorrow, you have not gone bold enough. My friend, not by a long shot. I want this to be. Something that your team can strive for over these next three to five years.
And when, cause here's the thing. There's, there's a sweet spot when it comes to planning. Annual planning doesn't work because it's not stretchy enough. And the world that we live in changes so often that it's really hard for an annual plan to stick. So based off of all the research we've done, the best plans are long term plans, Like three to five years, because those are so bold enough, so ambitious enough, so high level enough, that they provide clarity around where we're trying to go, but they're still, um, big enough that they're typically not going to change.
Over the next year or two, that problem, your customers facing. If you have gone bold enough, it's probably not going to change that much over the next year or two. And then the other type of planning we like is immediate planning. So let's move into that. So your team has a broad vision, they have a direction, a destination.
Hey guys, we're trying to get to Montana. Like they have something where we're trying to go. Now they need to figure out over the next, like in this next quarter, what do we need to do to get to Montana? Because like I said, annual plans. They do not work. We spend so much time planning them out, but then they end about the window.
It is much when it comes to, um, adaptability and working in this, uh, business environment, that's constantly changing. The best thing you can do is have your longterm vision and then have your quarterly vision. Your plan for how you're actually going to get to that destination. And what we need to focus on here is what we're going to prioritize.
Because here's the thing. There are a million different ways you can get to Montana. We can jump in a car, we can jump in an RV, we can take a train, we can fly. But what we need to know is based off of your team's current capacity, current resourcing. Current, um, tools, current skillset. What is the, um, mode of transportation, the solution we need to focus on right now over the next 12 weeks, that's just going to give us one step closer, just one step closer, maybe we know that right now all our team can do.
Is jumping a car because we have a car, it's a clunky car. It's not perfect, but like, if we get in that car over the next 12 weeks, we feel like we can make progress towards Montana. We know we're not going to get there. We know this car is going to break down before then, but if we just get in it today and start making that progress, we know along the way, When it gets to the next quarter, we'll be able to reevaluate based off of the progress we've made.
Because here's the thing sitting there, staring at a map of Montana, trying to plan everything out. Isn't going to get you any closer to Montana. We're like going all in on this Montana scenario, but it's not, it's not. But that's where a lot of us get stuck. We sit there and we plan out all the different routes and try to plan about what every single gas station we need to hit and what could possibly go wrong and what we're going to do if we hit a pothole and we get a flat tire and how we're, and it's like, that may never happen.
The better thing to do is to jump in the car and start driving with what you have today. Start making progress because as you make progress, you're going to learn. You're going to learn what's working, you're going to learn what's not working, you're going to learn where you need to actually be focusing your time, and the next quarter, you're going to reassess, and you're going to pivot based off that.
Maybe now that we've gotten a little further down our journey, we know that a different mode of transportation is going to be best. We've seen a door open where, you know, maybe we've found some budget, or maybe we've proved enough. The impact we'll be able to make by just getting in that car and driving that now exec is paying attention and they're willing to throw some budget.
They're willing to help us fix that tool. That's super clunky. That's not, um, It's actually slowing our team's down ability to get there. That wouldn't have happened if we just sat there and spent three months looking at a map, trying to plan everything out. So what your team needs is they need a vision, three to five years, this is where we're trying to go, we're getting to Mantena.
And then what they need to know is this is the solution that we are going to use to get there. I recognize that there are a million different ways we can get there, but we're going to use this one because here's the thing as a senior leader, leading a team of teams, what happens when you just give them the destination, we're getting to Montana each and you cast, have your teams cascade based off of that because that's what the typical corporate process is.
You give them a vision. Everyone cascades goals based on that. You have just siloed your teams. Because I guarantee you, they're not going, all of your leaders aren't going to get together in a room and say, okay guys, how are we going to get to Montana? Like how, who's going to do what? How are we going to come up with a shared solution?
Like they're not going to do that. They are going to go into their respective bubbles and they're going to say, okay, I am the IT team. What is the most IT solution to get us there? And then the training team's gonna go as the training team, what is the most training type solution to get us there? And they're all gonna view it from their very siloed lens, blinders on.
And what happens then is all of your teams are trying to get to Montana in a different way. One's jumping in the car, one's jumping in the train, one's jumping on the plane, and we have just spread our capacity, our resources, our time, our talent, across all of these different modes of transportation, and what's going to happen is Is every single person will get like 5 percent closer because we're so spread thin and most leaders are like, well, I can't tell them that we're choosing an IT solution and we're going all in there because talent will feel left out.
And we start to get in this mindset of like, I have to make sure everyone feels a part of it. Everyone is a part of it. We are just saying, this quarter, we are going to focus on this mode of transportation. This, the, IT. IT is the solution we're going in on this quarter. Now, training? I need you to work with IT and support them in whatever they need.
To achieve this goal, we all have a piece of it, but I just want you to be building training for the IT solution that IT is putting out instead of going building your own training based off of what you think is best. And for some people, they might just not have a part of the solution this quarter. And that's okay.
We need you to continue to do your foundational work because that is so important too. In fact, this is a great time for teams to have like a quote unquote rest period where they can look internally to their own team and say, what do we need to improve internally about how we're operating? So next time, next quarter, when maybe.
It's our time to be invested in and be part of the solution. We're ready, but for some reason we feel like everyone has to be doing the big, sexy, strategic work. Everyone needs to be the priority. And that is why your team is constantly at your door saying, well, we're trying to hit the vision based off of this.
So we need the resources. And then two seconds later, the other leaders at your door being like, no, they're wrong. This is what needs to happen. And you're constantly going to be in that place unless you do the work upfront to say, this is where we're going and this is what we're prioritizing to get there.
And yes, that means. We are not prioritizing these things does not mean you're not important does not mean we don't love your work does not mean that You will be the solution. We're focused on next time It just means that this is the thing that's going to get us across the finish line today right there just by doing those two things by having a long term vision by prioritizing the solution you are going to use to get there and Ensuring that it is clear to you What you are deprioritizing based off of that, that is going to make significant impact in your team's ability to own their crap, because now they understand where they're trying to go and they understand, I don't need to be bickering with all my other leaders because this is the solution we're all in on this quarter.
So now not everyone's coming to your door, needing reclarification. Not everyone's coming to your door every five seconds, trying to pitch their case. Because you've already made the decision and we're going all in for 12 weeks. And then at the end of the 12 weeks, okay, let's reassess. And we'll go from there.
If you guys are wanting support in doing something like this, you need to be inside activating strategy because activating strategy is exactly where we go over how to create a simple vision and how to bring it down, prioritize what the solution is. You need to be focusing on. And take it all the way down into a 12 week action plan.
I'll drop the link to that below. I want you guys to go take one thing you learned from this episode and go apply it. And then DM me with how it went and where you had questions.
