Spinning Fans By Hand

A consistent problem with organizations is that they don’t really know where they are going.

They know their product.
They understand their customer.
They know how to make money.
They’ve started well. Might even understand how to scale.
HR is on point. Employees are happy.
Teamwork is working. Possibly working well.

But if there’s no clear conception of what success looks like, you might just be selling stuff.

This is a leadership problem.

Here are the kinds of questions leaders of organizations should be asking (and answering):

What is the problem that we seek to solve?
What is the value we want to create?
What is the transformation we seek to make?
How are we changing the world?

Big ideas? Sure.

But it’s impossible to lead others into a change that you’re not clear about.

Leaders who lack clarity of vision will lead people into a swamp of selling. Or buying. Or widget-stamping. Or spinning fans by hand. Or any other countless forms of pointless drudgery.

Don’t recruit people to a thing until you know what the thing is.

Communicating clear and compelling vision is the priority task of every leader.

Recruitment is always sometime later.