Mission and Vision

Vision and Mission

Start with the big picture—put first things first.

Experts in the fields of psychology and personal effectiveness now recognize it if you feel upset or an uneasy about your lack of personal time, it’s not because you have too much to do.  It’s because you not satisfied with most of what you do.  Determine what’s most important in your life.

1. Ask such questions as what’s most important?
2. What gives your life meaning?
3. What do you want to be and to do with your life?

Clarity on these issues is critical because the answers to these questions affect everything else in your life—your goals, the decisions you make in the way you spend your time, and so much more.

The need for a balanced life—

If you don’t think balance in your life is vitally important to your happiness, success and health. Consider this: there is considerable evidence showing that mishandled stress at home interferes with work performance, and mishandled job pressure creates and magnifies problems at home.  Research shows that the quality of your personal relationships strongly influences job productivity, disease resistance and longevity.  Conversely, people who have value power over family and friendships appear to have a harder time fighting off disease and sickness.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Can success in one area of life compensate for failure in another?
2. Can success in your profession compensate for a broken marriage or ruined health?
3. Can success in the community justify failure as a parent?

Important: success or failure in any role you have contributes to the quality of every other role, and your life as a whole.  Keep balance in your life.  Identify your various roles and keep them right in front of you so that you don’t neglect important areas such as your health, your family, your community involvement, or personal development.  Evaluating your various roles and attaching a new level of priority in each is another important step in becoming balanced and aligned and a whole person.

You are the architect of your future—

You are the builder, the engineer, and the architect of your future.  You have the ability to define your future if you so choose and if you’re willing to be systematic, incremental, and methodical.  You can plan your life resources and apply them conscientiously toward an imagined end.

This future based vision of what will be at what can be will require focus, imagination, planning, and most of all, time.  It takes time to determine who you want to be when you grow up.  It takes time and intentionality and seeking to really determine what it is you’re trying to accomplish how to go about it.

This future based visualization requires the ability to innovate and be imaginative.  One needs to be a lifelong learner and open to the Art of Possibility.  New ideas and new information and innovating become the currency in this new economy. The ability to synchronize and systemize new thought and ideas into old paradigms becomes a very valuable skill. Orchestration of resources, information, new thought, ideas, and new concepts into old skill sets is truly an art to be mastered.

It all starts with having a written plan and putting your dreams on paper.  The idea of being incremental and doing a little bit each day is key to this integration.  In some sort of a personal systematization becomes an incredibly efficient way to learn and grow.  It allows for consistency and fresh energy every day.  Calendars, schedules, and time management become key to the discipline of being systematic and methodical in achievement of our Life Plan and goals.

Accountability becomes a great help when one has partners and coaches and friends to hold one accountable to one’s own dreams.  Having coaches and mentors really allows for extra contribution and value added content and experience to your Life Plan. Reminders, post it notes, another visual posts will serve to make your plans memorable and more top of mind. Use your reticular activator to look for and be reminded of your life’s plan and written guidelines.

The ability to stay flexible and dynamic and changeable is a key factor in developing a Life Plan and vision.  New information is always presenting itself.  One needs to have flexibility is a key skill set. Remaining changeable and flexible and malleable in being the architect of your future is key.

The steps are as follows—

1. Know when and how to find your dream and vision
2. Articulate it on paper and verbally
3. Bring using the resources of time, information, skill sets, and determination
4. Refine and articulate your Life Plan
5. Resource your Life Plans through time management, calendarization, resourcing, energy, and life units.
6. Just do it…
7. Evaluate on an ongoing basis and rethinking and rewriting as needed.

Storytelling and Motivation by Dr. Richard Borough

MOTIVATING OTHERS, NOT. INSPIRING OTHERS, YES

Motivating others, this you cannot do because people motivate themselves. But if you are a manager of employees, you must have motivated people on your team.

As a manager it’s your main job to turn raw talent into performance that’s aligned with your mission and the vision of where you want to go. By the way, this is the same job as that of a football coach.

But how do you make it possible for the motivation that lies fast asleep, deep in the hearts of the people you manage, to spring forth? You do that by telling a good story—an inspirational story that encourages people to saddle up and take all forms of the most appropriate action possible. For while it is true that you cannot motivate another person, you can inspire them, this you can certainly do.

Inspire well and your people will motivate themselves.

Have you read any of J. K. Rowling’s seven Harry Potter books or seen the movies? Is Harry Potter a real person? Are any of those stories true? No. But people love them anyway, don’t they. Harry Potter doesn’t exist, none of the people in the stories exist, the whole story is made up, yet we want to believe, so we buy the books and go to the movies. The story is wonderful. The story gets us to take action.

Thousands of people of all ages camped all night outside bookstores everywhere waiting to buy the final Potter book last week. 10 million copies of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” were sold in the first 24 hours. That’s 6,944 books per minute. And that book is 600 pages long. Very big time motivation brought on by big time inspiration.

Turns out that those who manage people most successfully, better than anyone else, do not actually talk about or demonstrate the benefits that will accrue to those who do their bidding. That’s not what they do. Instead, they tell a story. Employees demand that you do just that, they insist that you paint vivid story pictures that they want to believe. This is their chief demand of you.

Storytelling, of course, is one of the oldest, most powerful modes of communication. President Ronald Reagan was a masterful storyteller, and many other politicians have used stories to gain votes and win elections. Savvy people are now adding storytelling to their toolkits to “sell” anything from organizational goals and priorities to employees, to goods, products and services to customers.

Researchers have found that storytelling is far more convincing to an audience than rational arguments, statistics, or facts. In her book “Corporate Legends and Lore: The Power of Storytelling as a Management Tool,” Peg Neuhauser outlines the results of a study with MBA students that demonstrate the power of a story. MBA students are very much orientated by statistics. Neuhauser divided her statistically oriented students into three groups. The first group was given only statistics related to the potential success of a new winery. The second group was given statistics and a story. The third group received only the story. The story ended with: “And my father would be so proud to sip this wine.” A majority of students in the third group believed that the winery would be successful, while in the other two groups the skeptics predominated. The story, not the statistics, sold the winery.

Next time you hear someone say, “Let me tell you a story,” watch out. You may be about to support an idea, enlist in a cause, or buy something.

It’s a simple concept. A story makes a topic much more real to the audience, more so than the most rational persuasion, because it reframes the argument being put forth by the story teller in an easy-to-grasp format anyone can relate to. When it becomes necessary to influence people, a story frame is always more effective than a rational, linear argument, provided the story answers the audience’s question, “What’s in this for me?”

Great stories overcome resistance to change, to try new things, or to buy.

Managers and football coaches make taking action more palatable by telling stories that celebrate the past while simultaneously demonstrating the need for change. Stories help people understand the need to follow directions and to do things in the right way. And even failure makes a good story when it is positioned to focus on the learning experience derived from it.

Now you may not be able to inspire your employees like J. K. Rowling inspired her readers and movie goers or like Vince Lombardi or Bill Walsh inspired their football players. But you can inspire your audience. And your inspirational activities can result in the sudden appearance of motivation on the part of your audience members. Then they’ll do all they can to take appropriate action that benefits both them and you too.

Like football coaches to their players, your good stories will bridge the gap between what you want people to do for you—and what, because they discover their own motivation—they will do for you.

So what exactly is a really good story? What characteristics must a story have in order to inspire and encourage the emergence and manifestation of motivation in other people?

Here’s what we know. A good story is interesting, it’s compelling and hard to ignore, it’s fascinating to some degree, it promises something people want to believe, it’s about things people can relate to their personal experiences and/or to their hopes and wishes, and it may offer hope of a better future. And truly great stories don’t appeal to logic, but they often appeal to emotions and senses.

Most of all, great stories agree with our world view. The best stories don’t teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and that makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure as it reminds them of how right they were in the first place.

Threats don’t work for long. Bribes don’t work for long either. Only a good story brings people to the place of self-motivation for the long haul and that’s what you need, long term motivation and the loyalty that comes with it.

Your story ought to lay out a vision of a desirable future, ought to talk about goals and communicate how together your team will reach them. Your story ought to educate and mobilize people to go with you into the future better place.

Want to manage your people better? Tell better stories. And tell them often. Neat huh!