Is it better to get ice cream or work out? While that’s not usually seen as one of the big questions in life, it is weighty. But it’s not a difficult decision in terms of requiring additional information in order to make a good decision. Without rationalizations, we all understand the impacts of going one way over the other.
In an organization, the question of whether it’s better to have a vision or have the right people on board is one of those seemingly simple questions. Some would argue that this not really an exclusion type question. Clearly it’s obvious that it’s important to have both in order to achieve great things.
Can you execute a vision without the right people? For that matter, can the wrong people come up with the right, we’ll get into the meaning of right in a minute, vision for the organization?
I doubt if anyone would agree that you can do either without the right people. Without the right people, who knows what sort of vision they would come with? The wrong vision! You end up with a vision is difficult to untangle, or a vision that is impossible to execute, or a vision that no-one can get behind and endorse. Or worse, you end up with all three.
We have just solved a huge problem facing companies today. We have established a need for the right people. Leave those right people alone and they’ll come up with a vision to execute and be successful. We’ll that was easy . . . on to the next big problem.
Yet why does the above not seem quite complete? What’s the difference between the ice cream problem and the vision problem?
The ice cream problem is a concrete problem. It makes sense. You either eat ice cream and get fat or you don’t eat ice cream, work out and get healthy. There is not a lot of ambiguity here. We can quibble slightly about the negative or positive effects of the choices, but we don’t have a lot of room there. The solution is contained within accepted parameters.
Now look at the vision or people problem. We’ve introduced one small word to make the issue ambiguous. The word is right. This little word, used so often has no defined meaning or outcome. This word means something completely different to you than it means to me in certain contexts.
Doing the right thing. It’s simple. When in doubt, do the right thing. Yeah but how does that work when you have competing right options? What’s the right thing to do? I might think the right thing to do is to provide a refund, while you may think it’s right to explain that the warranty has expired.
What about the right people? Who are these right people and where do they hang out? Every company is in the market for the right people. I’m pretty sure no-one is actively looking for the wrong people. What makes them right for one company and wrong for another? And what is the standard against which we judge whether the person is right or wrong?
Let’s say you are working for high end retail chain and you are looking for a front line customer service agent. Now that we’ve defined what we are looking for, its easier to set a standard for what right means. However, you are still left with your definition of right and my definition of right. I doubt we have the exact same characteristics of the right person in mind.
But what just happened here? We’ve put some level of concreteness towards our search of the right person. We want a customer service agent comfortable in high end retail sales. That should at least screen out some of the applicants. Although the specifications have not been narrowed down enough for both of us to see the same right person.
It’s the addition of more concreteness to provide a context for the problem that aids in us finding the best fit solution. While these details exist naturally for things like ice cream and working out, although we can argue that there is some room in the definition of the full suite of benefits of working out, these details are not naturally present in the environment of organizations. Someone has to come up with the details.
The addition of concrete details to the vague notion of the right thing is what I call vision. In the example above, the vision was to find a customer service rep in a high end retail environment. That’s the vision to assist finding the right person. It’s not complete, but it’s a vision. Without that vision it’s impossible to hire the right person.
Back to the original question of vision or the right people. Which is more important and which comes first?
You start with someone with a vision to hire the right people. That person could be the entrepreneur with a vision for the company who then uses the vision to screen for the right people. The person could be the manager with a vision for the person they are hiring for. Obviously the vision for the person to be hired must dovetail into the company vision.
Without the original vision, or worse, the wrong vision you will get people. But are these the right or wrong people? It probably doesn’t matter at that point because the organization will be irrelevant in due time.
If you have the wrong vision for your company what is the likelihood that you end up with the right people? It could happen, and possibly these right people may point out that you have the wrong vision. But I wouldn’t count on it.
There done. You require a vision to get the people that are most likely to execute the vision.
Not yet. The trick and challenge is infusing the vision with as much concreteness and eliminate as much ambiguity as possible. Based on the above which is good vision?
- We strive to be provide the best customer service in every transaction, while providing increasing shareholder value, in a people oriented environment,
or
- We do whatever it takes to delight our customers so completely that they recommend us to their friends and give us better business in the future.
I know which one I would pick.
