SECTION II CHALLENGE 6

Challenge #6

THE VISION CHALLENGE:
Championing the Vision Is More Difficult When You Didn’t Create It

THE KEY TO SUCCESSFULLY NAVIGATING THE VISION CHALLENGE:
The more you invest in the vision, the more it becomes your own.

What would you rather do? See your own vision put into action and come to fruition? Or help others fulfill theirs? For people who want to lead, the answer is usually the former. Leaders see possibilities, and they want to seize them. Most of the time they would rather work to fulfill their own vision than someone else’s—unless that other leader’s vision is really compelling and captivating. Leading from the middle, however, means that you will be asked to become a champion for a vision other than your own. In fact, the reality is that all the people in an organization other than the top leader are going to be asked to fulfill a vision they didn’t generate.
HOW PEOPLE RESPOND TO THE VISION CHALLENGE
So the natural question is: How are you going to respond to the Vision Challenge? Even though your own vision may excite you more than someone else’s, to get the opportunity to pursue your own dreams, you will almost certainly have to succeed in achieving the dreams of others.
There are a number of ways people respond when leaders cast vision and attempt to enlist them. The following responses represent a progression, from most negative to most positive.
1. ATTACK IT—CRITICIZE AND SABOTAGE THE VISION
Not everyone is going to buy into the vision of an organization, even if it is compelling, and even if the leader does a fantastic job of communicating it. That’s just a fact, and it isn’t always because the people are bad followers. Take a look at the most common reasons people fail to adopt a worthy vision:
THEY DIDN’T HELP CREATE IT. Let’s face it. Most people don’t like change, and whenever someone begins casting a new vision, change is inevitable. I used to think that leaders liked change and followers didn’t. But as I’ve gained maturity, I’ve come to realize that leaders don’t like change any more than followers do—unless, of course, it’s their idea!
People’s attitudes toward change are different when they help create it. Participation increases ownership. When you’re an owner, you see things differently. You step up. You take better care of whatever it is. If you doubt that, answer this question: When was the last time you waxed a rental car? It just doesn’t happen. People are up on things that they’re in on.
Leaders don’t like change any more than followers do—unless, of course, it’s their idea!

THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND IT. People don’t buy into a vision that they don’t understand. It just doesn’t happen. And just because leaders have cast a vision in a clear and compelling manner, doesn’t mean that their people really understand it. Different kinds and styles of communication don’t connect equally for everybody.
Ken Blanchard once asked Max DePree, author of Leadership Is an Art, what he thought the leader’s role was in an organization. DePree said, “You have to act like a third-grade teacher. You have to repeat the vision over and over and over again until the people get it.” And if a leader is really wise, she communicates it in many ways, in many settings, using many methods.
THEY DON’T AGREE WITH IT. Some people react negatively to a vision because they think it’s impossible to achieve. Others—though it happens much less often—because they think it’s too small. Still others balk because the vision has changed since the time they originally signed on. But more often than not, the real issue has more to do with the leader. If people disagree with the vision, it’s often because they have a problem with the person who cast it.
If people disagree with the vision, it’s often because they have a problem with the person who cast it.

The Law of Buy-In found in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership says that people buy into the leader, then the vision. If they believe in leaders, then they embrace what those leaders believe in. Even when their leaders promote a vision that isn’t compelling, the people who have already bought into them continue to support them. However, this variation on the Law of Buy-In is also true: No matter how good the vision is, if people don’t believe in the leader, they will have problems buying in to the vision.
THEY DON’T KNOW THE VISION. When it comes to results, there is absolutely no difference between people not knowing an organization’s vision and the organization not having a vision at all. The inevitable result is dissatisfaction and discouragement.
If you have brought new people into an organization since the last time vision was cast, then you have people who don’t know your vision. I apologize if this sounds painfully obvious, but this is an issue all the time in organizations. Growing businesses often hire new employees but have nothing in place to make sure that they know and embrace the vision. Every organization needs a built-in process for passing on the vision.
But even if you make sure that every person who becomes a part of your organization hears the vision, that doesn’t mean they all know it. Vision leaks. It needs to be communicated clearly, creatively, and continually.
Imagine that every person in your organization has a tank where they keep the vision. Now assume that there is a crack or small hole in that tank. Because everybody is human (and therefore flawed), you can’t eliminate these leaks. The best you can do is keep refilling the tanks. Some leaders don’t like to keep repeating themselves, but there really is no alternative if you want everyone to know the vision.
Vision leaks. It needs to be communicated clearly, creatively, and continually.

THEY FEEL UNNEEDED TO ACHIEVE IT. There are three different kinds of attitudes when it comes to enlisting people to help fulfill a vision. The first one says, “We’re going to do this with or without you.” The second says, “We sure would like you to help us do this.” The third says, “We can’t do this without you.” You can guess which one inspires and motivates people to participate and give their best.
Old-style autocratic leaders may have been able to get away with the first type of attitude, but that doesn’t fly with people today, at least not in nations where people are free. The second approach sometimes works, but neither is as effective as the third. People who understand how important their part is are motivated to persevere and work with excellence, even in the face of obstacles and problems.
A good example of this occurred during World War II in a parachute factory. Workers made parachutes by the thousands for the war effort, but it was a painfully tedious job. They spent long hours at a sewing machine stitching miles of plain white fabric. Every morning workers were reminded that every stitch was part of a lifesaving operation. Their husbands, brothers, or sons might wear the parachute they sewed that day. Those lives could not be saved without their efforts. The fact that the vision was continually before them and they knew that it would not be completed without them kept them going.
THEY AREN’T READY FOR IT. I love this cartoon by the late Jeff MacNelly, Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist and creator of the comic strip Shoe:


It may be sad to say, but some people are not ready—emotionally, intellectually, or professionally—to step up, embrace the vision, and help to make it happen. If they are willing but unable, then they can be trained and developed. If they are neither willing nor able, then there may not be much you can do to help them.
360-Degree Leaders are informational conduits that connect the top and the bottom of the organization. When any one of these six issues is a problem—the people didn’t help create it, the people don’t understand it, the people don’t agree with it, the people don’t know the vision, the people feel unneeded to achieve it, or the people aren’t ready for it—then the conduit becomes clogged, and the vision cannot flow from the leaders at the top to the people who actually accomplish the work. If the vision fails to connect with the workers, it will never come to fruition.
2. IGNORE IT—DO THEIR OWN THING
Some people may not attack the vision, but they don’t support it either. Instead, they pretend it doesn’t exist and do their own thing. Leaders cannot do this and still maintain their integrity and effectiveness. One leader I spoke to, who for many years worked in the middle of an organization, said that he remembers a time when his boss wanted him to confront an employee on a dress code issue. The problem for this leader was that he didn’t agree with the policy. But he believed in the larger vision of the organization and wanted to support his leader, so he followed through with the confrontation. It turned out to be especially difficult because the employee thought the rule was petty. But the midlevel leader firmly supported his leader. The employee never knew that this leader actually agreed with the employee, not with his boss.
3. ABANDON IT—LEAVE THE ORGANIZATION
If the vision violates your principles or doesn’t speak to what you value deep down, leaving the organization may be the appropriate action. Sometimes that is the best option—leaving with honor. That way the leader in the middle is neither undermining the vision, nor is he endorsing something with which he cannot agree. I must mention one caution, however. If a leader in the middle of the organization bails out for the wrong reasons, he may find himself in a similar situation again in another organization. If you find yourself in a situation where you are considering leaving an organization, make sure you’re not doing it because of selfishness or ego.
4. ADAPT TO IT—FIND A WAY TO ALIGN WITH THE VISION
At the very least, a good employee finds a way to align himself with the vision of his organization. David Branker told me the story of Bret, a middle manager whose job was to provide computer support and data tracking for an organization’s training department. Bret was frustrated because he didn’t think the job he was asked to do was contributing significantly to the company’s vision.
Instead of sulking or complaining, he approached his leader to talk about the issue. Together, they discovered how his department might add greater value to the organization by creating systems that used technology to make training faster, more efficient, and more cost-effective. By aligning himself with the vision, Bret not only furthered the mission, added value to the organization, and improved the bottom line, but he also found greater personal fulfillment.
Douglas Randlett, who works with former football coach Pastor Tom Mullins, did his doctoral dissertation on the issue of leading from the middle of an organization. He said that when the vision of the leader in the middle doesn’t align with that of the top leadership, low job satisfaction is always the result. When those two factors do align, satisfaction is high, and so is success.
5. CHAMPION IT—TAKE THE LEADER’S VISION AND MAKE IT A REALITY
Vision may begin with one person, but it is accomplished only through the efforts of many people. Taking the leader’s vision and working to fulfill it should be the response of 360-Degree Leaders. They should strive to take the vision from me to we.
John W. Gardner said, “The prospects never looked brighter and the problems never looked tougher. Anyone who isn’t stirred by both of those statements is too tired to be of much use to us in the days ahead.”
Vision begins with one person, but it is only accomplished by many people.

During the thirty-five years that I’ve led organizations, I have always worked hard to transfer the vision I possessed to my staff. Some people embraced it; others didn’t.
THOSE WHO CHAMPIONED THE VISION THOSE WHO DID NOT
Placed the organization's needs first Placed their own needs first
Kept the vision before the people Kept themselves before the people
Represented me well to others Represented themselves well to others
Understood their roles Misunderstood their roles
The people who didn’t accept the vision neither championed it nor transferred it to their followers. As a result, the people they led often didn’t contribute to the overall success of the organization.
6. ADD VALUE TO IT
The most positive response to a leader’s vision is to go beyond championing it and to actually add value to it. At that point, the vision becomes something more. It has greater value to the leader, greater value to the recipients of the vision, and greater value to the person who contributed to it.
Not everyone gets the opportunity to add value to the vision. There is a prerequisite for getting the opportunity to do it, and that is championing the vision as it already exists. But here’s the great thing: Once you have begun to add value to the vision, then you have eliminated the Vision Challenge, because you’re no longer championing someone else’s vision; you are championing a vision to which you have contributed.
Nobody champions a vision and adds value to it like my team at EQUIP, the faith-based nonprofit organization I founded in 1996. From the very beginning, our mission was to train leaders. Initially, our strategy was to work in three distinct areas: in academia, in urban areas, and internationally. In 2001 we narrowed our focus and refined our vision, deciding to turn every bit of our attention to training leaders overseas. Everyone on the EQUIP team was a vision champion from the start, but key leaders did even more than champion the vision. They were instrumental in helping us recognize the need to focus our attention and try to do one thing with total excellence, not three things merely well.
What emerged was the Million Leaders Mandate, our attempt to train one million spiritual leaders around the world. As I write this, more than 700,000 leaders are in training. By January 2006, when this book goes to print, we will be training on every continent except Antarctica, and we will have reached our goal of training more than one million leaders. Already we are looking toward the goal of training a second million leaders!
Every day members of the EQUIP team champion the vision—with the leaders we want to train at no cost, with the associate trainers who donate their money and time to train leaders across the globe, and to the donors, whose every dollar goes to underwriting the project. They are partners championing the vision that we created together. And for that, my gratitude knows no bounds.