Getting Everyone on the Same Page with a Shared Vision
Hello members and subscribers! The thirteenth Moonshots Master episode is here and we are leaping into Leadership and Shared Vision!
As always we kick off with a slice of inspiration, and who better to get us started than Ken Blanchard who discusses how being a better manager starts with having a mindset that leans towards servant leadership, and our differentiation of vision and mission statements. We then have the heavy-weight champion, Simon Sinek, who breaks down the importance of having direction and introduces us to what a ‘Vision’ is.
Looking forwards, as we plan to adopt vision and mission statements, we have Weekdone and their breakdown of how to measure objectives with team members, helping us learn how to set good OKRs. Closing out the show is Simon Sinek who has 3 ways to stress test your vision, including resilience, being inclusive, and being service-oriented.
Our recommended reading list and downloadable frameworks are available to help you go even deeper into the topic, so you can create your vision and mission statements today:
Apollo Advisors, How to execute your bold business vision like Jeff Bezos
Dan Sullivan, Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork
Ellevate, 11 Steps to Creating a Shared Vision for Your Team
What key lesson are you taking from the Master Series shows? Get in touch and let us know! Thanks for listening. That’s a wrap.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the moonshots master series. It's episode 13. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man with the plan, Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good
[00:00:11] morning, mark. Hey, good morning, Mike. And what a lucky number 13 we have for you and I, our moonshot family, as well as our moonshot members and subscribers today.
[00:00:23] Yeah, it's gonna be very lucky for this show, because I think if you ain't doing what we're gonna talk about in this show, then I think you might run into some problems. If you're trying to build a company, a business, a team, a community, there's an essential ingredient. Mark, what is it?
[00:00:40] Yeah, you're right.
[00:00:41] It feels totally essential. And we're not even over-baking these members and subscribers today. We are digging into leadership and shared vision. One of the essentials. Tools within your repertoire, as well as your business direction, if ever there was one.
[00:00:58] Listen, I can't tell you mark. It's a tricky thing coming up with a vision for your business, for your company or for your team.
[00:01:04] And it might feel a little fluffy. It might feel a little abstract, but I would only say look at the likes of Nike and Apple and many other companies. Amazon companies that have a really clear vision tend to do pretty well. And if you look at individuals go no further than Elon Musk, he is D he is an absolute expert at building a vision of the future and how things could be better.
[00:01:37] And when people get hold of that, when it resonates, when it's, when that story is told properly, it gets people on board. Whether you're looking to build employees. Get them into your company, whether you're trying to get clients, customers, basically any of the stakeholders around your effort be it a business or a personal one.
[00:01:59] If you have a big idea, a big vision, and how to make the world better, people come along for the ride. And that is what we're gonna learn in this master series. Isn't it. Mark.
[00:02:08] That's right. It's so essential. And it's something that I think, like you say, it's probably the thing that gets put on the back burner, isn't it, Mike, something that is worked on when the business has time, but as we're gonna learn from today's master series, it's something that we should not forget about.
[00:02:27] We should not put to one side, we should not come back to later. Cuz like you say, it is a bit of a waterfall effect. You get this right. And everything else is maybe somewhat easier.
[00:02:38] Who's. Which company or individual has, when I talk about who's got the best vision, who's the most visionary who gets you excited out of what comes to mind?
[00:02:52] When I say who's the best for you, which one do you like the most?
[00:02:55] Look, let's go with TED. So everybody knows Ted talks. It's something that you and I, as well as our Moonshot's family, dig into maybe every week the vision that they have. And this is for our listeners, just to demonstrate the enormity of some of these statements that you can have, Ted is the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately the world.
[00:03:20] And I think that's a pretty, pretty interesting idea. Isn't it? Mike? It sounds like you may be a little bit fluffy, but there's no argument when you are learning and listening and educating yourself with any of the thousands of individuals that they've had on Ted and TEDx. That's exactly what it is.
[00:03:39] It's the power. Oh yeah. Ideas.
[00:03:41] And what you just did then was by talking about Ted. Is by reading their vision statement. You then instantly go, actually I do really enjoy Ted talks on YouTube and actually I'm always on the lookout for new ones or good ones. And when you see those three little letters, TED yeah.
[00:04:05] That's what really has become a symbol for something, the power of ideas. What I wanna point out for you here is this is where the vision is actually practiced. And the magic that happens just think differently with Apple, just do it with Nike. When the vision is something that is lived and breathed within an organization, it's magical.
[00:04:30] It's like this magnetic force, because really it's nothing different than just keeping your promises. You've got this promise to the world of a better future. Once you start delivering it against it you are already in the top 1%, cuz most people don't have vision and if they do most, don't live up to it.
[00:04:49] So when you do it and you live up to that word great things happen. And we see this not only with businesses, but also with ideas, we look at great people like. Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy people. Who've had this big vision of a better future and they changed generations. They changed our world, even though both those gentlemen and not with us now, they changed our world through vision.
[00:05:17] And today in this master series, we are gonna go to all corners of the vision planet. We are gonna turn it upside down. We're gonna decode it. We're gonna learn how to do it. We are gonna break it down into pieces. Mark. I'm pretty fired up. Oh,
[00:05:33] is there anything more inspirational than hearing the promise that today's episode in today's show is gonna reveal all of this magic, this Northern star?
[00:05:44] the way to hold yourself accountable? I think there's one guy or maybe a couple of guys, Mike, that could help continue this journey of inspiration for our episode today on shared vision. And that's none other than author Ken Blanchard, author of the one minute manager. So let's hear from Ken now, talk to us and introduce the show with servant leadership.
[00:06:07] I really feel that the world is in desperate need of a different leadership role model. We've seen what self-serving leaders have done to the detriment of people in every sector of society, all around the world. And so what we really need is people who are servant leaders, people who are there to serve first.
[00:06:25] And lead second
[00:06:26] leadership is an influential process. We're all influencing each other all the time. So everybody's a leader in every part of their lives. Wow. That's really the most effective leaders I know are just good human beings. They care about people. They listen more than they talk. They want to help people win.
[00:06:45] That's about caring and it's about your heart. There's three key aspects of being a leader, being a manager one. Is clear goals. All good performance starts with clear goals. And so people around you, if you wanna make a difference in their lives, they need to know what they're trying to accomplish.
[00:07:03] Second, once the goals are clear, you ought to wander around and see if you can catch 'em doing something right. And give 'em a one minute praise, acknowledging what they've done. Tell me how you feel about what they've done, how it's impacted you. And that's really important. And then if their performance isn't going exactly the way you both wanted you give 'em what we call now a one minute redirect.
[00:07:25] So to say, gee, I'm observing your performance here. And I don't think it's as good as we thought it would be. Do you agree? And they usually will cuz you're not there to punish 'em and then you say, what could I do to help you get back on track? One of the important things about being an effective leader is to enter your day slowly with some sense of intent and think about what's on my schedule today.
[00:07:47] How do I want to be seen today? And then at the end of the day, Put praisings in your journal. What did you do today that you feel really good about and then redirects? What would, what did you do that you'd love to replay and that'll maybe set a goal for you the next day? I think a good manager is more intentional in their behavior, not caught in the rat race.
[00:08:09] And the problem with the rat race is even if you win it, you're still a rat. I like to look at it. The difference between success and significance. I think when people are focusing on success, they're thinking about how much money they make. The recognition they get for their efforts and their power and status.
[00:08:25] When that's who you think you are, the only way you can maintain your feelings of self worth is to get more of those. And I think then you miss significance, which to me, the opposite of making money is generosity of your time, your talent, your treasure, and a forth, one touch reaching out to people.
[00:08:43] What's the opposite of recognition, it's service. And what's the opposite of power and status? It's a loving relationship because when all is said and done in life, when you're gone and you die, the only thing you get to take with you is your soul. And that's where you store, who you love and who loves you.
[00:09:02] Mark. I'm sure how listeners are like, wow, that sounded a lot like how to manage people. How does that kind of relate to vision? And I think it's really important for us to lay that groundwork. That vision is something that's exchanged between humans, individuals, teammates, team members, collaborators.
[00:09:24] And if you don't have this empathy for the people around you, if you are not aware that vision is the currency of culture, and it's the thing that is exchanged between people, it's how you measure each other. The north star is, are they walking the talk? This is why. We played this clip first, because before we get into vision, it's really important to understand that the vision is something that is shared amongst all practiced by all.
[00:09:58] It's not simply some tall manic person in an ivory tower saying I have a dream, it's way more than that. It's about every single person in the organization or in the team working towards a goal. So that's exactly what you saw in the Golden state warriors as they won the NBA championship. That's what you see when companies like Nike, Apple, Amazon all continue to win week after week, year after year, decade after decade, cuz they're fighting together for something bigger.
[00:10:31] And that leadership role is to be a conduit. You're not the only exclusive source, but rather that's what you're facilitating. It's how, to say, well done, you're on the right track. You're doing good. It's how you know how to do those redirects that Ken Blanchard was talking about.
[00:10:48] Everything comes back to holding each other accountable. That's something we learned very strongly from Patrick and as well and the five dysfunctions of a team and all of this is a way of sending a context before we talk about what is a vision? How do you write one? How do you make one? How do you work together on one?
[00:11:07] You have to realize the context in which this is happening. Leadership role to make vision clear, understood to make it infectious, to make it beyond any sort of doubt. If people are walking in the office, you want them to be very clear on that vision and the person. Who has that on their job description to make sure everyone understands why they come to this place.
[00:11:34] It's the leader. The leader has to do it in a pretty good, pretty challenging way to think. Isn't it? Because you can mark, you can say, Hey, we gotta sell 10 more widgets. Today that's pretty black and white, but when you say, Hey, make sure that you are a servant leader, that you understand your people that you share with them, encourage them to participate with them in setting the vision and owning the vision and practicing the vision.
[00:12:02] That gets a little harder. Doesn't it?
[00:12:04] I think what that clip does a very good job of is reminding us of some of the other responsibilities a leader might have. So you're quite right. Maybe the objective today is to sell, let's say the widgets or to increase the bottom line or. Keep profitable, whatever it might be.
[00:12:21] There's also a handful of responsibilities and objectives that fall to you as the leader. And those are handing out goals, giving praise, feedback or redirects and so on. But exactly as you were just saying, Mike, and to build on that, it all becomes so much. I wanna say easier if you have established that foundation, that journey and the goal or the destination, because then you can think about how you hand out, if you are intimidated by handing out praise, or you are worried about giving some redirects.
[00:12:53] If you come back to your path, your vision, your mission, as we'll learn in the rest of the show today, it's gonna become that little bit easier. Isn't it? Mike? I think we're starting to make the case here and with Clem Blanchard's help that it is something that is so essential in the running, as well as the performance of any business.
[00:13:16] Yeah. And one of the key bits of feedback that you and I really love is when people become a member of this mighty fine moonshot podcast. And it's such a delight for us to make this master series exclusively for our members. Mark, I feel like you need to get your trumpets and your percussive instruments ready.
[00:13:39] Cause we need to pay homage to our listeners and in particular to our members. So let's do a little bit of a member role call. What do you think.
[00:13:50] That's right. Members and supporters of the moonshot show. Thank you once again for being with us and joining us not only every week, but also every month, particularly with the master series.
[00:14:02] So please welcome. Dan, Bob and NS, John Terry Nile. Marling, Ken Dimar and Maja, Rodrigo Yamin, and Lisa Sid, my BJ, Maria, Paul Berg and Kelman David and Joe crystal and Ivo Christian hurricane brain, Sam Kelly, Barbara, and Bob Andre and Matthew, Eric and Abby HAI and Joshua, Chris and Kobe Damon and Deborah Gavin.
[00:14:28] And Lasse Tracy, Steve Craig, Lauren and Javier, who. Mike. This podcast needs to become a little bit longer, just so we can fit all of our members and supporters in doesn't it.
[00:14:41] Yeah. Super grateful to each and every one of you. Thank you so much for your support. And if you are enjoying it, or you have thoughts, feedback, ideas about shared vision leave them in the comments on Patreon.
[00:14:53] We really wanna hear from you send us an email. hello@moonshots.io. You are the beating heart of our organization. So tell us what you think, what you need, and we'll see to it. And I'll tell you a person who really knows what we need and that's Simon Sinek here's really change. He has really changed the way we think about vision or one might say asking the question why, and he launched into the headlines with the whole idea of asking why, what asking?
[00:15:26] What is the purpose? What is the vision? So it would only be appropriate if we're gonna talk about shared. Is really to listen to Simon Sinek himself, we have a vision.
[00:15:37] And what a vision is the ability to see that which cannot be seen. That's why we call it vision. It literally lives in my, our imagination.
[00:15:45] I say, imagine a world, imagine close your eyes, imagine a world. And which to the vast majority of people wake up every single morning, inspired, feel safe at work and return home fulfilled at the end of the day. And what in your mind's IA is yourself and the people you love having that experience and those feelings that is a complete figment of your imagination.
[00:16:02] It is not real. It is the equivalent of an iceberg. That's what vision is. It's being able to see that, which no one else can see cuz it lies beneath. And when we work with a small group of people who say, I believe what you believe and we will work together. And what ends up having is a tiny little piece of iceberg pops up and a couple people go.
[00:16:23] Oh,
[00:16:25] that's what you mean. Yeah, I'm in and they join in and a little more iceberg shows up and a little more iceberg shows up. And before, it, everybody goes, it's amazing what you're doing. And you'll say tip of the iceberg and the iceberg is huge. And people say, look at all the success you've had.
[00:16:45] And you'll say tip of the iceberg, because that's what it means to wake up every single day to advance a cause it means that we devote our lives to building what, which that, which has not been built to advancing what has not been advanced. So showing that which is not seen and not obsessing with the excesses, the successes we've had and how much iceberg is above the ocean, but how much more work we have to do.
[00:17:10] And it all started with a tiny little bit of ice sticking above the ocean.
[00:17:15] Mike, I love this. This visual metaphor that Cenex drawing for us here, because going back to the Ted example that I read out of five or so minutes ago, that seemed quite substantial. Maybe unachievable, Cenex calling out here.
[00:17:35] The fact that it always should be that ambitious. That tip of the iceberg that everybody's starting to see, because underneath is where the weight is, where the gravity is, where the mass is and that's, what's driving and keeping that iceberg afloat. It's keeping it in a direction. Isn't it? And I love that.
[00:17:57] Just idea it. I can't get enough of it, to be honest, it's such a nice little metaphor, particularly for teams as well. Once they understand the benefit, they'll start to, to see and believe. And that aha moment takes place. I think it's a really nice visualization. What do you get from CEK in that little inspiration clip though?
[00:18:17] Oh, look, I think it's such a good reminder of what is your cause? What are you fighting for, what are you fighting against? What's the enemy? What is bad in the world? What does good look like? And it's okay. That it is. What follows the word imagine, that's okay. And obviously what we've touched upon already is if you have a look at Amazon, Nike, apple, they imagine worlds.
[00:18:46] They imagine a world of thinking different. They imagine a world of everybody's an athlete. They imagine a world of, the most customer centric company on the planet and their success is born from this vision because it's like a life force. It's like an energy. Everyone turns into Jedi Knights when they know what the vision is, because it gives them some fuel, some optimism, curiosity, energy for the future.
[00:19:16] And surely that's what all of us want when we step into the office. Mark.
[00:19:20] Yeah. Imagine walking in and having no idea what you're doing there, you might have. And I, and I suspect Mike that it's probably true for quite a lot of us, at least in our younger careers, perhaps when you've worked at agencies or businesses that are maybe less established.
[00:19:37] And it's very challenging, isn't it to step away from your day to day. And this throughout the business, really step away from the day to day and consider the. Impact or maybe the direction that the business is going in when you are not responding to emails as quickly as you can, or putting out fires or trying to create a new product instead, actually being able to look at, a whiteboard or a direction of the business and saying, oh, this is what we're doing.
[00:20:07] I think if some of us don't want to admit it, I think maybe at certain points in our careers, we've all worked at a place that had that lack of gravity or direction. Wouldn't you say?
[00:20:19] I would say that, how often do you find yourself really discussing, reviewing, refining, measuring yourself against your vision in a company?
[00:20:32] I think that going into that will probably reveal to you. What might be missing something that you can improve upon. And I think the reality is it's something we just don't spend enough time on. Maybe we perceive it as being I don't know, not important enough. Yeah. Or a bit frivolous.
[00:20:55] I think that's what happens,
[00:20:56] don't you? Yeah. I think people do get distracted by the running, we've all probably been in those meetings where you are pitching the business and you're saying, yeah, this is what we're doing. This is how great we are. And so on. But apart from moments, when you were trying to communicate.
[00:21:16] The business to an investor or shareholders, whatever it might be, or just somebody that you wanna partner with when you then step away from that forced situation, you're forced to communicate it. You're forced to discuss it in and even think about it. I think there's a tendency to not reflect, to not think about it, to not challenge yourself with verbalizing it.
[00:21:37] And, we all know how valuable it is. Once you commit something to paper or you say it out loud, it can help you workshop and improve the idea. It, whether you are sharing it with your colleagues, all these mechanics help you make it better. And I think what's possible is that within a lot of businesses, the idea is there, the iceberg perhaps is there, but because it hasn't been communicated or discussed or workshoped with other team members, maybe it's a little bit scrappy.
[00:22:08] Yeah. And look it's always a continuous iterative work in progress and that's the important thing. And I think right now you're probably as you're listening to the show thinking, okay guys I think I might need to dust off the old vision statement or create one for the first time.
[00:22:27] I think my, the great news is we're about to get into some serious deep analysis and study of what's the difference between mission and vision, how you go about putting them together, how they relate to all the different things in your organization. So stay tuned. We have lots of practical habits and advice and tips.
[00:22:48] What we're also gonna do is make sure that. That vision really has some meaning. So we've got a way for you to stress test it. And we're even gonna demonstrate how this can really inspire setting of goals, objectives, or OKRs for your team members. So there's so much ahead, but for you, our members, I just wanna reiterate, this is your chance to give us feedback, to send us ideas.
[00:23:15] You are the inner circle. You are the VIP. So jump onto Patreon. Tell us what you think of this show. Tell us what you would like us to cover in future shows. What, just tell us how you are doing with your vision statement, whatever it is we really wanna hear from you because you guys, you are the inner San of the moonshots community.
[00:23:34] So reach out to us, jump into your browser, go to our Patreon page or send us an email. Hello, moonshots, mark. Now we made a big promise. We're gonna decode the creation and understanding of mission and vision statements. Where do we need to go to
[00:23:52] get the job done? Look, I think the members are probably thinking, okay, I've heard a lot from Mike and Mark so far.
[00:23:58] Maybe now we can hand it over to one of our other trusted resources online, this next clip there. In fact, the series of clips is from 3, 6, 5 careers. And as you say, Mike, we're now getting into the second part of the show, which is all about helping us understand and truly get into the depths of shared vision as part of today's episode 13.
[00:24:20] So let's now hear from 365 careers, discuss those important and key values when you're formalizing a company's purpose and let's understand mission and vision statements.
[00:24:33] When we talk about the future, strategy becomes a dynamic concept which allows top managers to define goals and objectives for the future and outline how these goals and objectives will be achieved.
[00:24:44] A great way to formalize a company's purposes. Goals and values is to have formal mission and vision statements. Both are related to the main reason a company exists and help stakeholders understand and keep that reason in mind. Okay. So the mission statement addresses the question, why do we exist? Or what is the fundamental reason for our organization's existence?
[00:25:09] And the vision statement describes the desired future position of the company and answers the questions. What do we want to achieve in the future? And who do we want to become? When trying to define the vision statement, we should include specific goals and objectives, goals, help companies define what they want to achieve while objectives are the specific actions and measures for attaining these goals.
[00:25:32] By setting goals, managers commit themselves to a concrete course of action that would allow them to accomplish the company's vision. Goals can target different areas like. Profitability retention efficiency or customer service. Usually goals are expressed as a percentage when considering financials a company's goal could be to increase revenue and decrease overheads, which is stated in the following way, increase revenue by 10% and decrease overheads by 5% in 2017, an example of an objective that will help you achieve a 10% increase of sales is acquiring five new customers.
[00:26:10] Every month. Reducing overheads can be achieved by finding new and less expensive office premises or maybe outsourcing activities, both of our specific objectives that might allow a firm to reduce its overhead by 5%. Another important question companies should answer is how are we going to behave? And what we believe in maximizing profit is important, but it is also important to uphold certain values and principles.
[00:26:39] This is why most organizations have a set of values. They stay behind. The role of this statement is to define the firm's values and place constraints on how the organization pursues its goals. This can be important for the talented individuals being recruited by the company. Usually they're not only interested in large compensation packages, but also want to work for an employer that is socially responsible and believes in integrity and business ethics.
[00:27:06] Obviously it is not hard to find a firm's mission, vision, and values. All stakeholders can access these statements easily, just open a company's website and click around. You can locate them in no time.
[00:27:19] So Mac has a really interesting connection that's really made there. The things that you do within a business, really come from the mission and the vision.
[00:27:31] And I thought it would be really good for us to take the mission vision and the values of Amazon as a way of dimensionalizing what we just heard from 365 careers there. So let me pitch you this and let's see if we can decode how they've done it as a means for getting the art and science of mission and vision down.
[00:27:54] What do you think ma oh, I'm
[00:27:55] 100% keen. Let's explore together with all members.
[00:28:00] Yeah. Okay. So here we go. Here is the vision statement for Amazon to be ER's most customer centric company where customers can find and discover anything. I think that's the key word they might wanna buy online.
[00:28:15] So this is their vision of the future. This is the cause they're fighting for. And anyone that's been in a anyone's been in that moment where you're like, oh, I really need to buy this. And then you're like, where on earth am I gonna find that, and you spend hours combing, calling people exactly on the internet searching.
[00:28:36] So you can see why that's something worth finding for Mark, why don't you read us their mission statement. And obviously what I wanna point out here is the vision was all about a future, about a course that they're fighting for this mission statement needs to really be rooted in how we're gonna get there.
[00:28:52] What are we doing today to make the vision a reality? All right. Have a crack.
[00:28:56] Exactly. Mission's more kind of action. Isn't it. So for Amazon, their mission statement is we strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection and the utmost convenience. So you've got the best or lowest price, best selection, utmost convenience, all coming out of that customer centric company, where they can buy anything they want online.
[00:29:23] Yeah. And those things have the lowest possible prices. Best available section utmost convenience you can measure. Those today, even though the vision is about tomorrow the mission is about today. So do we have the lowest prices? Let's go on and check. Let's take a exercise bike. All right. Are we offering the lowest prices?
[00:29:48] How's our selection? Oh, we've only got one. We're not really living up to our mission. How convenient is it? Yeah, it's one click shopping. That sounds good. They're with primes. Delivery included. Okay. Shipping that's in there. So we've got two out of the three. Okay guys let's drill down on availability and selection.
[00:30:06] That's a way in which you can have a vision of the future, a mission reflecting on what you're doing today and what I'm standing to get into. That's how you can actually ask yourself, what am I actually? Doing the things I promised myself, my employees and all my stakeholders, are we really living up to our dreams?
[00:30:28] That's pretty good, but we're not quite done yet. Mark, mark. Why isn't it such a good job? Why don't you have a crack at the four values? And this is really interesting. Have a look at the four values of Amazon and see how they relate to their mission and vision.
[00:30:43] So the four values of Amazon, number one, customer obsession, rather than competitive focus.
[00:30:52] Number two, passion for invention. Number three, commitment to operational excellence and number four long term thinking.
[00:31:04] Okay. There's a lot in their customer obsession rather than competitive focus. The reason I love that is they're like, we don't compare what our competitors are doing. We are obsessed and I love this.
[00:31:15] They are obsessed with their customer, what they need, the problems that they have. And that's why every year, name me one other retailer in the world that is constantly bringing new service op offerings, new value propositions. Sure. Amazon doesn't get it right all the time. And yes, they have other problems with employee relations and people working in their shipping and distribution.
[00:31:40] We know all of that, but if you think about it, if you look at what we can learn from Amazon, they are always bringing new value propositions to us as customers. There's always something new from Amazon. And honestly, you just don't see that level of. This is their second value, that level of invention creation.
[00:32:03] You just don't see that from any other retailer, do you?
[00:32:06] No, there's certainly the one that you would, that I would compare an innovative brand, like a Tesla. I would consider Amazon, which, by all accounts, is an online distributor. It's a grocery store. It's a book shop, whatever you wanna call it.
[00:32:23] It isn't necessarily a brand that's known for innovation such as electric cars, but at the same time, we have seen so much progress and change within Amazon. The distribution that they do, the way that they offer products around the world globally. That passion for invention, I would say clearly comes through in the process of amalgamation and evolution that the business and the website has done online.
[00:32:48] Wouldn't you say?
[00:32:49] The other one is operational excellence. And if you look at the scale at which they can get deliveries to you in the quickest time possible, and many times at no charge, that has to be operational excellence at its best.
[00:33:04] I never particularly in the UK, I'd never seen such quick dispatch and delivery.
[00:33:11] At one point, Mike I'd ordered something on Amazon. This was a few years ago. It arrived within 60 minutes.
[00:33:18] just imagine going back to setting up the vision statement for Amazon, the most customer centric company on earth. Suddenly you're starting to see that operational excellence is what's needed in order to go and become that customer centric company. Isn't
[00:33:35] it. Yeah. Yeah, totally.
[00:33:37] Totally. And what about long term thinking? Can you reflect on some, have you seen any long term thinking from Amazon and Jeff Bezos?
[00:33:45] Bezos, I think at least for myself, I regarded Amazon as a bookstore for a long time, but he always knew that it wasn't just about books.
[00:33:56] I think he knew that it was something to test, to learn and to become well known in the sector, in the industry. But I think he always knew that it wasn't going to stop with books. Did he?
[00:34:11] No. And I think that what we are seeing in this exercise is that, you have your vision of the future mission of today, the values on how you're gonna get there, but you can start to see the things that you would do.
[00:34:28] As a result of these things, you and we use the Amazon example. You can actually see it all playing out. He deferred giving profit dividends to, to shareholders and reinvested them for many years even. And he was very open from the states. So guys, if you want a dividend stock look elsewhere, that is not Amazon cause we are reinvesting for the future.
[00:34:48] So his vision was so powerful that everyone actually got on board and said, okay, because we love your vision. And very rare. Would wall street allow a company to withhold a dividend from it? Operational excellence. You think about the scale of business that they've built in such a short time?
[00:35:06] Think about it. They've almost caught Walmart, which has taken over a hundred years to build their company and they've done it in what, 20 years. Wow. So you only need to step back and go, wow. They're the biggest hosting company on the planet with AWS. Yeah. Amazon prime's winning Oscars and all sorts of Emmy awards.
[00:35:24] Really. If you look at the scale of what they are doing to be customer centric, to have the lowest possible prices, you can start to see how their behaviors and actions are all informed by these key things, vision statement, mission, statement, and values. Have we left anything out, do you think in making the case for.
[00:35:44] No I think the case or the penny drop moment for me, Mike, is as we're breaking down, how we experience Amazon today it really comes back to that vision statement. Doesn't it? So Bezos having total clarity on trying to be Earth's most customer centric company, where they can discover anything they wanna buy online, it's made possible through the actions or the waterfall knock on effect.
[00:36:07] That happens once that vision statement has been created, because I would challenge history, I suppose by saying if Amazon did not have the vision statement, as we've read out a couple of times or a mission statement around actions and the values that we've gone through. What would they be now?
[00:36:27] It might just be a pretty generic site that's purely about books, or maybe purely about products, not the distribution, not the television and not the digital products. Remember those buttons and again, just to a quick tangent, do you remember those buttons that Amazon had released where you could stick it on your washing machine and you'd tap it and it would come, the next day or whatever what it great.
[00:36:53] Exactly. Utmost convenience, one click and not without a laptop for those who couldn't use them. Fantastic. Yeah. That's the innovation and the invention that I think comes through in that second core value that we heard the passion for invention, trial and error test
[00:37:09] and learn. And what I would offer to you is Ikea.
[00:37:16] Very similar pattern, Disney, very similar pattern because they have such big visions. Their business has such longevity and can grow and expand because it's powered by a higher idea. Just like we spoke about with Apple and Nike, just like we're demonstrating the rating, the unprecedented size at which Amazon has grown in such a short time.
[00:37:41] That's obviously why to be objective here. They've had challenges because they've grown so much in such a short time, but what you can see here is a vision for the future, a mission of how we're doing it today and some values which can guide your behaviors, they set you up. And hopefully what we've demonstrated is through this Amazon one, they, their vision.
[00:38:05] To be the most customer centric company on the planet. We can get anything you want, lowest prices, best available selection, utmost convenience, and those four big values. The big question to ask yourself now is, do we have a clear vision statement, mission statement? Have we articulated our values? That is for sure the thing.
[00:38:28] And the exciting thing is if you are like we need to go and work on it. Great thing is in our show notes, you'll have the written up examples from Amazon. So you'll have it all there for your easy reference. But what we're about to do now is to jump into how you can adopt these. What we're about to do now is show how you can apply these in two big ways.
[00:38:48] One way you set the objectives for your staff members, for your teammates and your colleagues. You'll have a mission, a vision, you'll have values. You'll have some big goal that you want to get done. Now you can cascade that into the organization and you can get alignment between the things that everybody does and your vision.
[00:39:09] And lastly, we're gonna give you the capacity to stress test this vision so that it can last beyond the day, the week, the month of year, let's hope that you can create something Disney like Ikea. So let's turn our attention now firstly, to how we shift this big vision. Into the hearts, the minds and the actions of our colleagues.
[00:39:33] And of course, there's no better place to start than OKRs before
[00:39:39] writing an OKR. You need a good understanding of what you want to accomplish. First focus on your objective. Think of the potential objectives you'd like to accomplish this quarter and ask yourselves the following questions. Does the objective help achieve company goals?
[00:39:56] Is the objective inspiring? Does the objective move the company forward is the objective timebound and is the objective set for the end of the quarter or for the end of the year after asking yourself those questions, it's also important to consider what objectives are not objectives should not be easy.
[00:40:16] You should only expect to achieve up to two thirds of your objective in a single quarter. If an objective is achieved well before the end of the quarter, you weren't thinking big enough. And if you don't reach anywhere near that, you may have said an annual objective. Instead objectives are not projects with subtasks objectives are aspirational goals, which seek to improve your company.
[00:40:40] They're not one off activities. Which could be considered tasks or plans. So if we wanted to write an objective for a company to increase revenue, a good objective might be to achieve record third quarter revenue growth. This objective works since it's aspirational time bound and helps move the company forward.
[00:41:02] An example of a bad objective would be to keep making revenue. This is a bad objective as it's not time bound, inspiring and not forward. Looking after choosing an objective, you then need to decide on your key results. Remember, key results are the way you measure your. Key results should be specific, quantifiable, achievable, lead to objective grading and be difficult, but not impossible.
[00:41:32] It's also important to consider what key results are not as well. They're not binary key results that should be numeric and updated throughout the quarter. If your key result is binary, it may be a task or plan and not a key result, which moves us to our next point. They're not tasks to be achieved. Of course, tasks and projects are important in supporting your objective.
[00:41:57] Key results are metrics and should be treated as such some good examples of key results for a previous objective would include one generating a hundred thousand dollars in new revenue. Two reduce customer return in the first quarter from 15 to 10% and three onboard 300 new clients. These examples are quantifiable, objectively graded, and while challenging, they should still be achievable.
[00:42:24] A bad example of a key result would be one launching a new business line. The key result is not numerically measurable, and it is not objectively clear how it contributes to the objective. This would be considered as a project or could be rewritten into a separate objective. Now that we have a better grasp on what makes for a good OKR, let's run through some examples and see what is good or could be improved about each.
[00:42:52] For our first example, we have the objective, make our company go viral with the following key results. Generate a hundred thousand views on our YouTube channel two, get 10,000 new followers on Instagram and three increase organic search traffic to our website by 20%. This is a good example of an OKR.
[00:43:14] The objective is aspirational and moves the company forward while the key results are numeric and objectively quantifies the success of the overall objective. Bad key results for the objective would include things such as making videos for YouTube. Get more Instagram followers or improve SEO. For our next example, we have the objective to create and launch a new product with the following key results: one interview, 50 existing customers on what they would like to see for a new product line and two create new products.
[00:43:50] In this case, the OKR could use some work. The objective is likely not possible to achieve in a single quarter and while the first key result is good. The second key result is not quantifiable.
[00:44:03] Mike. I think that's a great breakdown. Of OKRs objectives, key results. And what I, think's quite interesting as I hear that clear breakdown with a couple of great examples is a reminder of maybe some of the benefits that I've experienced in my career by having had some good OKRs verbalized and planned.
[00:44:27] And for me, one of the key things that really benefits team members, when there's a good let's say template or okay on place is alignment. You've got complete alignment across the business where everybody knows what they need to achieve. They can raise a hand if they think, oh, you guys want me to go and do this, but I'm a bit blocked.
[00:44:49] You can really enable the team members to get the best outta themselves by just having something clearly, let's say visualized so that everybody knows what each other are working on. Don't you think so?
[00:45:01] Yeah, absolutely. And if you think about what you could do, and I wanna say just on OKRs, there's such a big topic, powerful topic.
[00:45:09] They almost deserve a whole show on their own. Yeah. But just to give you an example of how we bring it back to Amazon, if they were planning their OKRs for the business, or for a particular, for a leader let's do it for the business, you would say, okay let's set an objective for being customer obsessed.
[00:45:27] And you might say, we want to do 100 customer interviews this quarter. That would be a great objective. And you could set some key results. You have to recruit, do the interviews. And so that would be one objective, passion for intervention. Let's try. Delivering three MVPs for new products or services this quarter.
[00:45:54] And what I'm doing here is I'm taking a connection from the values, which are born of the mission and the vision, and building the objectives around those commitment to operational excellence. Let's reduce shipping time by 10% this quarter. And then you would break down the results that we would need in order to get that done.
[00:46:13] Long term thinking, maybe there's something that captures the long term thinking. Let's have a convention, a summit around long term thinking and create a master plan for 30 years. Let's do that this quarter. That's the objective. See what I'm doing is I'm starting to build the objectives in the day to day operations for the next 30 days or 90 days directly outta vision, mission and values.
[00:46:38] And this is how you bring it all together. Does that make sense?
[00:46:41] Yeah, it really does. Again, it's a good call out that it comes down to anchor skates from the areas that we were discussing earlier, specifically around Amazon's vision mission and those four values. Again, if it feels as though you're listening to us subscribers and you're thinking yeah, but this is, it's all a bit complicated.
[00:47:02] I dunno where to start when I'm setting my objectives and key results. Go back to that area that we were discussing. It's the vision statement. It's Amazon's OB objective or vision to be that Earth's most customer-centric company and all the way through their mission and full values. These are the things that are enabling any type of business to set good OKRs, because they can understand where they're coming from and where they need to go.
[00:47:28] So now let's flip it around. Okay. So we've seen how we go deep down inside to the organization. We have our shared vision. We're even plowing those mission, vision statements, those values they're actually cascading into the objectives and the key results that we're setting for our individuals.
[00:47:46] Now let's just take a step back. Now, let's look back up at that vision and let's use the king of purpose, the king of the question, why Mr. Simon Sinek and let's actually stress test this idea of a vision statement, and let's make sure that it's meaningful. So for the last time on this show, let's have a listen to Mr.
[00:48:07] Simon Sinek.
[00:48:09] There's too much debate about what's the difference between vision and mission, right? There's no standardized definition of these things. Some people have one of them, some people have both of them. Nobody is sure which one goes first. And I'm not willing to step into that debate. I think it's silly.
[00:48:26] And so I believe in the just cause, which is this affirmative statement of a future state that does not yet exist, that I will commit my business to help build. You can call it vision if you want, but I like the term just cause because it holds a higher standard, it's a cause. So just that I would be willing to sacrifice for it.
[00:48:45] Sacrifice could mean turning down a client 's free money. It could be because they don't believe what I believe sacrifice could mean spending time away from my family. It could mean taking business trips. It could mean turning down a job somewhere else that could pay me more money because I want to do this, I believe in this.
[00:49:02] And if any of you have vision statements for your businesses, if you have a, just cause a cost a cause, so just that your people would sacrifice for it. I have a test. It's a very simple test of three things that if you can pass all these three things, you have a vision, you have a just cause worthy of GA playing in the infinite game.
[00:49:24] So I'll run through them quickly, then I'll explain to them your vision, your just cause must be resilient. It must be inclusive and it must be service oriented. Okay. So resilient means that your vision, your just cause can withstand cultural, political or technological change. Which means when I hear people say it is the best technology.
[00:49:50] Yeah, that's not gonna sustain through technological change. Think about how many businesses went like this simply because the internet was invented. So your cause has to be written in terms that are durable. That it is resilient through technological, political and cultural change.
[00:50:05] That's number one, number two, it has to be inclusive, which means it's the very words that you choose are an invitation to those who believe what you believe, whether they're internal or external, right? They're an invitation to anyone who wants to contribute to what you believe. So for example, if you talk about building the best travel website, let's just say, that means the only people who would wanna volunteer to be a part of it are people who build travel websites are people who build websites. That means if you're an accountant, if you're somebody in the back office, if you're somewhere and then support, you've literally made me feel like a second class citizen in my own company.
[00:50:39] So it has to be written in terms that anybody, no matter what. Job. They play feels like they could contribute directly to that cause. So it has to be inclusive. And the third one is my favorite one is it has to be service oriented in all relationships. There's always a benefactor and a contributor and a benefactor.
[00:50:57] So if I go to my boss for career advice, I expect that her advice will benefit me. I wanna be the benefactor of that contribution. If they're giving me advice, if she only gives me advice that benefits her career, right? That means the primary benefit of her advice was her not me.
[00:51:17] So service orientation means that the primary benefit goes to those other than the contributor. So if you're the leader, that means the primary benefit of leadership has to go to those other than the leader themselves. You cannot make decisions to enrich yourself. You have to make decisions to help those that you lead.
[00:51:37] Now, you absolutely can make money. You can absolutely have ambition. Those things are fine, but not as the primary benefit, right? A salesperson cannot make a sale simply to drive their own bonus. They have to make the sale to help the person get what they're trying to buy. The primary benefit. If you're an investor, the primary benefit of your investment, the primary benefit of your investment, has to go to someone other than yourself.
[00:52:02] I E the company you're investing in. And if you're the company, the primary benefit of one of your companies is selling, the primary benefit has to go to those other than the contributor, which is yourself, which means it has to go to the customer. It has to go to the client , so your vision statement needs to pass all those tests.
[00:52:18] Oh my, look, ending the episode strong Mr. Simon Sinek coming at us with three tests essentially for our statements that we've made throughout the show. Where do you wanna start breaking down Sinek's words there?
[00:52:34] Let's see if we think the Amazon one passes this resilient, inclusive service orientated, so I'll read it to you and then you do the scoring.
[00:52:45] So Amazon's vision is to be the Earth's most customer centric company where customers can find and discover anything they might wanna buy online. All right, mark. What does our official Simon cynic inspired Mark Pearson Freeland? How do you rate and evaluate that for a vision?
[00:53:04] Look, Sinek was calling out the idea of resilience first resilience, not necessarily to put up with struggles, but actually I think it's more about the long term.
[00:53:14] It's gotta be able to deal with technological political changes. I would say that Amazon's statement. It could do that. Mike, it could. Apart from obviously the idea of us leaving earth, , to be Earth's most customer-centric company, I suppose we could leave the earth and we go to malls.
[00:53:30] maybe what about this? The only thing I could suggest to you is that we remove the word online at the end because
[00:53:38] retail stores. Yep. Yep. I would say that's the one thing that they could change as well. Yeah, that's true. Okay. Inclusive. So pulling words puts things into words that inspire us.
[00:53:50] That certainly inspires me, Mike and if I know whether I'm a front end backend developer, whether I'm customer support or otherwise. I feel included within that vision statement. I am working for that company that is single minded with its focus on becoming a customer centric company where customers can find and buy anything.
[00:54:11] I don't feel included in any sector or hierarchy or tier in the business. Would you?
[00:54:19] No, I think I think as we were exploring, like all of us have had that problem of, oh, where am I gonna get that from? Yeah. exactly. So I think it puts, it's a context that's super relatable.
[00:54:33] Do you think it's service orientated enough for the third stress test?
[00:54:37] Yeah I think it is again, it's proving it's not trying to claim that Amazon is gonna be the beneficiary here. They are saying it's going to be. The most customer centric company. But I would argue that for a customer centric company, the benefit is not necessarily for the company, it's for those customers who can from now on find and discover anything they wanna buy online.
[00:55:00] So I would say yes. What would you say?
[00:55:04] Yeah, I think it's, they pretty much get service orientated done when they lead with, yeah. We're gonna be the most customer centric company on the paw. , I think they may have got that one done. What do you reckon?
[00:55:16] Yeah, I think so, too.
[00:55:17] I think so, too. Look, mark. There, you have it. We have gone right through, up, down left and right the, through the world of vision statements, mission statements, values, and how you make them work for you. I think we've made the case that there's a number of successful companies that do this out of all the things that we covered.
[00:55:41] Which one spoke to you the most, which one has caught your attention?
[00:55:46] Actually I think the going back to the first Simon Sinek clip, we heard in the first part of the show, the reference to the iceberg, the reference to no matter where you get, no matter what successes you experience, always being single minded and referring back to it's just the tip of the iceberg.
[00:56:07] Yes. There's a lot more beneath the surface. I feel as though that is a pretty powerful call out. It's a demonstration of how powerful these vision statements can be. What about you? Which one, as you reflect on all of the interesting individuals we've learned from today, really stands out for vision.
[00:56:24] I loved the stress test that we just did. Yes. Because I think if you are bought into this idea, you're probably. Looking to refine your vision statement and to ask why your team or company exists. Is it resilient, inclusive, and service oriented? And I think that's probably where many of us will find opportunities to, to improve them.
[00:56:47] So what a package, hallmark, what a great journey into the world of vision statements. And I think the other thing I wanted to say there is that you do in fact, When companies have that vision, you feel that certain magic that momentum, you see it with Elon's companies, you see it with Nike and Amazon and you see it.
[00:57:10] You feel it , it's this magnetic force that brings people towards them. And hopefully today we have helped you get a little further in the journey of making your own vision statement. So mark, thank you to you and thanks big. Thank you a huge, thank you. I joined Norma's visionary.
[00:57:28] Thank you to our members. That's you. We were here on a master series, episode 13 on shared vision, and it started with Ken Blanchard saying that in order, before you get to your vision, you. To be a servant leader. And when you are, you'll be able to give that direction to your team, your company, your employees, you'll turn everybody into those Jedi knights.
[00:57:50] And it's so important to formalize that you have to craft your mission, your vision, your values, people need these things. They need the no star and will help you do some very practical things like setting this quarter's objectives. And if you do have a really meaningful vision statement, put it to the test, is it resilient, inclusive, and service orientated there, you have it.
[00:58:12] There is everything you need to create a knockout, a powerful vision statement. And if you do that'll help you, your team and your company become the best version of itself to realize its potential. And that is absolutely what we are all about here on the moonshot master series. That's a wrap.