Clarity: What We Know About Our Organizations, Ourselves
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
Hans Hofmann
One of the nagging questions that I have from my consulting and coaching practice is why organizations, and the people in them, don’t have greater clarity about what they are doing? At times, this exploration has been very personal, as I searched for my own clarity – sometimes about my life, often about a role I was performing.
This month we explore clarity, where it comes from, and why, as leaders, we seem to struggle to find it. My hope is to stimulate some of your own thoughts about how well you create clarity for yourself, for your children, and for those that you work with.
Do your best work and be well.
Jim
Clarity: What We Know About Our Organizations, Ourselves
We talk about clarity within organizations as if it is something “out there,” but for organizations, it is the clarity we create “in here” – in ourselves as leaders, individually and collectively. This being the case, we know that the very best leaders are good at their own clarity, and how to communicate that in a concise way to those around them. What I observe more often are leaders that have a lot of “noise” in their heads. That “noise” stifles the ability to create clarity.
Where does the ‘noise’ come from? Great question. I’m not always sure, but I have found some ‘themes’ for the noise. The lack of clarity for ourselves may start because we have never answered the fundamental life questions around “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose?” “What are my gifts?” “How do I want to use them, and with whom?” Granted, the answers to these questions can take a very long time to emerge. They don’t tend to emerge at all if we don’t ask them.
There is an interesting connection between our exploration, and the questions we ask ourselves when seeking clarity for our organizations. Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, and others wrote about these questions in, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization.
What is our mission? Who is our customer? What does our customer value? What are our results? What is our plan?
What strikes you about these questions? For me, it is the simplicity, both for us as individuals and for our organizations. I don’t equate simple with easy. This provides you and I with our first ‘nugget.’ (For those of you not familiar with my writing, a ‘nugget’ is an insight, like a nugget of gold.) The nugget is we need to return to the simple questions for the key answers to ourselves and our organizations, that will allow us to move forward in a more effective way.
What happens instead is the ‘noise’ around us is full of all kinds of attractive, and, what appear, important activities in fulfilling our mission when they are not. They may not be part of our purpose, or accentuate our strengths, or be who we want to be to our customer. We fail to use the answers to our core questions as the filter by which we make choices. We get confused. We get overwhelmed. There is a lot of ‘traffic’ going on in our heads. Take a breath. Create space, daily, to clarify what your most important work is, and what your vital contribution is to that work.
Attaining clarity in our organizations requires that we make hundreds of choices of what not to do, as well as to what to do. Often, the decisions of what not to do are the most important in helping us to maintain focus, and create greater clarity for ourselves and our organizations.
You have probably figured out that answers to the fundamental questions build on one another. For organizations, knowing our mission helps inform who our customers might be; what they value. Then we can look at our results and see if they align with our delivery on our mission and what our customers value. From there, we can plan accordingly. A note about plans. Plans should contain a small number of initiatives that have the greatest impact on delivering on our mission and providing value. The best outcomes focus on two or three major initiatives (the kind of initiatives that if we don’t do them, nothing else matters). Too often, part of the ‘noise’ we create for ourselves is having too many initiatives that distract us from those that are about our key purpose.
These same disciplines also apply to us as individuals. The more I understand about my purpose, my gifts, and where/with whom I want to be/work, the better my clarity and the easier it is for me to discern the proper choices for what I want.
One clarification. Once we have answers to our core questions, particularly in our business, we don’t just put the answers in play and we’re done. I believe in the notion that once you know your purpose, it doesn’t change. Within that purpose, however, who is our customer, and the nature of the work we are doing may change because the business opportunities shift. We need to be flexible and adaptable to those opportunities. Even within those shifts, however, the core questions are still at work as our filters; we must be clear about why we are choosing a different path. If we don’t use our core questions as our guide, we will continue to chase the ‘noise’, thinking we are doing what we should be doing.
Hopefully, you have seen a lot of the interchange between the clarity we try to create in our lives and in our organizations. We all do better in life, and on our jobs, when we are clear. We are more secure, have a better sense of direction, and experience greater contentment. So…where do you need greater clarity; where can you give greater clarity?
To a better you…
Jim
Of Interest:
Read about why purpose-driven companies are more successful.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3048197/why-purpose-driven-companies-are-often-more-successful