Communicating the big ideaWhen I heard Barack Obama speaking in Prague of his vision for a world free of nuclear weapons it made me (and I’m sure many others) think of JFK’s vision of putting a man on the moon. I’m sure that the notion of a man on the moon was seen as crazy and unrealistic back in 1961 but it happened. It’s often been said that it was the excitement and challenge that was communicated by such a vision that made it happen. The challenge for us in our organisations is to find a way of communicating that kind of excitement and purpose to the people around us. It’s not easy. How do we present a vision that seems inspired, a bit off the wall maybe, in a way that doesn’t actually turn people off with its apparent impossibility? On the other hand if the vision is too workaday and utterly achievable isn’t that boring and maybe even an insult to those who work with us. It’s saying ‘You’re not particularly good anyway so let’s just go for something easy to achieve’. Now of course the reality is that organisations are made up of people with different talents and different levels of ability. In fact what we hear so often in organisations – we hire only the best, our people are our greatest asset, and similar rah rah type phrases – is almost without exception a load of nonsense. It’s just not possible that everyone in a workplace is at the top of their game. Most of the people we work with are pretty ordinary and have ordinary levels of talent and intellect. This was brilliantly described by the late Peter Drucker in his 2002 Harvard Business Review article “They’re not employees, they’re people” when he compared a manager’s task to that of the conductor of an orchestra. Not every member of the orchestra is the best player of their particular instrument but the job of the conductor is to get the best possible sound from a group of mixed ability musicians. He utilises the strengths and minimises the weaknesses to get the result of a beautiful sound. He has to communicate his vision of that beautiful sound to get the best out of the team. I’d love to hear examples of managers who get this excitement and challenge across to the people around them. It’s not easy and we can all learn from good example. Add a CommentYour comment will appear once it has been approved. |