Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
What are you willing
to throw your life away on? With
Andrew Reed and The Liberation.It's a serious question, one
worth pondering. Am I living thelife I want, an intelligent
life, or something else? How canI have a better experience of
life?
These are some of the questionsexplored in this series of
(00:34):
messages without the brag andthe advertisement. Getting
beyond even human institutionsand society into the wilderness,
nature, the reality of how lifeactually operates on this
planet. These messages rangefrom intimate recordings from
the awakened forest to concerts,national conferences, and
(00:56):
broadcasts on a wide array ofphilosophical topics.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Here we are today on
a mountaintop, which is probably
the appropriate setting for thisimportant topic of vision. And
some will see it as silly, as asquishy topic, high brow,
academic, But it's of extremeimportance for anyone that's
(01:29):
trying to form really a humanorganization and lead it. And
it's probably only now that Ifeel qualified. I was very
reluctant to put out thesemessages. And again, I just feel
like it's time.
Like I've stated, all thingstend to emerge. And it's just
(01:51):
time to do this. You can't be inpreparation mode forever. And
also, it's silly to always thinkthat everything is going to be
technically perfect or statedcorrectly or there won't be
slight flaws and things. I mean,you could put messages through
(02:12):
tremendous amounts of productionand all that to make a little
polished thing, but I don'tknow.
In my estimation, that would beinauthentic. Whereas I wanna
have a conversation, withouttrying to be mister Big or know
it all or anything like that.Just convey what I know at this
(02:34):
time. So here we go. This topicof vision.
Again, silly to some, squishy tosome, but important. I think
that we have to realizeobviously the power of language,
that the words and phrases thatwe utter convey energy in
(02:56):
combination with really theenergetic atmospheric energies
as well. And that our species,when it hears such utterances,
there's kind of a biochemicalresponse to these things. And
it's emulating what from ourminds, which release so many of
the chemicals and the energies.And I'm not trying to say this,
(03:20):
that we are all just biologicalcreatures, and that's all we
are.
I believe we're much more thanthat, but certainly that is part
of of that equation. The humanbeing seems to need a vision, a
sense of meaning, a sense ofpurpose for their existence.
(03:43):
Because without this sense ofmeaning and purpose, people
become depressed, sink intodespair, and some ultimately are
carried to the conclusion ofsuicide. And so much of this has
to do with, again, the images inour minds and really what we
(04:05):
think about ourselves, if wethink of ourselves as a success
or at least going in a directionor what have you. It seems that
a human being needs a brighthorizon or a compelling vision.
And I don't think that that canbe really underestimated,
especially in an organizationalcontext. We've got to get people
(04:27):
behind the directions, aunifying sense of purpose to go
towards this common cause andtowards this bright horizon. And
if you really want to cutthrough to the core of a vision,
it has to do with creatingfocus. And a vision or a vision
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statement is for creating thisfocus, which, again, focus is
the quality of the mostsuccessful people, the most
accomplished people in thisworld, on this planet. Focus,
which again can be languaged asself discipline, self control,
(05:09):
self regulation, even love,where you love whatever you're
doing, and are willing to focuson a singular aspect of
consciousness, throwingeverything you have into that
and ignoring basically the rest.
So a vision creates focus. Andsince it is normally a languaged
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document, it really comes to ourability to communicate because
we've got to get the vision outof our heads and into the minds
and hearts, hopefully, of otherpeople. So it's really a
communication device as much asanything. And then we know that
our ability to communicate isreally one of the things that
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will determine how far we go inthis world, at least in a
societal context. I'm in thewoods right now, squirrels,
bear, deer, trees, rocks.
Although I think they probablyappreciate my language and
words, they're not quite asimpacted as those in my specie.
(06:17):
But the power of a vision can domiracles 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 brighthorizon, which offers more
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satisfaction, more benefit, moregain, will a lot of times cause
the vice to fall off. It can beenough that it's just like, I
want to go in this direction.
I no longer want to do thisbecause that's going to keep me
from attaining the visionbecause that's where I want to
go. And perhaps visions for ourlives have helped more people
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get away from addictions thananything else, if you want to
get down to it. So there's agreat 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
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you're a turnaround CEO thatcomes in like Dan the Man did
years ago with one company I wasworking with, where the person
casts such a powerful visionthat it transforms the self
image of each employee, makingreally the mission the big deal
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where it's not so much a job orjust a paycheck anymore. It
becomes a life changing ministryof empowerment or even spiritual
awakening, where you go intothis company and you were
transformed somehow in theprocess to a much more empowered
or powerful person.
(08:10):
Obviously, all of this beingaccomplished within the
overarching context of thebusiness or organization. Now a
vision also does miracles in thelife of the CEO or the founder,
or I'll say even the leaders, asthe vision tells or informs a
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person what he or she mustbecome or must evolve into.
Okay? So you have the vision outthere. It's a big vision.
Then it's like, gosh. I need tolearn how to do this. I need to
acquire these skills. I need tomake these adjustments in my
life. I need to form thesehabits.
I need to gain new thinking. Ineed to work on my own BS, that
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is belief systems, of course. Soit informs us of what we have to
become. The fundamental purposeof a vision is that really of
motivation. Communication, we'vetalked about that.
But the acid test really, I'llsay, of a vision is does it
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motivate? Does it sufficientlymotivate and inspire you as well
as all those that are going tobe part of this enterprise to go
in the direction of the commoncause? And big visions take big
energy. Little visions takelittle energy. Small vision, I
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mean, that's fine and all that,but, I mean, they can be
unimpressive, uninspiring.
I mean, when there's no scale,people will see, oh, this isn't
going to really go very far. Andthere's not much opportunity,
really, in a small pie. I mean,my piece can only get so big.
(10:05):
And so the potential, I'll say,for self gain is kind of
unsatisfying perhaps. Now withthat said, large is often
overrated.
I would rather work in a smallercompany that that provides
incredible satisfaction thanlarge, sloppy, meaningless
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organization. It just depends onhow far you want to scale it. So
again, large is often overrated.Just like PALS Sudden Service,
which is another Baldridgewinning organization, they only
have about 30 locations, butthey are world class. They have
profit margins two or 300% thantheir other competitor fast food
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enterprises.
There's only one service failureor complaint or gift, as we
would call it in the multi viewworld, every 3,500 orders when
compared with other competingfast food enterprises, which you
all are aware, where they havemuch lower standards and the
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screw up factor is just all overthe place. Okay? So smaller, but
incredibly successful. Andsmaller is easier to manage
inherently because you just haveless to manage rather than a
thousand sites. You have 30.
And can you make a great livingdoing that? Oh my god. You can
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make a great living off of justone site. With that said, you
don't want a vision that's sosmall that it isn't impressive
and it doesn't inspire people.However, you might have a vision
that's good, that isdirectionally correct and all
that, but it's too big and thusbecomes nonbelievable.
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And if you have too big avision, it loses energy. And
people think to themselves,there's just no way this guy
this gal can pull this off. Andso they can't get behind it. And
that might really be the litmustest, that is the decisive,
indicative test for you as aleader about really your vision
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and your capabilities as isperceived by other very
perceptive human beings, which Ifind human beings to be. We can
size people up in seconds.
So far as their intelligence,their horsepower, their levels
of energy, integrity takes alittle bit longer. And you can
just look around and see if theyhave self control, self
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regulation just by how theyconduct their life. I mean, do
they have a clipboard, or dothey keep their to do list on
the cell phone? So we have to becareful that the vision is
believable and where they havefaith really in the CEO that
they can pull this off. I willsay this, that a lot of times
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you get the great vision, thegreat direction, and you have to
cast it out there.
But perhaps at that point, it'sa glimpse of the vision and you
really haven't developed allyour chops yet, your leadership
chops and the skills andabilities that you need. But
I'll just say this (13:20):
As you work
at it, you will gain these
things and as you step into thevision. And that's an
interesting topic in itself,this whole idea of stepping into
the vision. Because it's acurious thing that when you have
a vision, it normally demandscourage. And that vision is kind
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of fuzzy and is not quite clearat the offset or at the
beginning.
And it almost seems like theentirety of the vision is
somehow by the sovereign of theuniverse withheld intentionally
until a person has the courageto risk something. Yes, risk
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something and step forward. Andthen as you have the courage to
move forward, the details ofreally the vision are only
revealed at that point. And soit's almost a type of
qualification process, it seems.For example, when I was building
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the recording studios and theconference center at the top of
one of the mountains at theAwakened Forest, where I am now
actually, I had this vision.
And I'll just quickly tell youthe story. I had just I lost my
son, and this is in 02/2008. AndI was using binaural beats. I'd
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I'd gotten great benefit fromthese lucid states. It relaxes
you and sends you really intoalmost another world.
And I was doing that. I woke upearly in the morning, like,
05:00. And I put on theheadphones and I was just going
along with it. And I had thisvision of this mountaintop
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recording studio and conferencecenter. And in a voice, and it
wasn't in language, butnevertheless I felt a very clear
communication or image of thatwe'd have all these billboard
and hit records and that peoplewould come from all over the
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world to the retreat center.
And I just put down theheadphones after that
experience. Remember, this is02/2008. The stock market had
just collapsed. And I hadcommitted financially to a
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couple other directions. It wasjust not smooth sailing.
And I remember I drove up to theproperty in my Jeep, and I found
a for sale sign buried in theweeds because it had been
foreclosed upon, but no one hadany money because, again, the
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stock market had just crashed.And I just phoned the realtor
and said, I'll take thisproperty. Just like that. And by
miracle, apparently the bankswere desperate. They gave me the
money within like two weeks.
And I had it, and I just startedto put everything I had into the
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building of these facilities.And in the vision, in this
nonverbal, almost telepathicway, it said that this would be
this great success. Well, bygolly, in the first year of
operation, People flooded. I wascharging people 2,500 per person
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to come to our programs. Andthen I was having all these
famous artists and stuff comerecord, all kinds of famous
blues folks since we do that andall that.
Long story short, we paid forthe entire property and
buildings in the very first yearof operation. And I learned
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something, say it cemented itmaybe more, is that you trust
your visions, especially thevisions of the night. When
you're in that lucid state, notquite in the waking state, but
not quite in the sleeping state,but there's something real or
there's something going on whichI don't know, I don't
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understand, but it's somethingthat's trustworthy. So that's
really been a hallmark of mylife and explains a lot of my
accomplishments. I mean, I'vemade millions and millions of
dollars from these visions.
And I'm not saying that to bemister big or anything like
that. I I don't want that. Butit has helped me a lot in my
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family. And so let's let's putit there. And and I'll just say
that when I caught the vision, Iwas planning the design, and I
basically end up designing mostbuildings that we put up or we
repurpose myself rather thanusing architects so much.
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And I remember I would go upthere and I would sit and notice
where the sun came up and whatthe building looked like as the
sun progressed through the dayand what it was like at sunset
fairly meticulously because Ithink you have to be very
meticulous and interested inwhatever you're doing. And boom,
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it paid off. It was stunning.And everything happened just
like the vision said, in factsurpassing the vision, I should
say. That's just the truth aboutit.
And I might as well not holdback. There's no purpose. A lot
of times, the truth about thingsis way more interested than
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anything I could ever make up.So now a vision occurs really on
multiple levels in any humanorganization. Obviously, you
have the big corporate visionthat unifies the entire
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workforce.
But you also have, I'll say, subvisions on really the business
segment level, departmentallevel, site or location level.
And so therefore, this topic ofvision really applies to all
areas of the organization. Andreally, the pattern of success
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in casting a vision applyequally with the overall vision
of the company, as well as,again, on the site or department
level. So whether you're leadingfinance, HR, compliance,
operations, marketing, IT,whatever, your vision for your
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department, for your site, yourregion has to be compelling. It
has to be impressive.
It has to grab people'sattention and be motivational.
And I think regardless of whatyou're doing, I mean, whether
you're making shoes, whetheryou're making backpacks, whether
you're in health care, farming,whatever. And people say, well,
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god. How can I how can I makefinance or IT or compliance or
HR or whatever exciting, Andrew?And I think that you can always
fall back on a couple things.
Customer service. Okay? Becauseeven if you're in finance or IT,
you're in a supportive role. Andin finance, you wanna make sure
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people are absolutely delightedwith your financial reports,
that they're truly helpful, thatthey can understand them. And if
you're in IT, rather than actlike a jerk and belittle people
to show how smart you are, youactually become extremely
helpful.
Not an enabler, but anempowerer. Not just coming in
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and fixing things, althoughthere's a time for that, but
also saying, hey. Let's upgradeyou at this time. Let's let me
help empower. So customerservice or focus on whoever the
consumer is is just good.
It feels great to help out otherhuman beings. And then also the
introduction of what I'll sayspirituality or personal growth,
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that all leaders, you reproducewho you are. So if you're this
impressive individual that'sreally going somewhere, that
tends to motivate and inspirepeople to take their lives to
new levels. There's the vision.I want to create the most
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powerful and empowered humanbeings I can, where they're just
oozing goodness and helpfulness.
And normally people can getbehind that. Now with multi
location or multi sitebusinesses, 70% of the
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leadership is local. A lot ofpeople try to put culture or
whatever and throw it up tocorporate or benefits or here's
the pay here. No, most of it hasto do with that 70%, again, to
Gallup, is really local and hasto do with the relationship of
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the immediate manager with thefrontline employees. So that
proximity, I'll say in thiscase, to the vision or mission
is felt by everybody withinreally that vibrational range.
Everybody picks up on the vibeof the site or the area. And so
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that that vision, again, has toget out of that branch manager
or that site's leader's head andinto really the DNA of everybody
that's working in proximity tohim or her. Now for all my good
friends in the m and the abusiness, that is mergers and
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acquisitions. For example, theprivate equity or p buddies or
those conquest pals andacquaintances who want to own
the world. Okay.
First, regarding acquisitionsand and mergers, approximately
75% of all acquisitions fail toachieve their desired outcomes
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or results. That's just fact.And I think so much of this high
failure rate has to do with allthe talented people that are in
the acquired company going off,quitting, whatever, in the
acquisition process because thevision is not sold well. It's
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not compelling. Obviously,usually you want all the
frontline workers.
And then you usually haveredundancies that you want to
eliminate in order to gain whateconomies of scale. Right? But,
again, one of our moves, andwe've been involved with so many
acquisitions and all that, andthey tend to go well because we
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add really this DNA ofexcitement, of the compelling
vision. And that's really why somany companies partner with us
because our DNA gets mixed intothat. We're able to actually
raise the vision level of anorganization.
And suddenly, rather than justgoing to work, rather than just
getting a paycheck, I'm workingfor something with real meaning
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and purpose. I'm on a mission.I'm in a ministry. And so when
someone's acquired, they justcompare easily the old company
with the new company and theyget excited and they stay. And
boom, rather than having the 75%failure rate, and I'm not saying
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it's a complete failure, I'mjust saying it doesn't achieve
the goals or the intentions atthe time of the acquisition.
It goes up that to 100 andsometimes way beyond that and
exceeds really a lot of ourwildest expectations. Because
everybody wants more, so we justmake it easy. So whether we're
(26:10):
if we're in the acquiredcompany, we just take a look at
the acquirers vision and go,Wow, this is better. Because if
they feel that they're just acog in a purely financial
transaction that they can't be apart of, people don't want that.
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They want a future.
So the thing is, is to supersoak that culture with meaning
and purpose and increase thevalue. And as you increase the
value, it's something that theyactually get to participate in,
and that tends to motivate. Oneof the things I'll say in the
vision, and this is pure MBI, orpart of the pure MBI playbook, I
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should say, is that we try tocreate a school, basically a
school of empowerment, ofgoodness, helpfulness. And we
find this to be relatively easy.Why?
Because it's who we are. It'swhat we live and breathe. It's
the way that everybody in ourculture has been raised. And so
it's just natural because it'swho we are. And when you mix
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that DNA with anotherorganization, it just, again, it
gets in the DNA and it's felt.
It's absorbed by the partneringcompany. And people just know,
hey, this is going to be great.Now on this topic of vision,
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let's quickly discuss visionversus mission statements. I
don't have much use for amission statement. I just it's
just another thing to me to haveto memorize or do.
Whereas if I have a compellingvision, I want to focus on that
singular thing. And so I justthink that confuses. The fact
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that we have to explain it is awhole different thing. Probably
it's just something to me that'sbeen dreamed up by academics. I
do like a description of culturewhich really describes what our
culture is so that people canlook at their behaviors really.
And by doing so, it creates acondition of self regulation to
say, Oh, I'm behaving in a waythat's not aligned with our
(28:26):
culture. Oh, I can self regulateand get back into the culture if
I want to. And of course, valuesis another thing we can discuss
later on that needs to beconsidered. That could be a
separate document that I thinkwould be helpful. So description
of culture, listing of yourvalues and what that looks like,
both of those are good documentsto form, as well as your vision
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statement.
To me, if you can look at yourvision statement and it somehow
reignites you from time to timethat you are going about your
day doing your work and suddenlyyou look at it and it refocuses
you and brings you back to yourdirection, especially you start
to drift. That's a goodstatement. Now when forming your
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initial vision statements, Idon't use committees, and people
are taken back by that. I thinkit's best that the founder, the
CEO, or the small group orwhatever come up with really
their ideas of what that visionneeds to be. And then as you get
it going, you present it, youinvite people into the
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conversation to dissect it, andyou improve upon it as you go
along.
But all I know is that in mostorganizations, committees equal
constipation. And, in fact, I'vegot a definition here of a
committee. I'm sure this is fromWebster's. A committee, a noun,
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where people get together as agroup and spend enormous amounts
of time making concessions,showing how clever they are,
neutering out importantnutrients, devastating value,
and ending up with a mediocreresult. There are so many
concessions that are made inmeetings, that's why we only
have really one meeting a week,sometimes two.
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At MultiView, that is formalmeetings where a lot of
organizations are meeting hell.People meet all the time and
nothing ever gets done. And, Imean, it's it's just like a slow
water drip torture. Committeeswill get in your way often,
especially when you're improvingquality. Yes.
You want input. And andcommittees also break down
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because you can't bringaccountability to committees.
Not like you can say, hey.You're all fired. I mean, one
person has to have the vision orthe direction, has to lead it.
But somebody has to own this andreally be held accountable for
whatever the results are. Andit's hard to do that with a
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committee. But with that said,in the multi view world, you
come up with a direction, buteverybody has a voice. And that
that vision can be altered overtime as better and better ideas
emerge. Okay?
So let's just go over a fewpoints as we near the end of our
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discussion in building anorganization and its vision.
First of all, see the vision.You have to see it before you
can make it or that you canbuild it. And again, this vision
creates focus. And like so manyinitiatives, if you can take the
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time to list all the reasons togo in your particular direction,
motivators, all the reasons whyto do the vision and why it
makes sense.
The more motivators, the morereasons you have behind
something, the more power you'regoing to have that will help you
withstand the almost certainsetbacks and resistance and
(32:08):
obstacles that you're going toencounter on your journey. Step
two (32:14):
Write the ad. That seems
funny. You write the ad even
before you have a product.Correct.
Because this, again, informs youof what this company kind of
needs to look like, what kind ofskills we're going to need, what
kind of knowledge we're going toneed, all these things. What is
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going to be the compellingpromise of certainty that people
that are selling products andservices, what they want to
hear. And then, of course, youhave to design that. And this is
where you get crazy aboutcustomer service, follow
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through. MultiView, we go monthswithout a single screw up or
complaint.
And some people just can't gettheir heads around that because
their tolerance of mistakes isjust too high. Whereas I'm ready
to rip someone's lungs out, ofcourse, in the nicest way
possible, but nevertheless, Iwill not tolerate it. And so we
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have to be serious aboutquality. And that includes being
delightful and helpful and allthis stuff. But again, write the
ad.
What are you selling? What isthe compelling promise that
you're going to put out? Andthen you've got to execute near
flawlessly. Three, walk throughthe organization backwards from
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the customer experience to howthe product or service is
created, organized, all this. Soreally so we have our ad there.
And then we need to start to getmeticulous and think about all
the things we're gonna need.This is really our planning
phase. What are we gonna have todo to to pull this off? And one
of the things we're gonnaquickly discover is that our
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people systems and our peopledevelopment systems are really
the center of the universe. It'sthe center of your organization
because all of our quality isgoing to come from the quality
of our people developmentsystems.
So they better be world class.Right? And if we're going to
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have leaders, we've got to haveleaders. If we're going to
expand on any type of scale, wehave to remember that 70%
principle that our leaders, atleast to 70%, are going to
reproduce themselves. And so weneed to have our leadership
development programs as well.
(34:43):
Four, the questions. How willyou get others to help? How do
you motivate people to do thevision? And of course, this
normally comes down to the senseof meaning and purpose. But a
lot of times people have thesethings called mortgages and
desires and all that.
(35:03):
And so what do they need?Compensation in the financial
form. Really all of life iscompensation, whether it's just
the work environment that wehave, tasting our food, all
this. But most people will justdefault to kind of the
unconsidered compensationaspect. But we have to answer
(35:25):
really that question.
How do we get people to help?Well, pay them well. And most
organizations, if they aremanaged well, we have found that
they can pay well. And ourformula is basically this: less
people paid well or fewer peoplepaid well. Five, you have to
(35:46):
really focus on your systemsolution or systematizing, I'll
say, accountability.
In all our work with, again,over 1,300 organizations at this
point, the difference betweenthings getting done, initiatives
getting done or not getting donecomes down to accountability.
(36:08):
And that's a deep topic. Again,we've got a lot of materials on
that. But people have to knowthat their work is meaningful,
that if they don't do theirwork, it has impact on the
entire organization. And ifpeople choose to not do the
standards of the organizationonce they are set, there has to
(36:30):
be consequences.
There has to be pain with notdoing the standards, whether
it's intentional orunintentional. It doesn't
matter. It wasn't done. And sopeople have to be held
accountable. And normally, theeasiest way to do that is
through the compensation system,which we're experts at after
(36:51):
doing so many hundreds ofcompany.
And then the last point here isjust the frequent measurement,
monitoring, or quantification ofoperations. Obviously, we need
some type of feedback loop totell us whether we're
progressing. We'd always want tobenchmark if possible, like we
do with all these healthcareentities where everybody can
compare themselves to thefiftieth percentile, tenth
(37:13):
percentile, ninetiethpercentile, so we have, quote,
professional perspective and weknow the norms of quality and
cost for virtually all of themain cost and quality categories
in our respective fields. Allthose are really part of the
vision and really creating yourcompany. Even coming up with the
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measurements at the end, mightsay, Well, Andrew, how does that
tie into vision?
Well, how are you going to getthe quality if you're not
measuring it? You haven'tplanned to do that in the first
place. You may be able to wingit for a while at first, but
then reality slaps you in theface and you go, man, maybe
we're not quite as good as wethink. And so that
(37:57):
quantification of your businessslaps you in the face with that
brute heart reality and realitysmiles back at you and the best
you can do is smile back and getin the game and get serious
about your quality. Buthopefully quality is part of
your vision and that you'refully committed to incredible,
(38:17):
extraordinary customer service,goodness and helpfulness, as
well as your service or productactually does what you promise.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Thank you for
listening. If you need anything
further, just go to mbi.life.