Vision or Control? - Why Your Team Defers to You

Park Wiker

Dear Leader,

I once had a corporate role in a company with a tight-fisted controller. She went so far as to modify company policies to ensure her personal approval for all purchases. I ran 2 departments and our purchase requests began to pile up. Employees began to wait for computers, replacement keyboards, company phones and the like. This became overwhelming and eventually it forced a change to policy on budgets, oversight and approvals.

In that case, micromanagement was enforced through policy. But there are also times where your subordinates will use upward delegation to avoid responsibility and to load their superior with additional work. The bottleneck created is painful and creates subtle long term effects. First, continued dependence will breed more dependence. Second, employees who have the capacity and desire for autonomy will leave to find employment that empowers them. Finally, you will be left with those who are more than happy to let you manage everything, deferring to you more and more often in a most torturous loop.

This is your future if we don’t set a vision for the company and communicate it. Once a vision is set, people now have boundaries and limits. Not in the same manner as a strict policy, but in a spirit, a direction that allows the necessary flexibility to make good and forward thinking decisions. This frees the leader to think more strategically. Will there be mistakes? Yes. But the development of the team and their integration will overcome these mistakes quickly and competently.

Here is your assignment. Write your vision for the company. To help you start, you may use this template.

By <time horizon> our company will be <objective state> through our work in <primary strategy> while <additional constraints>.

Allow me to define:

Time Horizon – We need a period of performance, 5 years is typical. Remember, Parkinson’s law.
Objective State – This describes the state of the company in a way that can be measured. It might be financial, customer counts, size; a state that an outsider would recognize. Avoid vague targets like “the best” or “#1 in customer service”.
Primary Strategy – This describes your deliverable to clients, the thing that produces revenue.
Additional Constraints – If there is something important to your vision such as moral imperatives, this where they can be addressed.

Once this is written, revisit and ponder it every day for at least 1 week to ensure a concise articulation.

If you are stuck saying “I really don’t know what our vision should be!” Then consider a facilitated corporate session to develop the vision. There is a palpable advantage to doing this in a group. As a group your team is smarter than any individual and, because they helped develop the vision, they will be ‘bought in’. Also, in trusting your team, you will have added to the pool of trust.

I will follow up with you next week to discuss the communication of your vision.

Park Wiker

P.S. Nietzsche reminds us: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”