Hopefully you are one of the fortunate who enjoyed an incredibly funny video popularized in that theater of pop culture, the Super Bowl commercial. The video shows cowboys on horseback valiantly trying to corral ever-resisting cats.
If you haven’t watched the video, here is your chance before you read further.
What a hoot (cowboy lingo)!
But now back to the original intent of this post. . .
The “Herding Cats” video could also effectively represent the effort required to get our employees all pulling in the same direction.
Those of us with an optimistic outlook believe that a person, left to his own devices, will do the things and behave in ways that are right – or at least seem right. But placing a few individuals in a similar situation will often result in several different versions of ”rightness” – meaning that one person’s right can be someone else’s wrong.
The problem with such individuality comes when the diverse actions of individuals result in inconsistent and ineffective overall results for our companies.
That’s where shared vision comes in to play. Shared vision begins at the top, with either the singular vision of the company’s leader or the vision that is developed by merging the vision of several broad-thinking leaders. In either instance, the key to success is for the leaders to share the vision with the employees. Why? Because as soon an employee understands where the company is heading, he can begin to corral his individuality to the point that his decision-making and his actions are in line with the corporate vision.
Let’s not be cat herders!
Happy Visioning!
I’m looking forward to reading this.