May 2, 2025 • 18 mins
Which one are you stronger in? Which one does your organization value more? Which one will help you scale your career more? In this episode Lone Rock Leadership cofounder Russ Hill digs into vision vs execution and which one matters most.
• Vision encompasses purpose, key results, first principles, and the "why" behind organizational actions
• Leaders with vision maintain altitude by looking beyond immediate tactics to see the horizon
• Execution problems typically stem from undefined deliverables or lack of accountability
• Most execution issues result from not clearly defining the 2-3 metrics that matter most
• When leaders fail to execute despite feedback and coaching, organizations typically wait too long to make changes
• Great leaders regularly remind teams of the bigger purpose behind their work
• Vision provides the foundation that makes effective execution possible
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Vision versus execution.
Which one does your companyneed more right now?
Leaders with more vision orleaders who execute?
I'm going to take a position onwhich one I think is more
important in this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You cannot be serious .
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Strengthen your ability to lead in less than 30
minutes.
You cannot be serious.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
So which one do you think I'm going to say is more
needed in the organizations,across all different industries
Restaurants, hospital systems,manufacturing companies, retail
outlets, financial firms, allthese different industries.
(00:50):
In our 20 years of working withorganizations, which one of
those two do you think is moreneeded, more absent, more
lacking vision or execution?
My answer might surprise youand I want to get you thinking
and challenge your thoughtprocess on this a little bit.
Welcome into the Lead in 30podcast.
In less than 30 minutes, wegive you a framework, a model, a
question, a best practice, anexample, something for you to
(01:13):
think about implementing in theway that you lead others.
Nothing has more of an impacton your life, your livelihood,
your legacy than your ability tolead others.
It cannot stay stagnant.
If you want to find out moreabout our firm, what we do with
executive teams or with our offthe shelf leadership training
programs for mid managers, go tolone rockio.
(01:34):
Lone rockio.
I'm Russ Hill, one of thefounders of lone rock leadership
, but this is the first everpodcast episode of mine that
you've been listening, thatyou're listening to.
Um, here's the uh.
Here's the one or two sentenceuh, bio for me.
I make my living coaching,consulting senior, uh, executive
teams at some of the world'sbiggest companies, and, uh,
(01:57):
that's our, that's ourconsulting business.
I'm part of that and I justhappen to be the voice of the
podcast, and so in this littlecorner of the internet, I share
experiences that we're havingbecause we've got this
incredible front row seat toexecutive leadership at all
these organizations.
And so years ago I was sittingon a plane crisscrossing the
(02:20):
country actually at that time,the globe going to Singapore and
New Zealand and London and allthese places in between, and I
thought why aren't we sharing?
Why aren't we sharing whatwe're learning?
I mean, like we are with ourclients, obviously, but what
about the rest of the world?
And so obviously we've got NDAnon-disclosure agreements.
We can't talk about everyorganization's names or specific
(02:44):
situations, but there are allkinds of general thoughts that
we can share.
So that's what I do in thispodcast.
Okay, a quick one today, becauseall of my recent episodes ever
since I took a little hiatus allof the episodes have been
exactly 30 minutes and I've madethem too long.
So this one we're going to dolike 15 minutes tops, a super
(03:05):
quick one for you, all right,and I want you to think about
these two different ideas ofvision and execution, because at
the root of it, we have so manyconversations, so much tension,
so many challenges, so manydiscussions inside our
organizations that really sitaround these two topics.
Wouldn't you agree with thatLike we're?
We're we're either having a achallenge with vision, either
(03:29):
collectively across theenterprise, across the whole
organization, or a particulardepartment or business unit, or
whatever it might be, dependingon the size of the organization
that you work in.
We've got, we've got a leader,or we've got a group of leaders,
or we all collectively, as theleadership of this organization,
feel like we're lacking vision.
We really don't have a gameplan.
(03:50):
What do I mean by vision?
I'll get more into that in justa moment.
Make that tactical for you,because vision is like a
buzzword and who even knows whatit means?
So I want to break that downbecause it actually is very,
very meaningful and I'm superpassionate about that being in
place, or your ability to defineit and communicate it.
So we'll talk about that in asecond.
(04:11):
Others of you you're like man.
We're just.
We've got an execution problem.
We got this.
We got this manager, thissupervisor, this VP, this
executive that isn't executingLike they're an incredible
person, hopefully they they'vegot all these skills, experience
, abilities, whatever it mightbe, but we aren't delivering,
like they aren't delivering, wearen't meeting the needs.
(04:35):
And I'll tell you the the thepercentage of leaders, the
percentage of executives overthe years who've I've heard or
seen or been around who havesaid, yeah, we should have taken
longer, we should have waitedlonger on taking any action
around that executive, vp,supervisor, manager, director,
(04:56):
whomever it is who wasn'tdelivering.
We should have given them alonger opportunity to fix that.
What's the percentage of timesI've heard people say that?
Zero, like literally.
What do I often hear?
What are you often here?
What?
What do we?
Frequently?
Where do we err as leaders?
(05:17):
We give these leaders way toolong, these managers way too
long.
They don't execute.
We're like, ah, maybe we'llturn around.
They don't execute.
Ah, we need to give them alittle longer.
They don't execute, but they'rea nice person.
They don't execute, yeah, butwe've got they don't.
Well, we'll give it.
And like then we, we takeaction after a year, two years,
18 months, six months, whateverit is.
(05:38):
And what do we?
You always hear people say dangit, we should have done that
faster, we should have.
We should have.
We should have made that changesooner.
People are who they're tellingyou they are.
People.
Are that manager, thatsupervisor, that director?
She or he is exactly who youthink they are.
(06:01):
Now there are exceptions, butgenerally I mean we talk about
this all the time withexecutives that we coach like
that's who they are.
What you're seeing is whatyou're seeing.
Now.
Am I a believer in coaching andgiving people a chance to react
and implement on the feedbackthat you give them.
(06:21):
My gosh, of course.
That's called being a decenthuman.
Like who's going to go to go?
Oh, they didn't execute in thefirst week or two weeks.
Like that's what happens infast food or certain you know um
high turnover industries wherewe're just like churning and
burning through talent.
But in the vast majority of ourorganizations, like no, give
(06:43):
them the feedback, step up, be aleader.
Like that's part of leading.
Saying the hard things, tellingthem what they.
That's who I want to work for.
Tell me what I'm not seeing,tell me what I'm ignoring, tell
me what I don't want to hear.
Right, and give it.
Give me that feedback at theright moment and then and then
(07:03):
let me work on it.
Let me get and then give mesome feedback and coaching on
that.
So that takes more than a weekor a month.
You got to give me a little bitof time on that.
So I'm not advocating like makethese impulsive decisions, oh,
she didn't perform last week offwith her, you know like.
No, I'm not advocating likemake these impulsive decisions,
oh, she didn't perform last weekoff with her, you know like.
No, I'm not saying that, but Iam saying that over time,
meaning a few months at aminimum, that if you're seeing
(07:27):
this, you're giving feedback,you're giving coaching.
That's specific and there's nochange.
You got an execution problem.
Quit denying it, Make a move.
That's what we're paying you todo.
That got an execution problem.
Quit denying it, make a move.
That's what we're paying you todo.
That's what great organizations, that's what those that are
gaining market share do.
They move on those things.
So, vision or execution, I willI'll just take a position on
(07:52):
right out of the gate on thisand let you know which one.
I absolutely think mostorganizations lack and most
leaders lack and when I say most, I mean the majority and its
vision period.
End of story done.
End of podcast.
We need more vision.
Well, what do I mean by that?
(08:14):
Okay, russ, that sounds nice,I've heard about that.
Yeah, that's something thatisn't unique to you saying like
that's out there in the businessworld.
What does it mean?
Well, I'm sorry to berepetitive, but we teach what is
the core need insideorganizations.
It works, vision are keyresults, first principles,
(08:38):
principles and purpose.
I've talked about this recently.
That's vision.
So let's talk a little bitabout what I mean by that and
how to define it.
So vision is?
It's a rallying cry.
It's why we exist.
So I'll give you I'll give youactually a non-traditional,
non-expected answer.
So I'm sitting in a meetingyesterday Yesterday was Sunday
(09:00):
at the time I'm recording this,and those of you that listen to
this podcast on a regular basisknow that I'm active in my faith
.
So I go to church.
I always have.
I've been to over 5,000.
I was calculating I'm like,okay, how old am I?
How many weeks have I gone tochurch?
Like in a typical year,whatever, whatever.
And I calculated I was like,okay, I've been to church over
5,000 times, like way more thanthat, but at least that many
(09:23):
times, cause I go out of 52Sundays in a year, probably 50.
Forty, nine, right, sick acouple, maybe it's forty six or
forty seven, but it's it's mostSunday.
So, anyway, I'm sitting atchurch yesterday and I'm in a
meeting after after the typicalmeetings and we're planning a
(09:46):
camp.
This is for the teenage boys inour congregation, so those
between 12 and 18 years oldcongregation, so those between
12 and 18 years old, and we dothis every summer.
A lot of you that go tochurches or you're part of
different community groups, youput your kids in this, or they
go to it or you volunteer, andI'm super passionate about it.
Every single summer, everysummer, for the last at least 20
(10:09):
years, I have spent at least aweek of my summer at a church
sponsored camp for teenage girls, teenage boys, both of them,
whatever.
I find it extremely rewarding.
My kids go to them.
They found it extremelyrewarding.
And there are all kinds ofdifferent camps.
One of our, our, our youngest,is he's spending a week at.
(10:30):
He's going to multiple campsthis summer.
One of them is uh, in Chinese,and it's all these Chinese
speakers in high schools aroundaround the U S and uh, and, and
over Christmas break he was inChina at a camp, you know.
So, um, anyway, all thesedifferent camps.
So we're planning, we'replanning the camp and um, and.
(10:53):
And as we were breaking up intothese kinds of committees, these
subgroups, I said to the personrunning the meeting.
I said, hey, can we, before webreak up into the, into the
committees, into the groups, can?
Can I just make a quick comment?
He's like, yeah, absolutely,russ, go ahead what's on your
mind.
And I said, can we, just beforewe break up and start really
getting into the tacticalplanning, can we just remind
(11:14):
ourselves of why we're evendoing this camp?
Why are we going to this placethat we're going to?
We happen to be taking theseboys, uh, whitewater rafting, um
, and out here in the western usand it's going to be amazing
I'm so excited about.
We've got a bunch of differentactivities and we're it's going
to be an amazing experience foreverybody involved.
And um.
(11:36):
And so I just stopped for asecond.
I said so I'm just asking theteenage boys who are part of the
plan I'm like, why are we doingthis, like before we get into
the tactics of planning it?
Why?
And one young man made acomment, another young man made
a comment, another one.
And then I asked the adults I'mlike, what would you add to
that, and so we have this liketwo to three minute conversation
.
That's vision.
(11:56):
That's vision.
Okay, it's just that, that basicreminding us of why we're doing
.
Why do we exist as a company?
Why are we launching this newproduct?
Why?
Why do we care about ROI?
Why are you putting thatrevenue number out there?
Why, why are we working so like?
(12:16):
That's what a great executivedoes?
They stop and and I'm only.
I only took the opportunity todo that yesterday, because I
preach it all the time like gosh, right, you got to practice it
a little bit too.
You know, in in all kinds ofsettings.
You can even do it in like achurch volunteer setting, do it
in a corporate setting, right,why?
The leader with visionsconstantly reminding the team
(12:39):
why this is important, why weexist, what we're trying to
accomplish.
I'm not talking about therevenue target.
I'm not talking about thegrowth target.
I'm not talking about themargin.
I'm not talking about theproduct.
I'm not talking about on-timedelivery.
I'm not talking about safety.
I'm talking about overall.
Why are we making chickensandwiches?
Why do we make these fighterjets?
(13:01):
Why are we?
Why do we build these hospitals?
Why do we sell insurance?
Why do we have these retaillocations open?
Who are we serving?
What do we exist for?
Great leader, it's so easy toget lost in the tactical it's
it's.
It's so easy that, like everyleader does that, the
(13:22):
exceptional one, the highlyeffective one, is just
constantly reminding the teamvision.
So that's part of it.
Purpose is what I'm reallytalking about, right, and I've
talked about that a little bitin a recent episode.
And then you're reminding us ofthe targets.
Hey, don't forget by or or youall.
What we're working towards isthis.
And then you've got a why.
Why do we need to get to thattarget by the end of the year?
(13:43):
Where's that taking us thefollowing year, the year after?
What does that enable?
Or what well like?
Why do?
Why do I care if we grow atthat percent?
What's the bigger picture?
That's vision.
So leaders with vision havealtitude.
They are looking at the horizon.
(14:03):
They turn off the noise andconsider the bigger picture
where we're going, why we'regoing there, how we're going to
get there that's vision going.
Why we're going there, howwe're going to get there, that's
, that's vision.
Okay.
And so leaders with vision arethose that typically spend time
contemplating, pondering,planning, building strategy,
(14:32):
looking at trends.
That that's what's required tobuild vision.
The leaders with no vision arethe ones lost in the tactics,
which takes us to execution, andI got three minutes before my
next virtual meeting starts, sowe're going to wrap this up the
execution.
Execution is obviouslyperformance.
Do many organizations have anexecution problem?
Hello, yeah, absolutely.
(14:53):
It's part of what keeps us inbusiness and vision problems and
execution problems.
And so, yes, the chances thatyour organization, that you've
got managers or leaders insideyour company that are dealing
with execution problems, isabsolutely true.
How do you solve the executionproblem?
It's really two things.
It's not complicated, this isnot rocket science.
If you have an executionproblem, it's really two things.
(15:15):
It's not complicated, this isnot rocket science.
If you have an execution problemand a part of your organization
, you have one of two differentproblems or issues.
Number one this is most likelythe case you haven't defined
what actually needs to bedelivered.
Everything's important,everything's being talked about,
everything's a priority.
(15:35):
You don't have key results.
You haven't defined the two orthree, maybe four metrics that
matter most.
And so what do you need thatleader to execute on?
He or she needs team keyresults.
We call them TKRs.
Right and lead in 30,.
Our course and in ourconsulting work, they need to
(15:55):
define that.
If you have an execution problem, you usually haven't defined,
or that leader doesn't knowwhat's most important.
They think their job is to staybusy and that's not their job.
That's not what you need themto do.
You need them to prioritize andfocus on the right things.
So if you have an executionproblem, nine out of 10 times
(16:19):
you haven't defined, you don'thave clarity around the key
results either.
That.
And if you've solved that andyou've got that in place, then
it's a follow-up issue.
So you've got to hold themaccountable.
That leader doesn't doesn'tthink that they actually have to
deliver on that.
Or right, cause we've definedthe key results of people like
(16:39):
oh, that's nice, I don'tactually think we're going to
hit that growth target and Idon't think anybody in this
company cares if we miss it.
So you got to fix that right.
Or under that category, I'd putyou've got someone without the
capability to do it.
Or under that category I'd putyou've got someone without the
capability to do it.
They don't have the know-how,they don't have the competence.
It's not an insult of theirintelligence or how good they
(17:01):
are.
They're just not in the rightseat.
They're in over their skis, aswe say, right, and so you can
help them.
You can put reinforcements inthere, you can beef that team up
a little bit to try to supportthem.
Or you can look at yourresources and say we don't have
resources for that, and it'spretty easy for me to find a
leader that actually our managerin that space that does have
(17:23):
competence.
So we're going to make a move,we're going to move this leader
over to that part of the companywhere they do have competence
and they can execute, or we'regoing to ask them to, we're
going to invite them to leavethe organization, take care of
them on the way out, becauseit's just not a good fit.
Vision and execution which onedo you need to focus on more
right now?
Hopefully I gave you somethings to think about in this
(17:44):
episode of the lead in 30podcast.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
Vision versus execution.
Which one does your companyneed more right now?
Leaders with more vision orleaders who execute?
I'm going to take a position onwhich one I think is more
important in this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You cannot be serious .
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Strengthen your ability to lead in less than 30
minutes.
You cannot be serious.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
So which one do you think I'm going to say is more
needed in the organizations,across all different industries
Restaurants, hospital systems,manufacturing companies, retail
outlets, financial firms, allthese different industries.
(00:50):
In our 20 years of working withorganizations, which one of
those two do you think is moreneeded, more absent, more
lacking vision or execution?
My answer might surprise youand I want to get you thinking
and challenge your thoughtprocess on this a little bit.
Welcome into the Lead in 30podcast.
In less than 30 minutes, wegive you a framework, a model, a
question, a best practice, anexample, something for you to
(01:13):
think about implementing in theway that you lead others.
Nothing has more of an impacton your life, your livelihood,
your legacy than your ability tolead others.
It cannot stay stagnant.
If you want to find out moreabout our firm, what we do with
executive teams or with our offthe shelf leadership training
programs for mid managers, go tolone rockio.
(01:34):
Lone rockio.
I'm Russ Hill, one of thefounders of lone rock leadership
, but this is the first everpodcast episode of mine that
you've been listening, thatyou're listening to.
Um, here's the uh.
Here's the one or two sentenceuh, bio for me.
I make my living coaching,consulting senior, uh, executive
teams at some of the world'sbiggest companies, and, uh,
(01:57):
that's our, that's ourconsulting business.
I'm part of that and I justhappen to be the voice of the
podcast, and so in this littlecorner of the internet, I share
experiences that we're havingbecause we've got this
incredible front row seat toexecutive leadership at all
these organizations.
And so years ago I was sittingon a plane crisscrossing the
(02:20):
country actually at that time,the globe going to Singapore and
New Zealand and London and allthese places in between, and I
thought why aren't we sharing?
Why aren't we sharing whatwe're learning?
I mean, like we are with ourclients, obviously, but what
about the rest of the world?
And so obviously we've got NDAnon-disclosure agreements.
We can't talk about everyorganization's names or specific
(02:44):
situations, but there are allkinds of general thoughts that
we can share.
So that's what I do in thispodcast.
Okay, a quick one today, becauseall of my recent episodes ever
since I took a little hiatus allof the episodes have been
exactly 30 minutes and I've madethem too long.
So this one we're going to dolike 15 minutes tops, a super
(03:05):
quick one for you, all right,and I want you to think about
these two different ideas ofvision and execution, because at
the root of it, we have so manyconversations, so much tension,
so many challenges, so manydiscussions inside our
organizations that really sitaround these two topics.
Wouldn't you agree with thatLike we're?
We're we're either having a achallenge with vision, either
(03:29):
collectively across theenterprise, across the whole
organization, or a particulardepartment or business unit, or
whatever it might be, dependingon the size of the organization
that you work in.
We've got, we've got a leader,or we've got a group of leaders,
or we all collectively, as theleadership of this organization,
feel like we're lacking vision.
We really don't have a gameplan.
(03:50):
What do I mean by vision?
I'll get more into that in justa moment.
Make that tactical for you,because vision is like a
buzzword and who even knows whatit means?
So I want to break that downbecause it actually is very,
very meaningful and I'm superpassionate about that being in
place, or your ability to defineit and communicate it.
So we'll talk about that in asecond.
(04:11):
Others of you you're like man.
We're just.
We've got an execution problem.
We got this.
We got this manager, thissupervisor, this VP, this
executive that isn't executingLike they're an incredible
person, hopefully they they'vegot all these skills, experience
, abilities, whatever it mightbe, but we aren't delivering,
like they aren't delivering, wearen't meeting the needs.
(04:35):
And I'll tell you the the thepercentage of leaders, the
percentage of executives overthe years who've I've heard or
seen or been around who havesaid, yeah, we should have taken
longer, we should have waitedlonger on taking any action
around that executive, vp,supervisor, manager, director,
(04:56):
whomever it is who wasn'tdelivering.
We should have given them alonger opportunity to fix that.
What's the percentage of timesI've heard people say that?
Zero, like literally.
What do I often hear?
What are you often here?
What?
What do we?
Frequently?
Where do we err as leaders?
(05:17):
We give these leaders way toolong, these managers way too
long.
They don't execute.
We're like, ah, maybe we'llturn around.
They don't execute.
Ah, we need to give them alittle longer.
They don't execute, but they'rea nice person.
They don't execute, yeah, butwe've got they don't.
Well, we'll give it.
And like then we, we takeaction after a year, two years,
18 months, six months, whateverit is.
(05:38):
And what do we?
You always hear people say dangit, we should have done that
faster, we should have.
We should have.
We should have made that changesooner.
People are who they're tellingyou they are.
People.
Are that manager, thatsupervisor, that director?
She or he is exactly who youthink they are.
(06:01):
Now there are exceptions, butgenerally I mean we talk about
this all the time withexecutives that we coach like
that's who they are.
What you're seeing is whatyou're seeing.
Now.
Am I a believer in coaching andgiving people a chance to react
and implement on the feedbackthat you give them.
(06:21):
My gosh, of course.
That's called being a decenthuman.
Like who's going to go to go?
Oh, they didn't execute in thefirst week or two weeks.
Like that's what happens infast food or certain you know um
high turnover industries wherewe're just like churning and
burning through talent.
But in the vast majority of ourorganizations, like no, give
(06:43):
them the feedback, step up, be aleader.
Like that's part of leading.
Saying the hard things, tellingthem what they.
That's who I want to work for.
Tell me what I'm not seeing,tell me what I'm ignoring, tell
me what I don't want to hear.
Right, and give it.
Give me that feedback at theright moment and then and then
(07:03):
let me work on it.
Let me get and then give mesome feedback and coaching on
that.
So that takes more than a weekor a month.
You got to give me a little bitof time on that.
So I'm not advocating like makethese impulsive decisions, oh,
she didn't perform last week offwith her, you know like.
No, I'm not advocating likemake these impulsive decisions,
oh, she didn't perform last weekoff with her, you know like.
No, I'm not saying that, but Iam saying that over time,
meaning a few months at aminimum, that if you're seeing
(07:27):
this, you're giving feedback,you're giving coaching.
That's specific and there's nochange.
You got an execution problem.
Quit denying it, Make a move.
That's what we're paying you todo.
That got an execution problem.
Quit denying it, make a move.
That's what we're paying you todo.
That's what great organizations, that's what those that are
gaining market share do.
They move on those things.
So, vision or execution, I willI'll just take a position on
(07:52):
right out of the gate on thisand let you know which one.
I absolutely think mostorganizations lack and most
leaders lack and when I say most, I mean the majority and its
vision period.
End of story done.
End of podcast.
We need more vision.
Well, what do I mean by that?
(08:14):
Okay, russ, that sounds nice,I've heard about that.
Yeah, that's something thatisn't unique to you saying like
that's out there in the businessworld.
What does it mean?
Well, I'm sorry to berepetitive, but we teach what is
the core need insideorganizations.
It works, vision are keyresults, first principles,
(08:38):
principles and purpose.
I've talked about this recently.
That's vision.
So let's talk a little bitabout what I mean by that and
how to define it.
So vision is?
It's a rallying cry.
It's why we exist.
So I'll give you I'll give youactually a non-traditional,
non-expected answer.
So I'm sitting in a meetingyesterday Yesterday was Sunday
(09:00):
at the time I'm recording this,and those of you that listen to
this podcast on a regular basisknow that I'm active in my faith
.
So I go to church.
I always have.
I've been to over 5,000.
I was calculating I'm like,okay, how old am I?
How many weeks have I gone tochurch?
Like in a typical year,whatever, whatever.
And I calculated I was like,okay, I've been to church over
5,000 times, like way more thanthat, but at least that many
(09:23):
times, cause I go out of 52Sundays in a year, probably 50.
Forty, nine, right, sick acouple, maybe it's forty six or
forty seven, but it's it's mostSunday.
So, anyway, I'm sitting atchurch yesterday and I'm in a
meeting after after the typicalmeetings and we're planning a
(09:46):
camp.
This is for the teenage boys inour congregation, so those
between 12 and 18 years oldcongregation, so those between
12 and 18 years old, and we dothis every summer.
A lot of you that go tochurches or you're part of
different community groups, youput your kids in this, or they
go to it or you volunteer, andI'm super passionate about it.
Every single summer, everysummer, for the last at least 20
(10:09):
years, I have spent at least aweek of my summer at a church
sponsored camp for teenage girls, teenage boys, both of them,
whatever.
I find it extremely rewarding.
My kids go to them.
They found it extremelyrewarding.
And there are all kinds ofdifferent camps.
One of our, our, our youngest,is he's spending a week at.
(10:30):
He's going to multiple campsthis summer.
One of them is uh, in Chinese,and it's all these Chinese
speakers in high schools aroundaround the U S and uh, and, and
over Christmas break he was inChina at a camp, you know.
So, um, anyway, all thesedifferent camps.
So we're planning, we'replanning the camp and um, and.
(10:53):
And as we were breaking up intothese kinds of committees, these
subgroups, I said to the personrunning the meeting.
I said, hey, can we, before webreak up into the, into the
committees, into the groups, can?
Can I just make a quick comment?
He's like, yeah, absolutely,russ, go ahead what's on your
mind.
And I said, can we, just beforewe break up and start really
getting into the tacticalplanning, can we just remind
(11:14):
ourselves of why we're evendoing this camp?
Why are we going to this placethat we're going to?
We happen to be taking theseboys, uh, whitewater rafting, um
, and out here in the western usand it's going to be amazing
I'm so excited about.
We've got a bunch of differentactivities and we're it's going
to be an amazing experience foreverybody involved.
And um.
(11:36):
And so I just stopped for asecond.
I said so I'm just asking theteenage boys who are part of the
plan I'm like, why are we doingthis, like before we get into
the tactics of planning it?
Why?
And one young man made acomment, another young man made
a comment, another one.
And then I asked the adults I'mlike, what would you add to
that, and so we have this liketwo to three minute conversation
.
That's vision.
(11:56):
That's vision.
Okay, it's just that, that basicreminding us of why we're doing
.
Why do we exist as a company?
Why are we launching this newproduct?
Why?
Why do we care about ROI?
Why are you putting thatrevenue number out there?
Why, why are we working so like?
(12:16):
That's what a great executivedoes?
They stop and and I'm only.
I only took the opportunity todo that yesterday, because I
preach it all the time like gosh, right, you got to practice it
a little bit too.
You know, in in all kinds ofsettings.
You can even do it in like achurch volunteer setting, do it
in a corporate setting, right,why?
The leader with visionsconstantly reminding the team
(12:39):
why this is important, why weexist, what we're trying to
accomplish.
I'm not talking about therevenue target.
I'm not talking about thegrowth target.
I'm not talking about themargin.
I'm not talking about theproduct.
I'm not talking about on-timedelivery.
I'm not talking about safety.
I'm talking about overall.
Why are we making chickensandwiches?
Why do we make these fighterjets?
(13:01):
Why are we?
Why do we build these hospitals?
Why do we sell insurance?
Why do we have these retaillocations open?
Who are we serving?
What do we exist for?
Great leader, it's so easy toget lost in the tactical it's
it's.
It's so easy that, like everyleader does that, the
(13:22):
exceptional one, the highlyeffective one, is just
constantly reminding the teamvision.
So that's part of it.
Purpose is what I'm reallytalking about, right, and I've
talked about that a little bitin a recent episode.
And then you're reminding us ofthe targets.
Hey, don't forget by or or youall.
What we're working towards isthis.
And then you've got a why.
Why do we need to get to thattarget by the end of the year?
(13:43):
Where's that taking us thefollowing year, the year after?
What does that enable?
Or what well like?
Why do?
Why do I care if we grow atthat percent?
What's the bigger picture?
That's vision.
So leaders with vision havealtitude.
They are looking at the horizon.
(14:03):
They turn off the noise andconsider the bigger picture
where we're going, why we'regoing there, how we're going to
get there that's vision going.
Why we're going there, howwe're going to get there, that's
, that's vision.
Okay.
And so leaders with vision arethose that typically spend time
contemplating, pondering,planning, building strategy,
(14:32):
looking at trends.
That that's what's required tobuild vision.
The leaders with no vision arethe ones lost in the tactics,
which takes us to execution, andI got three minutes before my
next virtual meeting starts, sowe're going to wrap this up the
execution.
Execution is obviouslyperformance.
Do many organizations have anexecution problem?
Hello, yeah, absolutely.
(14:53):
It's part of what keeps us inbusiness and vision problems and
execution problems.
And so, yes, the chances thatyour organization, that you've
got managers or leaders insideyour company that are dealing
with execution problems, isabsolutely true.
How do you solve the executionproblem?
It's really two things.
It's not complicated, this isnot rocket science.
If you have an executionproblem, it's really two things.
(15:15):
It's not complicated, this isnot rocket science.
If you have an execution problemand a part of your organization
, you have one of two differentproblems or issues.
Number one this is most likelythe case you haven't defined
what actually needs to bedelivered.
Everything's important,everything's being talked about,
everything's a priority.
(15:35):
You don't have key results.
You haven't defined the two orthree, maybe four metrics that
matter most.
And so what do you need thatleader to execute on?
He or she needs team keyresults.
We call them TKRs.
Right and lead in 30,.
Our course and in ourconsulting work, they need to
(15:55):
define that.
If you have an execution problem, you usually haven't defined,
or that leader doesn't knowwhat's most important.
They think their job is to staybusy and that's not their job.
That's not what you need themto do.
You need them to prioritize andfocus on the right things.
So if you have an executionproblem, nine out of 10 times
(16:19):
you haven't defined, you don'thave clarity around the key
results either.
That.
And if you've solved that andyou've got that in place, then
it's a follow-up issue.
So you've got to hold themaccountable.
That leader doesn't doesn'tthink that they actually have to
deliver on that.
Or right, cause we've definedthe key results of people like
(16:39):
oh, that's nice, I don'tactually think we're going to
hit that growth target and Idon't think anybody in this
company cares if we miss it.
So you got to fix that right.
Or under that category, I'd putyou've got someone without the
capability to do it.
Or under that category I'd putyou've got someone without the
capability to do it.
They don't have the know-how,they don't have the competence.
It's not an insult of theirintelligence or how good they
(17:01):
are.
They're just not in the rightseat.
They're in over their skis, aswe say, right, and so you can
help them.
You can put reinforcements inthere, you can beef that team up
a little bit to try to supportthem.
Or you can look at yourresources and say we don't have
resources for that, and it'spretty easy for me to find a
leader that actually our managerin that space that does have
(17:23):
competence.
So we're going to make a move,we're going to move this leader
over to that part of the companywhere they do have competence
and they can execute, or we'regoing to ask them to, we're
going to invite them to leavethe organization, take care of
them on the way out, becauseit's just not a good fit.
Vision and execution which onedo you need to focus on more
right now?
Hopefully I gave you somethings to think about in this
(17:44):
episode of the lead in 30podcast.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
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