The celebrated ‘self-help guru’ Stephen Covey has a wonderful analogy for distinguishing between the roles of leader and manager…

 

Imagine a team hacking their way through a jungle with machetes. The managers organise the shifts, ensuring sufficient rest periods away from the gruelling work. They research the most effective hacking techniques and buy in the most technologically-advanced machetes; they write the hacking procedure manuals and build in weight training and endurance programmes to maximise cutting effectiveness.

 

In contrast the leader’s job is to shin up the highest tree and, from this vantage point, decide in what direction the hacking should proceed – and possibly even ask the question: are we in the right jungle? Or possibly even: what are we doing in a jungle anyway? and: what else could/should we be doing?

 

So, are you a leader or a manager? And, if you’re a leader, do you sometimes find yourself managing when you should be leading?

 

Knowing what direction to go in and where you should be can be defined as Vision. Knowing what you should be doing can be thought of as Mission.

 

Establishing Mission - knowing what the organisation is there to do (the ‘what business are in/not in’ stuff) - comes before Vision. Vision, knowing where the organisation is going and what it will become, is defined in relation to the Mission it will accomplish. You have to know what it is you intend to do before you can say where you are going to do it.

 

Mission and Vision are the prerogatives of leaders. Managers are there to see that Mission and Vision are fulfilled.

 

                                                                                           For those who are natural leaders…  

Some leaders are naturals. Frequently charismatic – often a Sanguine temperamental type – they are always dreaming new dreams and enthusiastically ‘selling’ those ideas to those who willingly follow them. Since this kind of dreaming is the domain of Ichak Adizes' Entrepreneurship role, it is best suited to people with the ORANGE vMEME running a Move-Towards meta-programme. This is the psychological profile most likely to invent ideas.

 

Of course, ideas need reality-checking; and that is best done by ‘naysayers’ – with the BLUE vMEME running a Move-Away-From meta-programme – to check for the pitfalls. This enables the more extravagant ideas to be reigned in and helps 'chunk down' from endless possibilities to what is actually achievable within a given time and with finite resources.

 

Where people understand and accept this difference in functions, allowing ORANGE to dream and BLUE to reality check, it can be a powerful combination. Horrendous conflict can result when people don't understand!

 

I once worked with two company directors where ORANGE was frustrated that its ideas were constantly questioned by BLUE. The director working in BLUE was starting to go RED on his colleague, angry that his opinions weren't being listened to. Once I showed them how their Move Towards and Move-Away-From meta-programmes could complement each other, relations improved considerably.

 

However, it has to be ORANGE and its Move-Towards meta-programme which takes the lead.

 

I can assist those in the leadership function, who have very different thinking perspectives and processes, to understand each other better and to appreciate their complementariness.

 

Sometimes, however, the RED vMEME is just so dominant in the thinking of leaders that they cannot tolerate any opposition from within their own ranks. In such cases, it is often highly beneficial to use an external voice such as mine as a ‘sounding board’ to explore what might  or might not be feasible.

 

                                                                                        For those who are not natural leaders…                                                                   

However, not all people tasked with creating mission and/or vision (especially in smaller organisations) are necessarily driven by the ORANGE vMEME. If they are more Administrative types, with a BLUE bureaucratic worldview, then real inventiveness will not come easily to them at all. Their horizons seem bounded.

 

(Organisations led by BLUE thinking tend not to go anywhere but shrink and slowly fall apart. Their effectiveness decreases even as their efficiency increases!)

 

Fortunately, using tools such as visualisations, scenario planning , VAK-sensorising future states and Timelining, I can help such leaders to open up their imaginations (and those of other key team members) to explore new ideas and evaluate their appropriateness.

 

Perhaps the most powerful exercise, though, is the Walt Disney Strategy - developed by Robert Dilts who is reputed to have modelled Disney in person shortly before the latter's death. With its distinct Dreaming, Design & Implementation and Critiquing states, it provides a complete 'creativity cycle'.

 

Such tools take the user out of their habituated mindset and force them to develop unfamiliar thinking patterns, the very process itself proving a stimulant to creativity.

 

                                                                                                  Understanding the mileau

Of course, to determine what it is you want to do and what journey you’re going to make to do it, you have to know what is possible and what could be possible – both in terms of the market you’re in (or want to be in) and the resources you have (or could have).

 

Understanding the market you’re in and how it changes/may change is a business leadership concept that has been with us now for over 40 years – though some would argue the best business people have understood that since the earliest days of trading (bartering).

 

Robert Dilts’ Neurological Levels model was conceived as a way of explaining how individuals relate psychologically to their contextual environment. However, it can also be highly advantageous to do a Neurological Levels exercise to see how the organisation's sense of Identity and its Values (internal) are attuned to the (external) Environment in which it operates.

 

An example of such an exercise is contained in A Company by Neurological Levels.

 

Market analyses should enable the organisation to predict to some considerable degree how its markets are changing. But, to upgrade the Skills & Knowledge in the organisation to carry out new or different Behaviours the market is looking for, may well require a shift in Beliefs, maybe even Values and in extreme cases possibly even Identity.

 

There is the apocryphal story of the ‘paint company’ which, losing market share, redefined its Identity as a ‘decorating company’ and diversified successfully into a number of related markets, with wallpaper and wall hangings, etc.

 

                                                                                                           Are we capable?                                                                                                                                       

In deciding what the organisation is going to do, the leaders also need to know what the organisation is capable of (or could become capable of).

 

To do this, it is useful to look at where the organisation is in terms of the Organisation LifeCycle. This enables us to see where the organisation is, what its needs are and how much it should attend to internal as well as external matters.

 

The balance of Adizes' 4 Roles of Production, Administration, Entrepreneurship and Integration should reflect where the organisation is on the LifeCycle for optimum performance. If the balance is not appropriate, then optimum performance is unlikely.

 

4Q/8L provides a powerful schematic for leaders to map how their ideas, values and beliefs (Upper Left) fit with the organisation's culture (Lower Left)  and how they want the organisation to develop (Lower Right).

 

Examples of using these tools to analyse options and then devise strategies are given in the Hodgson Sealants Ltd and North Lincolnshire Council Community Investment Team case studies.

 

                                                                                                                What next?                                                                                                                                         

So you’ve got your Mission and your Vision. You know what you’re there to do (Mission) and you’ve got a pretty good idea how you’re going to do it (Vision).

 

Now, it’s time to put the dreams into practice! For that you need Change Management and Strategic Planning.

 

Contact me to discuss how I can help you with your leadership issues.