Cultivating an environment of honor, respect, growth, and creativity is vital to having a healthy organization. There are a few steps, as leaders, that are critical to achieving this. Per the book ‘Simple Church’, written by Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger, there are four key areas that separate healthy, vibrant, growing churches (businesses) from unhealthy ones that are either static, or worse, shrinking. These areas are:

1. Clarity (Clear Vision)– All leadership must have a very clear vision of what they want to be. Until this happens, it’s almost impossible to gain momentum across an organization.
2. Movement (Processes to Accomplish Vision) – This is defined as what occurs during the processes that have been built to achieve the vision. As an example, in a church, the idea is to make people aware of the church, then get them to attend, followed by being fed spiritually, and, finally, feeding others.
3. Alignment (Alignment of Resources) – Everything you do should be measured against the litmus test of ‘Does this align with what we want to be?’. There are countless ideas and activities that are good, smart, and potentially productive. However, if they don’t support your vision, they become counter-productive by taking valuable resources away from your goals.
4. Focus (Staying Committed) – As leaders, you are responsible for taking ownership of the vision and processes. Because these come from your mind, they aren’t foreign to you. But for those who weren’t involved in creating them, it can sometimes be difficult to see the entire picture. As a result, when you, as a leader, are at a point where you are becoming frustrated due to how many times you’ve shared the vision, other people may just be catching on to the ideas.

Clarity – Clear Vision

Leadership, including all key decision-makers, should be involved in this process. Take the time to decide what you want your business to look like to the world. Areas to consider are what the company stands for morally and ethically, how employees are treated, how customers are treated, ease of doing business, physical appearance, and, critically, what you want the business to accomplish.

• Include key leaders. Understand that some of the key leaders in your organization may not have management positions. They are simply the biggest influencers among their peers. To develop them, consider including them in this process.
• Write it down very specifically and work to condense it to a very few simple concepts. As an example, KFC once had the simple concept of “we do chicken right.” The most successful companies tend to focus on doing just a few things exceptionally well.
• Remember that your vision is your business so make sure it’s something that you believe in or it may become difficult to stay committed to it.

Movement – Processes to Accomplish Vision

Begin with the end in mind. Define what has to be in place for your vision to come to life. Next, determine what has to be in place for those things to work. Think about it like playing golf. Expert golfers look at each hole from the end to the beginning. First, they determine the ideal location for the ball to be on the putting green, giving them the best chance to make the putt. Next, they consider what club to hit, and from what angle, that offers the best opportunity of putting the ball into the ideal location on the green. The next thought in the process is to determine what club to hit that gives the best chance of being in the correct area to hit the highest percentage shot to the green. They continue this thought process until they consider the first shot of the hole.

• Hold meetings with leaders, including your influencers.
• Work backwards to create the steps in your process and begin with major points. At each step, determine what has to be in place for the previous step to have occurred. For example: 1- Follow up to ensure customer is satisfied; 2-Deliver products and/or services promised; 3- Complete sale; 4- Engage customer with excellent sales process; etc.
• Once you have your major steps completed, break those steps into smaller steps.
• After each set of steps, continue to refine the process. When you have gone through three or four levels, start at the beginning and walk through the process. Be sure to include the people who are actually performing the different jobs in the process.
• You will find places where it doesn’t flow and you will need to adjust.
• Adjustments to the process should be an ongoing practice.

Alignment – Alignment of Resources

What resources will be required to carry out the processes that support your vision for your business? Consider people, equipment, training, time, money, etc. Some things, such as equipment, can be bought. On the other hand, most items require an investment of time and effort. Having well-trained staff that understands the vision and the processes is critical to an organization’s level of success.

• After getting processes completed, determine what resources will be needed for each step.
• Begin with major items – facility (website), equipment, personnel.
• Once major items are identified, create a list of resources needed to support each item.
• After identifying the resources, create a training plan for any personnel. If you are a one-person business, create a training plan for yourself.
• Going forward, be careful to make sure ALL resources are aligned with your vision and processes. There may be opportunities to take on projects that are great but do not align with your vision or processes. These projects will take your resources away from your vision and processes and will actually be a negative.

Focus – Staying Committed

If, as a leadership team, you are confident in your vision and your processes, you have to stay committed to them. As your organization grows, you will likely have ideas thrown at you from many directions. Some of these ideas will be easily dismissed, but some of them will sound really good. Regardless of the idea, you have to stay committed to the question, ‘Does it support or detract from our vision?’. There is rarely a gray area in this part of success. Resources are precious and should be valued. Consistently restating your vision and training your processes are great ways to stay focused on what is essential.

• Remember that as a leader, you are probably more invested in your vision than most people.
• Create habits that keep you and your team focused on the vision.
• Train consistently to ensure processes are understood. This allows for consistent adjustments to processes across groups.
• Remain patient with others. Everyone doesn’t learn or grow at the same pace.