Identifying patterns has always been a core part of how I work.
I look for them.
I look for them with individual clients and as a collective.
I look for things that repeat or are common to the entrepreneurs I meet and the entrepreneurs I work with.
In particular, I look for the ones that catapult a business forward and the patterns that hold them back too.
Self Awareness is one of those patterns I see in successful businesses.
But it doesn’t come easy. It’s a conscious decision every time on the part of the entrepreneur.
Most of the time it comes because they burn out, or they face something that hits them hard in their personal lives and they have to look in the mirror.
I know. I had to look in that mirror myself a couple of times over the last 20+ years at pivotal points in my life and in my business. They were tough moments in that mirror but they held the seed to help me move forward.
And the trick is absolutely to move forward.
Staring at yourself in the mirror and wallowing doesn’t accomplish anything.
Moving does.
And that’s the beauty of an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs are Doers.
They like to DO.
We like to DO. We like to accomplish things, get them done, move on… move forward.
But here’s the thing. We are more than that.
We MUST be more than that.
We must be the Visionary of the Business.
We have to be.
You cannot Lead a Business without BEING a VISIONARY of the business.
You cannot Lead a business without HAVING a VISION for your business.
And lastly, you cannot Build a Strategy without having a Vision to Inspire it.
So, How do you Build a Vision?
Vision, Mission and Purpose – I’ve always found to be inextricably linked.
They need to be crafted together to really make sense and I do that in all my work with clients and also in Get Strategic… Get Results!
Marty Neumeier illustrated this really well with his Strategic Pyramid, and I have always found it explains how Purpose, Mission and Vision really work together.
Try completing this Strategic Pyramid for yourself. See how building it really impacts how you think about your business.
Start with Purpose
Starting with Purpose takes you out of your “Doing” Entrepreneurial Hat and moves you directly into the role of “Visionary of your Business.”
Simon Sinek called it your “Why” and called for us all to “Start with Why” and that’s a book I would absolutely recommend to any entrepreneur or in fact any leader in the business.
My son Sean, at aged 3 framed it in a question…
“What are you for?”
And at age 3 he had the answer.
Do you?
Mission and Vision
When you move to Mission and Vision you find that you start to put shape around something that might seem intangible at first glance.
It helps you describe the end game and craft the way you are going to get there.
This is Visionary Work
It is the work of an Entrepreneur who has realised that when they map out the time they have in each day, they know a portion of it must be “visionary” time.
It is where they bring the most value to the business.
In fact, it is where YOU bring the most value to YOUR business.
Yes, you will still do the “DOING” pieces of the puzzle as the business moves through each stage of growth. It’s just the nature of the doing will change at each stage.
But it won’t change unless you embrace the visionary in yourself.
It’s what we call Marrying Strategy with Action.
This is well recognised as THE greatest challenge not only of the Entrepreneur but most C-Suite Roles too.
It requires an acknowledgment of the necessity of both aspects in yourself and in the business.
And yes, you’ll invariably be better at one than the other.
The pathway forward however for successful businesses is to Embrace the Visionary and Resource the Doer.
This Act Heralds the Transition from Entrepreneur to C-Suite
It is an Act of Transformation, of Self Awareness and Growth.
We can choose for that transformation to never happen, to be delayed, to be painful or just uncomfortable. I’ve seen each of these examples all play out.
Whatever you decide it will ultimately involve reflection and self awareness.
So, let me close with this idea…
Know Yourself
Embrace the Visionary at each point in your journey as an entrepreneur.
Know that as you grow the visionary in yourself, your business will grow with you.
And as your business grows, remember to connect these two elements together.
Remember to connect Vision with Action.
Remember to connect the Doer with the Visionary.
Remember Yourself – the Visionary of the Business.
THOUGHTS?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this piece. Does it make sense to you?
Does it ring true?
How do you nurture the Visionary in You?
How do you blend the Entrepreneur and the Visionary aspects of yourself so that you can drive your business forward sustainably? I’m looking forward to reading the answers 😊
And if you’d like to know more about how to incorporate your visionary self into your marketing strategy and take your business to the next level then check out Get Strategic Get Results™. This is our 12 week signature program that shows you how to put all the ideas expressed in this article into action, one transformational step at a time.
I love to work with businesses, both large and small to help them create sustainable business dreams... Brand and Strategy are at the heart of everything I do and that gets rolled out digitally and across any channel where your customer lives.
This is probably a stupid question but what exactly does being the visionary entail? Is this your business planning, evaluating your business, re-asssesing, re-planning, writing proposals etc or should it involve more than that?
This is a FANTASTIC question Aoife and thank you so much for asking it.
When you look at the path ahead in the mindset of a visionary, you start to look at possibilities differently. You start to see opportunities that others would not dare to imagine. It is a muscle that needs to be flexed time and again to break the cycle of our own self limiting conditioning.
This quote from George Bernard Shaw defines it really well – “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.
I had a great experience of a client who imagined possibilities every day. He always assumed that “yes” would be the answer to every possibility and as a result he was right. The business grew fast and exactly where he took it. It was a great insight for those around him including me. I never forgot that. Try saying “why not” the next time you envision the next step you take in your business. The more you do it, the more the business will grow.