Entry 03: "I don't have time to..."
Balancing the Fires of Today with a Vision for Tomorrow
In my last post I introduced the concept of the 6 Key Mindset Shifts that all leaders have to make when moving from individual contributor to leading a team. (And hopefully you have taken the time to print out the self-assessment worksheet and plotted where you fall on each of the sliders. It’s at the bottom of that post if you missed it.) Today, we are going to start digging into the first mindset shift that is critical for new leaders: Shifting from Thinking about Today to Creating a Vision for Tomorrow.
The Fire Extinguisher vs. The Binoculars
Imagine a firefighter. Their job is to tackle emergencies as they arise, putting out flames, rescuing people, and preventing further destruction. Every second counts, and quick action is necessary to prevent disaster. Now, contrast that with someone looking through binoculars from a mountaintop. They aren’t focused on immediate dangers but are scanning the horizon, looking for signs of what’s to come, anticipating risks, and charting a path forward.
As a new leader, your challenge is knowing when to act as a firefighter, handling the urgent issues of the day, and when to slow down long enough to see the bigger picture and plan for the future.
The Leadership Shift
One of the first struggles new leaders face is getting stuck in the day-to-day grind. As a leader, not only are you responsible for the things you were before, you are now also brought into all the issues plaguing your new team. (And sometimes those issues ARE the team.) Every fire that pops up seems urgent in the moment, requiring your immediate attention. And if you spend all your time putting out fires, you’ll never have time to prevent them from starting in the first place.
“Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.”
- Kenichi Ohmae
You are now the one who is responsible for knowing where your team is going. This is a big responsibility and probably something you weren’t taught how to do. So how do you do that? And even beyond that, how do you find the time to in the first place?
⏰ How Do I Find Enough Time?
So, let’s tackle the time question first. Whenever you use the excuse that you ‘don’t have enough time for something,’ you are really saying that it is not a priority for you. Anything that is truly important in our lives, we magically find the time for. We find a way to make it happen. So, if you really want to find the time to create a vision for your team, you have to honestly believe that it is a priority. And the only way you will prioritize it, is if you truly believe that it is important. So answer for yourself, do you think this is important?
Once you’ve prioritized this in your mind, you need to schedule it. Put it on your calendar. Call it “Vision-Planning” and block off enough time to do some deep thinking. For me, that looks like a half-day. You may be thinking, “How are you able to take an entire half day to plan?” Because I know how important it is. I put this on my calendar months in advance, before other things are scheduled, and as the date nears, other meetings get placed around it and not over it. If one does, I tell them I can’t come because I have another commitment.
And the last part is that when you’ve made it a priority and it is on your calendar, when the day comes, you have to actually go. That sounds silly, but I’ve even found myself the day before thinking ‘is this really necessary?’ Go. It is.
🔭 How Do I Create a Vision for My Team?
Now that you have taken the time, how do you make the most of it? There are so many different frameworks that I have come across for creating a vision. And over the course of my career I have gotten hung up on trying to craft the perfect vision statement or trying to predict the future. At the end of the day, I have always come back to Simon Sinek’s framework of Start with Why. In this talk from 2009, he unpacks a simple approach:
WHY your team exists. (not making profit, that’s a result)
HOW you do it. (your unique value proposition)
WHAT your team does.
Per Sinek, most teams know WHAT they do, and a good number know HOW they do it, but when you ask them WHY, they don’t know. You need to get a clear picture of WHY your team exists first. When you do it becomes much easier to move to HOW & WHAT.
Here are some questions that you can use during your vision planning time to figure out your team’s WHY:
Beyond just making money or meeting targets, why does our team exist in our organization?
How can we positively affect the lives of our customers, colleagues, or community?
When I look back on this role in the future, what would the impact we had look like?
After you answer these questions, try to capture your answers in a statement that starts with:
WE EXIST TO…
This statement will become the filter you use when planning your WHAT and your HOW. This WHY statement becomes your vision for the future.
Wrapping Up
Creating a vision for your team is not a nice to have, it’s a requirement. And it’s only going to happen if you prioritize it and take the time to do it. If you would be interested in booking some time with me to help prepare for your vision casting day or talk more about leadership, drop me a line.
🗓️ Next week: From Creating to Delegating the Work.
Keep Leading. See you next week.
Kacy @ Drawn to Lead
Additional Sketchnote on Creating a Vision
📖 Visioneering, by Andy Stanley. I read this book a few years ago and it gives a practical approach to creating a vision. He offers 20 building blocks to figuring out a vision for your team. Definitely worth a read if you are really interested in honing your skills here. You can use my visual sketchnote summary for paid subscribers below of the 20 building blocks as you read as well!