Ep. 4: The Value of a Vision to Create FOCUS
Creating the perfect company from the organizational experts MultiView Incorporated. This content is based on MBI's work with over 1,300 organizations extracting nine eighty nine data elements with nine twenty two cross calculations over twenty seven years on a monthly basis and then systematizing the operational success patterns of the ninetieth percentile. Our intent is to get beyond the brag and the boast and simply share insights from our experience without manipulation or coercion to sell anything except helpful ideas. These messages range from intimate recordings from the Awakened Forest to concerts, national conferences, and broadcasts.
Speaker 2:Here we are today on a mountaintop, which is probably the appropriate setting for this important topic of vision. And some will see it as silly, as a squishy topic, high brow, academic, But it's of extreme importance for anyone that's trying to perform really a human organization and lead it. And it's probably only now that I feel qualified. I was very reluctant to put out these messages. And again, I just feel like it's time.
Speaker 2:Like I've stated, all things tend to emerge. And it's just time to do this. You can't be in preparation mode forever. And also it's silly to always think that everything is going to be technically perfect or stated correctly or there won't be slight flaws and things. I mean, you could put messages through tremendous amounts of production and all that to make a real polished thing, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:In my estimation, that would be inauthentic. Whereas I wanna have a conversation without trying to be mister big or know it all or anything like that. Just convey what I know at this time. So here we go. This topic of vision.
Speaker 2:Again, silly to some, squishy to some, but important. I think that we have to realize obviously the power of language, that the words and phrases that we utter convey energy in combination with really the energetic atmospheric energies as well. And that our species, when it hears such utterances, there's kind of a biochemical response to these things. And it's emulating what from our minds, release so many of the chemicals and the energies. And I'm not trying to say this, that we are all just biological creatures, and that's that's that's all we are.
Speaker 2:I believe we're much more than that, but certainly that is part of of that equation. The human being seems to need a vision, a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose for their existence. Because without this sense of meaning and purpose, people become depressed, sink into despair, and some ultimately are carried to the conclusion of suicide. And so much of this has to do with, again, the images in our minds and really what we think about ourselves, if we think of ourselves success or at least going in a direction or what have you. It seems that a human being needs a bright horizon or a compelling vision.
Speaker 2:And I don't think that that can be really underestimated, especially in an organizational context. We've got to get people behind the directions, a unifying sense of purpose to go towards this common cause and towards this bright horizon. And if you really want to cut through to the core of a vision, it has to do with creating focus. And a vision or a vision statement is for creating this focus, which, again, focus is the quality of the most successful people, the most accomplished people in this world, on this planet. Focus, which again can be languaged as self discipline, self control, self regulation, even love, where you love whatever you're doing, and are willing to focus on a singular aspect of consciousness, throwing everything you have into that and ignoring basically the rest.
Speaker 2:So a vision creates focus. And since it is normally a languaged document, it really comes to our ability to communicate because we've got to get the vision out of our heads and into the minds and hearts, hopefully, of other people. So it's really communication device as much as anything. And then we know that our ability to communicate is really one of the things that will determine how far we go in this world, at least in a societal context. I'm in the woods right now, squirrels, bear, deer, trees, rocks.
Speaker 2:Although I think they probably appreciate my language and words, they're not quite as impacted as those in my specie. But the power of a vision can do miracles for an individual as well as a company. For example, people that are that have addictions, drugs, alcohol, whatever. The power of a compelling vision, that bright horizon, which offers more satisfaction, more benefit, more gain, will a lot of times cause the vice to fall off. It can be enough that that it's just like I want to go in this direction.
Speaker 2:I no longer want to do this because that's going to keep me from attaining the vision because that's where I want to go. And perhaps visions for our lives have helped more people get away from addictions than anything else if you want to get down to it. So there's a great deal of power in the vision for an individual life. But there's power also to do these miracles for a company, whether it's a startup or if you're a turnaround CEO that comes in like Dan the Man did years ago with one company I was working with, where the person casts such a powerful vision that it transforms the self image of each employee, making really the mission the big deal, where it's not so much a job or just a paycheck anymore. It becomes a life changing ministry of empowerment or even spiritual awakening, where you go into this company and you were transformed somehow in the process to a much more empowered or powerful person.
Speaker 2:Obviously, all of this being accomplished within the overarching context of the business or organization. Now a vision also does miracles in the life of the CEO or the founder, or I'll say even the leaders. As the vision tells or informs a person what he or she must become or must evolve into. Okay? So you have the vision out there.
Speaker 2:It's a big vision. Then it's like, gosh, I need to learn how to do this. I need to acquire these skills. I need to make these adjustments in my life. I need to form these habits.
Speaker 2:I need to gain new thinking. I need to work on my own BS, that is belief systems, of course. So it informs us of what we have to become. The fundamental purpose of a vision is that really of motivation, right? Communication, we've talked about that.
Speaker 2:But the acid test really, I'll say, of a vision is does it motivate? Does it sufficiently motivate and inspire you as well as all those that are going to be part of this enterprise to go in the direction of the common cause. And big visions take big energy. Little visions take little energy. Small vision, I mean, that's fine and all that, but, I mean, they can be unimpressive, uninspiring.
Speaker 2:I mean, when there's no scale, people will see, oh, this isn't going to really go very far. And there's not much opportunity really in a small pie. I mean, my piece can only get so big. And so the potential, I'll say, for self gain is kind of unsatisfying perhaps. Now with that said, large is often over
Speaker 2:with large overrated. I would rather work in a smaller company that that provides incredible satisfaction than large, sloppy, meaningless organization. It just depends on how far you want to scale it. So again, large is often overrated just like PALS Sudden Service, which is another Baldridge winning organization. They only have about 30 locations, but they are world class. They have profit margins two or 300% than their other competitor fast food enterprises.
Speaker 2:There's only one service failure or complaint or gift, as we would call it in the multi view world, every 3,500 orders when compared with other competing fast food enterprises, which you all are aware, where they have much lower standards and the screw up factor is just all over the place. Okay? So smaller, but incredibly successful. And smaller is easier to manage inherently because you just have less to manage rather than a thousand sites. You have 30.
Speaker 2:And can you make a great living doing that? Oh my god. You can make a great living off of just one site. With that said, you don't want a vision that's so small that it isn't impressive and it doesn't inspire people. However, you might have a vision that's good, that is directionally correct and all that, but it's too big and thus becomes nonbelievable.
Speaker 2:And if you have too big a vision, it loses energy. And people think to themselves, there's just no way this guy this gal can pull this off. And so they can't get behind it. And that might really be the litmus test, that is the decisive, indicative test for you as a leader about really your vision and your capabilities as is perceived by other very perceptive human beings, which I find human beings to be. We can size people up in seconds.
Speaker 2:As far as their intelligence, their horsepower, their levels of energy, integrity takes a little bit longer. And you can just look around and see if they have self control, self regulation just by how they conduct their life. I mean, do they have a clipboard, or do they keep their to do list on the cell phone? So we have to be careful that the vision is believable and where they have faith really in the CEO that they can pull this off. I will say this, that a lot of times you get the great vision, the great direction, and you have to cast it out there.
Speaker 2:But perhaps at that point, it's a glimpse of the vision and you really haven't developed all your chops yet, your leadership chops and the skills and abilities that you need. But I'll just say this, as you work at it, you will gain these things and as you step into the vision. And that's an interesting topic in itself, this whole idea of stepping into the vision, because it's a curious thing that when you have a vision, it normally demands courage. And that vision is kind of fuzzy and is not quite clear at the offset or at the beginning. And it almost seems like the entirety of the vision is somehow by the sovereign of the universe withheld intentionally until a person has the courage to risk something.
Speaker 2:Yes, risk something and step forward. And then as you have the courage to move forward, the details of really the vision are only revealed at that point. And so it's almost a type of qualification process, it seems. For example, when I was building the recording studios and the conference center at the top of one of the mountains at the Awakened Forest, where I am now actually, I had this vision. And I'll just quickly tell you the story.
Speaker 2:I had just I had lost my son, and this is in 02/2008. And I was using Binaural Beats. I'd I'd gotten great benefit from these lucid states. It relaxes you and sends you really into almost another world. And I was doing that.
Speaker 2:I woke up early in the morning, like 05:00, and I put on the headphones, and I was just going along with it. And I had this vision of this mountaintop recording studio and conference center. And in a voice, and it wasn't in language, but nevertheless I felt a very clear communication or image of that we'd have all these billboard and hit records and that people would come from all over the world to the retreat center. And I just put down the headphones after that experience. Remember, is 02/2008.
Speaker 2:The stock market had just collapsed. And I had committed financially to a couple other directions. It was just not smooth sailing. And I remember I drove up to the property in my Jeep and I found a for sale sign buried in the weeds because it had been foreclosed upon, but no one had any money because, again, the stock market had just crashed. And I just phoned the realtor and said, I'll take this property.
Speaker 2:Just like that. And by miracle, apparently the banks were desperate. They gave me the money within like two weeks. And I had it, and I just started to put everything I had into the building of these facilities. And in the vision, in this nonverbal, almost telepathic way, it said that this would be this great success.
Speaker 2:Well, by golly, in the first year of operation, people flooded. I was charging people $2,500 per person to come to our programs, and then I was having all these famous artists and stuff come record all kinds of famous blues folks since we do that and and all that. Long story short, we paid for the entire property and buildings in the very first year of operation. And I learned something, say it cemented it maybe more, is that you trust your visions, especially the visions of the night. When you're in that lucid state, not quite in the waking state, but not quite in the sleeping state, but there's something real or there's something going on which I don't know, I don't understand, but it's something that's trustworthy.
Speaker 2:So that's really been a hallmark of my life and explains a lot of my accomplishments. I mean, I've made millions and millions and millions of dollars from these visions, and I'm not saying that to be, you know, mister Big or anything like that. I I don't want that. But it has helped me a lot and my family. And so let's put it there.
Speaker 2:And I'll just say that when I caught the vision, I was planning the design, I basically end up designing most buildings that we put up or we repurpose myself rather than using architects so much. And I remember I would go up there and I would sit and notice where the sun came up and what the building looked like as the sun progressed through the day and what it was like at sunset fairly meticulously because I think you have to be very meticulous and interested in whatever you're doing. And boom, it paid off. It was stunning. And everything happened just like the vision said, In fact, surpassing the vision, I should say.
Speaker 2:That's just the truth about it. And I might as well not hold back. There's no purpose. So a lot of times, the truth about things is way more interested than anything I could ever make up. So now a vision occurs really on multiple levels in any human organization.
Speaker 2:Obviously, you have the big corporate vision that unifies the entire workforce. But you also have, I'll say, sub visions on really the business segment level, departmental level, site or location level. And so therefore, this topic of vision really applies to all areas of the organization. And really, the pattern of success in casting a vision apply equally with the overall vision of the company, as well as, again, on this site or department level. So whether you're leading finance, HR, compliance, operations, marketing, IT, whatever, your vision for your department, for your site, your region has to be compelling.
Speaker 2:It has to be impressive. It has to grab people's attention and be motivational. And I think regardless of what you're doing, I mean, whether you're making shoes, whether you're making backpacks, whether you're in health care, farming, or whatever. And people say, well, god. How can I how can I make finance or IT or compliance or HR or whatever exciting, Andrew?
Speaker 2:And I think that you can always fall back on a couple things. Customer service. Okay? Because even if you're in finance or IT, you're in a supportive role. And in finance, you wanna make sure people are absolutely delighted with your financial reports, that they're truly helpful, that they can understand them.
Speaker 2:And if you're in IT, rather than act like a jerk and belittle people to show how smart you are, you actually become extremely helpful, not an enabler, but an empowerer. Not just coming in and fixing things, although there's a time for that, but also saying, hey. Let's upgrade you at this time. Let's let me help empower. So customer service or focus on whoever the consumer is is just good.
Speaker 2:It feels great to help out other human beings. And then also the introduction of what I'll say spirituality or personal growth, that all leaders, you reproduce who you are. So if you're this impressive individual that's really going somewhere, that tends to motivate and inspire people to take their lives to new levels. There's the vision. Okay?
Speaker 2:I want to create the most powerful and empowered human beings I can where they're just oozing goodness and helpfulness, and normally people can get behind that. Now with multi location or multi site business businesses, 70% of the leadership is local. You know, a lot of people try to put culture or whatever and throw it up to corporate or benefits or here's the pay here. No, most of it has to do that 70%, again according to Gallup, is really local and has to do with the relationship of the immediate manager with the frontline employees. So that proximity, I'll say in this case, to the vision or mission is felt by everybody within really that vibrational range.
Speaker 2:Everybody picks up on the vibe of the site or the area. And so that that vision, again, has to get out of that branch manager or that site's leader's head and into really the DNA of everybody that's working in proximity to him or her. Now for all my good friends in the m and the a business, that is mergers and acquisitions. For example, the private equity or p buddies or those conquest pals and acquaintances who want to own the world. Okay.
Speaker 2:First, regarding acquisitions and mergers, approximately 75% of all acquisitions fail to achieve their desired outcomes or results. That's just fact. And I think so much of this high failure rate has to do with all the talented people that are in the acquired company going off, quitting, whatever, in the acquisition process because the vision is not sold well. It's not compelling. Know, obviously, usually, you want all the frontline workers.
Speaker 2:And then you usually have redundancies that you want to eliminate in order to gain what economies of scale. Right? But again, one of our moves, and we've been involved with so many acquisitions and all that, and they tend to go well because we add really this DNA of excitement, of the compelling vision, and that's really why so many companies partner with us because our DNA gets mixed into that. We're able to actually raise the vision level of an organization. And suddenly, than just going to work, rather than just getting a paycheck, I'm working for something with real meaning and purpose.
Speaker 2:I'm on a mission. I'm in a ministry. And so when someone's acquired, they just compare easily the old company with the new company and they get excited and they stay. And boom, rather than having the 75% failure rate, and I'm not saying it's a complete failure, I'm just saying it doesn't achieve the goals or the intentions at the time of the acquisition. It goes up that to 100% and sometimes way beyond that and exceeds really a lot of our wildest expectations.
Speaker 2:Because everybody wants more, so we just make it easy. So whether we're if we're in the acquired company, we just take a look at the acquirers vision and go, wow, this is better. Because if they feel that they're just a cog in a purely financial transaction that they can't be a part of, people don't want that. They want a future. So the thing is is to super soak that culture with meaning and purpose and increase the value.
Speaker 2:And as you increase the value, it's something that they actually get to participate in, and that tends to motivate. One of the things I'll say in the vision, and this is pure MBI, or part of the pure MBI playbook, should say, is that we try to create a school. Basically a school of empowerment, of goodness, helpfulness. And we find this to be relatively easy. Why?
Speaker 2:Because it's who we are. It's what we live and breathe. It's the way that everybody in our culture has been raised. And so it's just natural because it's who we are. And when you mix that DNA with another organization, it just, again, it gets in the DNA and it's felt.
Speaker 2:It's absorbed by the partnering company. And, you know, people just know, hey. This is going to be great. Now on this topic of vision, let's quickly discuss vision versus statements. I don't have much use for a mission statement.
Speaker 2:It's just another thing to me to have to memorize or do. Whereas if I have a compelling vision, I want to focus on that singular thing. And so I just think that confuses the fact that we have to explain it is a whole different thing and I probably it's just something to me that's been dreamed up by academics. I do like a description of culture which really describes what our culture is so that people can look at their behaviors really. And by doing so, it creates a condition of self regulation to say, Oh, I'm behaving in a way that's not aligned with our culture.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can self regulate and get back into the culture if I want to. And, of course, values is another thing we can discuss later on that needs to be considered, and that could be a separate document that I think would be helpful. So description of culture, listing of your values and what that looks like, both of those are good documents to form, as well as your vision statement. To me, if you can look at your vision statement and it somehow reignites you from time to time that you are going about your day doing your work and suddenly you look at it and it refocuses you and brings you back to your direction, especially if you start to drift. That's a good statement.
Speaker 2:Now when forming your initial vision statements, I don't use committees, and people are taken back by that. I think it's best that the founder, the CEO, or the small group or whatever come up with really their ideas of what that vision needs to be. And then as you get it going, you present it, you invite people into the conversation to dissect it, and you improve upon it as you go along. But all I know is that in most organizations, committees equal constipation. And, in fact, I've got a definition here of a committee.
Speaker 2:I'm sure this is from Webster's. A committee, a noun, where people get together as a group and spend enormous amounts of time making concessions, showing how clever they are, neutering out important nutrients, devastating value, and ending up with a mediocre result. There are so many concessions that are made in meetings, and that's why we only have really one meeting a week, sometimes two at MultiView. That is formal meetings where a lot of organizations are meeting hell. People meet all the time and nothing ever gets done.
Speaker 2:And, I mean, it's it's just like a slow water drip torture. Committees will get in your way often especially when you're improving quality. Yes, you want input. Committees also break down because you can't bring accountability to committees. It's not like you can say, hey, you're all fired.
Speaker 2:I mean, one person has to have the vision or or the direction, has to lead it. But somebody has to own this and and be really be held accountable for whatever the results are. And It's hard to do that with a committee. With that said, in the multi view world, you come up with a direction, but everybody has a voice. And that vision can be altered over time as better and better ideas emerge.
Speaker 2:Okay? So let's just go over a few points as we near the end of our discussion in building an organization and its vision. First of all, see the vision. You have to see it before you can make it or that you can build it. And again, this vision creates focus.
Speaker 2:And like so many initiatives, if you can take the time to list all the reasons to go in your particular direction, all the motivators, all the reasons why to do the vision and why it makes sense. The more motivators, the more reasons you have behind something, the more power you're going to have that will help you withstand the almost certain setbacks and resistance and obstacles that you're going to encounter on your journey. Step two: Write the ad. That seems funny. You write the ad even before you have a product.
Speaker 2:Correct. Because this, again, informs you of what this company kind of needs to look like, what kind of skills we're going to need, what kind of knowledge we're going to need, all these things. What is going to be the compelling promise of certainty that people that are selling products and services, what they want to hear. And then, of course, you have to design that. And this is where you get crazy about customer service, follow through.
Speaker 2:MultiView, we go months without a single screw up or complaint. And some people just can't get their heads around that because their tolerance of mistakes is just too high. Whereas I'm ready to rip someone's lungs out, of course, in the nicest way possible, but nevertheless, I will not tolerate it. And so we have to be serious about quality. And that includes being delightful and helpful and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:But again, write the ad. What are you selling? What is the compelling promise that you're going to put out? And then you've got to execute near flawlessly. Three, walk through the organization backwards from the customer experience to how the product or service is created, organized, all this.
Speaker 2:So really, so we have our ad there. And then we need to start to get meticulous and think about all the things we're gonna need. This is really our planning phase. What are we gonna have to do to to pull this off? And one of the things we're gonna quickly discover is that and our people development systems are really the center of the universe.
Speaker 2:It's the center of your organization because all of our quality is going to come from the quality of our people development systems. So they better be world class. Right? And if we're going to have leaders, we've got to have leaders. If we're going to expand on any type of scale, we have to remember that 70% principle that our leaders, at least to 70%, are going to reproduce themselves.
Speaker 2:And so we need to have our leadership development programs as well. Four, the questions. How will you get others to help? How do you motivate people to do the vision? And of course, this normally comes down to the sense of meaning and purpose.
Speaker 2:But a lot of times people have these things called mortgages and desires and all that. And so what do they need? Compensation in the financial form. Really all of life is compensation, whether it's just the work environment that we have, tasting our food, all this. But most people will just default to kind of the unconsidered compensation aspect.
Speaker 2:But we have to answer really that question. How do we get people to help? Well, pay them well. And most organizations, if they are managed well, we have found that they can pay well. And our formula is basically this: Less people paid well or fewer people paid well.
Speaker 2:Five, you have to really focus on your system solution or systematizing, I'll say, accountability. In all our work with, again, over 1,300 organizations at this point, the difference between things getting done, initiatives getting done or not getting done comes down to accountability. And that's a deep topic. Again, we've got a lot of materials on that. But people have to know that their work is meaningful, that if they don't do their work, has impact on the entire organization.
Speaker 2:And if people choose to not do the standards of the organization once they are set, there has to be consequences. There has to be pain with not doing the standards, whether it's intentional or unintentional. It doesn't matter. It wasn't done. And so people have to be held accountable.
Speaker 2:And normally the easiest way to do that is through the compensation system, which we're experts at after doing so many hundreds of company. And then the last point here is just the frequent measurement, monitoring, or quantification of operations. Obviously, we need some type of feedback loop to tell us whether we're progressing. We'd always want to benchmark if possible like we do with all these healthcare entities where everybody can compare themselves to the fiftieth percentile, tenth percentile, ninetieth percentile, so we have professional perspective and we know the norms of quality and cost for virtually all of the main cost and quality categories in our respective fields. All those are really part of the vision and really creating your company.
Speaker 2:Even coming up with the measurements at the end. And you might say, Well, Andrew, how does that tie into vision? Well, how are you going get the quality if you're not measuring it? And you haven't planned to do that in the first place. You may be able to wing it for a while at first, but then reality slaps you in the face and you go, man, maybe we're not quite as good as we think.
Speaker 2:And so that quantification of your business slaps you in the face with that brute heart reality and reality smiles back at you and the best you can do is smile back and get in the game and get serious about your quality. But hopefully quality is part of your vision and that you're fully committed to incredible, extraordinary customer service, goodness and healthfulness, as well as your service or product actually does what you promise.
Speaker 1:We hope you are having the best day of your life. If you need something further, just visit one of the Multiview Incorporated websites or contact us through social media. Smoke signals, carrier pigeons, telepathy have not proven reliable. All calls are answered within three rings by a competent real person. Thank you for listening.
