At Building Champions we help leaders develop and communicate a vision for where they want to take their business, team, or company in the future. Often we will coach clients who have written a vision and articulated it to their team at a special meeting, but are still struggling to get buy-in and desired results.

Experience has taught me that creating a vision is a fun, exciting, and motivating process for a leader to engage in over the course of a few days. Whereas, communicating a vision requires a leader to be purposeful, intentional, and consistent every day as long as they hold the title of leader. In short, it is hard work and many leaders fail to communicate vision effectively.

If you are a new or experienced leader who has recently cast a new vision, consider these tips to help you communicate your vision.

Remember: it’s not an event, it’s a process. As I mentioned above, communicating vision is not done in one meeting or even quarterly meetings. It’s done every day through different means of communication.

Share elements of your vision in team and one-on-one meetings. These settings provide a great opportunity to talk more at length about your purpose, core values, and mission as a company. Consider taking one core value and have everyone identify the types of behaviors and actions that demonstrate this core value. Setup one-on-one meetings with your team members to share your vision and how you see them being a key part of that vision.

Set up a recognition and reward system for specific behaviors that exemplify your vision. Most employees are worried that their boss will catch them making a mistake on the job. Instead of focusing on the negative, make it a practice for people to call out specific behaviors others are doing that align with your vision. Allow coworkers to recognize each other in meetings. Reward both of them for their efforts to build teamwork and live your vision.

Share team success stories that exemplify your vision. Take the time to update the team on success stories, progress towards reaching shared goals, and awards your team has won for their hard work and customer service. Never underestimate the importance of regular progress updates and team recognition. These are extremely motivating to employees.

Create opportunities for customers to provide feedback on service. Let your team know that you take customer service seriously and that you will be actively seeking the feedback of your customers and sharing it with the team. Share both the negative and the positive and use this as an opportunity to celebrate success or brainstorm on how to change behaviors to improve results. Reward customers who help identify an issue which directly impacts the achievement of your vision.

Publicly display and discuss the key elements of your vision. Your vision has a higher probability of becoming a reality the more you share it with people inside and outside your organization. Talk about it at Chamber of Commerce meetings, with friends, at church, in meetings with other business leaders. Display posters in your office that list your core values, purpose, and mission. Don’t be shy or embarrassed to let people know why you do what you do every day.

Demonstrate the behaviors that support your vision. Look for opportunities to jump in and serve your team. Get in the trenches with them occasionally and demonstrate the behaviors that lead to success. Live out your vision in full view of your team so they know it is more than just words. Help them connect to you and your vision through your actions.

I hope these seven tips have been helpful. If you would like to learn more on how you can develop a vision communication strategy for your team or business please contact me.

Question: How have you communicated your vision in a unique and creative way?

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

7 Tips To Help You Communicate Vision is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

A recent survey by the international consulting firm, BlessingsWhite revealed that overall employee engagement at work is directly tied to how much an employee feels they are appreciated by their manager and the company executives. In these challenging economic times it is easy for leaders to overlook the needs of their employees because they are so focused on profitability and survival. This may manifest itself in a failure to recognize and reward achievements, provide resources necessary to do the job, provide feedback on performance, and ask for input on projects and initiatives.

The survey outlined specific steps for managers and leaders to take in order to help get their teams engaged but it failed to layout an action plan for what employees can do when they find themselves unappreciated and disengaged. I invite you to consider the following action steps to help you if you are feeling unappreciated at work.

1. Reconnect with your purpose. Your purpose answers the question, Why am doing what I am doing each day at work? Is it for the verbal affirmation you receive from others, is it for the money, or is it for the impact your are having on others? Perhaps you’ve forgotten your “big why”, if so, recommit to it today.
2. Identify what makes you feel appreciated. We are all so different when it comes to what makes us feel appreciated. For some it is pay increases, for others it is public or private recognition of their efforts, for others it is simply knowing that you made a difference and helped someone. Reflect on what makes you feel appreciated. Write down a list of 3-5 actions and then analyze this list to make sure what you’ve written is emotionally healthy and realistic to expect from others, especially your boss.
3. Commit to sharing your gifts and talents with others at work. Take a look around you and identify people that you can impact right away with your gifts and talents. Look to serve others and use your gifts and talents without an expectation of anything in return. Take action, speak into someone’s life, help someone with a project, go the extra mile. You may feel like your already doing this but if you are disengaged and feeling unappreciated you might be doing it with a heavy heart and it probably shows in your performance.
4. Consult with a trusted advisor. Sometimes we can get so caught up in our emotions and the dysfunction we witness at work that we lose sight of healthy and appropriate expectations. A friend, mentor, or coach is a great person to speak into our lives and give us guidance in these situations.
5. Meet with your boss to explain how you’re feeling. The toughest action step is to share your concerns with your boss. From experience I will tell you that you want to make sure you don’t go in and simply complain to your boss. Rather, take the time to share your concerns, outline how you feel appreciated, and ask if the two of you could brainstorm ways to help you feel appreciated resulting in a higher engagement level at work. In essence come in with a framework for discovering a solution to the problem.
6. Identify areas where you can make a contribution outside of work. Volunteering your time outside of work at a homeless shelter, your church, your local chamber of commerce, or schools allows you to experience the bigger picture of life. Not that your concerns at work are not a valid but sometimes serving others and helping those in need helps us gain clarity around our own needs and expectations from others.

I hope you find these actions steps relevant and something you can implement if you are struggling with a lack of appreciation and feelings of disengagement at work.

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

What To Do When You Feel Unappreciated At Work is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

The best leaders at some point in the their career realize they cannot do it all alone. The late nights at work, the juggling of responsibilities, and the expectations for performance in all key areas of life and business become too much for one person to handle. A failure to realize this can lead to burnout, poor performance, and the ultimate demise of your company. In the past I’ve written and spoken about the attributes of a great leader, and one of these attributes is that a leader has the support of a great leadership team. Defining the attributes of this leadership team is the first step in developing a cohesive group which a leader can rely on to delegate responsibilities and achieve the overall vision of the company.

Consider these four attributes of a great leadership team:

They have a shared vision – Some leaders keep their vision a secret, some think they have communicated it but no one else knows it, and some share it openly and frequently. A great leadership team knows the vision of the company. They believe in it and they are actively pursuing it’s fullfillment every day. If a leadership team does not have buy-in on the company’s overall vision it will never be great and will always struggle with performance.

They have a decisive leader – Even a group of leaders needs to have someone that makes the ultimate decision on important issues. A decisive leader listens to input from everyone, considers all the options, and then makes a decision. The decisive leader of the team must not be paralized by fear of the unknown or failure. They must trust their leadership team and make decisions based on what is best for the company and the achievement of it’s vision.

They have clarity around roles and expectations – The unknown can be extremely damaging to a leadership team. Each member must know their role in helping the company achieve its vision. Clear expectations must be given for performance and participation in the overall objectives and goals of the team for there to be success. The sooner everyone on your team has a clearly defined role with goals and objectives outlined the sooner your leadership team can start making an impact.

They are connected to each other – Your leadership team does not need to sing songs and hold hands but they must trust each other and communicate openly and candidly with one another. This is the essence of connection. The team should know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and be able to openly talk about them and how they will help or hinder the team from achieving certain objectives. Honesty and trust are extremely important for their to be this type of open dialogue, where ideas can be shared without fear of retribution or hurt feelings.

Developing a great leadership team with these attributes will help guide the organization and bring the vision to reality.

Question: What are some of the attributes of your company’s leadership team? What attributes does your leadership team need to adopt?

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

4 Attributes of a Great Leadership Team is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

This past week while reading the words of an ancient Hebrew prophet I was reminded of how easy it is to wake up one day and find yourself heading so far down the wrong track that you don’t recognize yourself or the direction you are going in life. The world we live in puts so much pressure on us to perform at a certain level and live up to other’s expectations, while at the same time deceiving us that this is all being done for own good.

As you head down this wrong path the destruction you leave behind starts to impact more than just your life. Your engagement level at work and home suffer, your relationships at home and work deteriorate, and the dreams you had of making a difference are replaced with dreams of prestige and success at all costs.

How do we know if we are headed in the wrong direction? I believe that in life we can always see signs that reflect what is in our heart. As you reflect on where you are at right now in your career or leadership at home, consider these six signs that you might be headed in the wrong direction and in need of a course correction very soon!

1. You think too highly of yourself – you believe your title, position, or income level make you better than others.
2. You are arrogant – you not only think your important but actually constantly communicate it to people.
3. Money is your master – you believe money is the solution to all emotional, physical, mental, spiritual problems.
4. You turn your head away from injustice – you don’t have time to deal with other’s issues or problems.
5. You are focused only what feels good, not what is right – if it does not bring pleasure or joy its not worth doing.
6. You worship materialism over relationship – your thoughts, money, and actions all lead to increasing your net worth in things rather than relationships with people.

Six Signs You’re Headed In The Wrong Direction is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

In these challenging times, I believe that we need great leaders and we need them now! A little over a year ago I wrote a post entitled, The Ten Attributes of a Great Leader. It has since become the most popular post I have ever written. This past week I had the privilege of speaking to the Newberg Rotary club about leadership development and the need for everyone to discover their unique leadership style.

In my speech I discussed the importance of each leadership attribute, provided a leadership example, and discussed how these attributes impact the culture of an organization. I provided my audience with a Leadership Development Tool, designed to help them seize leadership opportunities in their home, community, and organization.

I hope you enjoy the presentation. Please let me know if I can help you in your leadership development!

If you are unable to view the video in your RSS feed or email, CLICK HERE

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

If you are interested in having me speak to your group or team, Click Here.

KEYNOTE: 10 ATTRIBUTES OF A GREAT LEADER is a post from: Coach Dan Foster