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

In the past I have shared with you the importance of working from a priority management plan. One of the key elements of a successful priority management plan is dedicating time in your schedule to focus on targeted areas for professional growth and development. This routine is what coaches refer to as ON TIME. Unfortunately, it is an important block of time that often gets pushed aside or never scheduled by professionals. However, the professionals that do make and keep a commitment to ON TIME  regularly are much more likely to succeed in reaching their long-term vision for success. 

Consider these five reasons why I believe ON TIME is so important:

1. ON TIME changes your THINKING. So often we are stuck only thinking about the day-to-day operations of our business. When we have our head and heart constantly focused in the minutia of the day-to-day we can easily loose sight of where we are going and the vision we are trying to achieve.
2. ON TIME gets you FOCUSED on PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT. John Maxwell says, “You can’t give away, what you don’t possess.” If you are not taking the time to learn new skills, study your industry’s best practices, and grow as a professional you will not be able to serve your team, clients, and those you love as good as if you did make this a priority.
3. ON TIME allows you to REVIEW your STRATEGY. Your vision may stay relatively the same over the years, but we all know that external forces may require us to change the strategy we follow to reach that vision. ON TIME allows you to review your goals, team production year to date, and analyze if your current strategy is working in today’s market.
4. ON TIME provides an OPPORTUNITY for PLANNING.  The most common excuse for not planning that I hear from people I coach is that they just don’t have time. ON TIME gives you permission to take time for planning the next 30-60-90 days of your business. If your strategy review indicates a new plan is needed, ON TIME allows you to work on that plan, giving you an advantage over your competition that may not be reviewing strategy or planning.
5. ON TIME allows for a RENEWAL of your COMMITMENTS. When you change your thinking from the day-to-day to the big picture, you have the opportunity to reflect on and recommit to your purpose, convictions, and overall vision. Stepping away from the fast pace of life is so important for spiritual, physical, and mental renewal. ON TIME re-energizes you around your goals and vision.

Give yourself permission to schedule ON TIME into your calendar. It not only benefits you but it helps you become a better leader and servant to those you love and work with each day.

Question: Do you have ON TIME scheduled on your calendar?

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

The Importance of ON TIME 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

Not long ago, I wrote a post entitled, Filling the Space Between Where You Are and Where You Want To Be. The space between our current reality and where we want to be never has a shortage of activities, feelings, or people waiting to fill it up. I am often reminded of how important it is to be mindful of what I allow into this space. The choices we make have immediate and long term consequences that either widen this gap or bring us closer to the life we want to live and the goals we are striving to achieve.

This past week I had the great privilege of speaking to the Christian Chamber of Commerce in Newberg, Oregon on this topic. In this 24 minute talk I share three tools and four different relationships that I believe are essential for business leaders to have in place when making decisions about how they fill the space between where they are and where they want to be in life and business:

1. Life Plan
2. Vision Plan
3. Personal Development Plan
4. Spousal Relationship
5. Group of Close Friends
6. Coach/Mentor
7. Faith

If you are not able to see this video in RSS Feed or Email, Click Here.

I hope you find this speech encouraging and helpful. If you are interested in having me speak to your group or team, Click Here.

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

KEYNOTE: FILLING THE SPACE is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

Have you ever reflected on your actions and discovered that they go completely against everything you’ve always stood for? Its difficult to have the words we say and the things we do always be a positive reflection of our values and convictions. In my experience, it does not just happen naturally once you state your guiding principles in a vision or mission statement. Rather, it takes dedication, discipline, and hard work to stay faithful to what you believe in and hold true. What do we do then when we find our actions do not match our beliefs?

This week I was reading the book of Jonah, a story in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) written almost 800 years before Jesus arrived on the scene in Israel. The book begins with a situation similar to the one I described above. Jonah negatively reacts to a message from God and find himself acting in a way that completely contradicts his values and calling as a prophet of God. Because of his actions he risked loosing both his credibility as messenger of God and his God-given calling. I believe the book provides four lessons on how to approach a situation where your actions and beliefs are at war with each other.

Consider these four lessons from Jonah’s struggle:

1. Don’t run from the fact that you are struggling to do the right thing. There is no shame in this type of struggle. In fact, this type of struggle helps you gain clarity around your convictions and the behaviors that support them.
2. Seek help. How you do this is up to you. Hopefully, you have a small group of people you trust for support and wise counsel. If you don’t, then do what Jonah did and pray. No matter where you are at in your relationship with the Almighty, He always wants to hear from you and help you.
3. Remember you were created for a purpose and a calling. Sometimes we lose site of the fact that each of us has been given amazing gifts and talents to serve others. When we use those special gifts and talents we don’t need to worry so much about the outcome or struggle because we know if we are true to ourselves and our calling, our actions will be blessed.
4. Rejoice in your freedom to choose. What an amazing gift is free will and to live in a country where we have the ability to make personal choices based on our beliefs. Give thanks for this opportunity.

If you are struggling with a decision or behavior that does not align with your core beliefs, don’t give up or lose hope. Remember these lessons from Jonah and start making the small decisions to help you stay true to your beliefs. As always, I’m here to help…

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

DO YOUR ACTIONS SUPPORT YOUR BELIEFS? is a post from: Coach Dan Foster