Leading through clarity of purpose
Every successful pitch or project I have led has started with a clarity of purpose - leading to a team aligned around a strong vision or mission to find the best route forward.
Building predictable success takes a simple, reliable, predictable process. At any point in time, you need to see where your team is, talk about getting there, implement a plan to get there, or be able to adapt and change according to reality.
In an ideal world, you’d be able to walk up to any one of your co-workers and get the answer to the following questions:
- What are you working on right now?
- Are you confident that it’s the most important thing you could be doing?
- Do you know who is waiting on you?
- Do you know to whom you can go for support?
- Do you know how your work fits into the overarching product we’re trying to accomplish?
- Do you know why that product matters?
Establishing and empowering your team with a more formal process and methodology for tackling any new business opportunity is crucial to articulating what your prospective client is looking for.
It takes a system of people working well together, and passionate about a problem or idea to produce consistently great results. And it takes a methodology to get clarity on the path forward to empower team leaders, create alignment, act with integrity, get to the goal no matter what.
The following is my approach to executing through clarity.
Clarity of purpose: Before starting, make sure all team members know all the components that go into a successful pitch process and knows exactly what is the one main question that must be answered for the prospective client.
Clarity of plan: Everyone knows the story that must be told and is in agreement on what must be accomplished to get there.
Clarity of responsibility: Always knowing who is accountable for what at any given time. Create a master list of areas of responsibilities. Lay a strong foundation before everything gets out of control.
Clarity of action: Everything must contribute to the final argument and all team members are on board for how to accomplish the final goal.