“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” – Proverbs 29:18
At its most basic, the purpose of Growth & Profit Solutions (GPS) is to help business leaders – or people in general – dream up their future and then make it happen. Which is why it’s always frustrating to see those people settle for something less than what they’d wanted.
Unfortunately that happens all too often. People have in mind how they’d like their world to look, and they earnestly start after it, and then it gets difficult. Eventually it gets so difficult that they think there’s no way they can get there. So they either quit altogether or they convince themselves that whatever they have achieved is enough to make them happy and they stop moving forward.
I can certainly sympathize with those people. We’ve all been in situations where we can to the conclusion that if we stayed on the path we were on we’d never get where we wanted to go. Sometimes we’ve expended so much energy getting to that point that the thought of trying to find another path seems like too much. So we just sit down and give up.
But why did we want to reach that goal in the first place? I think sometimes we forget. I think we get so focused on the day-to-day grind of tasks that we need to complete in order to meet our goals that we lose sight of why we set out down that path in the first place. What was so great about that vision? Why were we so excited about it? Why did we think it was going to make our lives so much better? Sometimes what we need more than anything else is a reminder of what the prize really is.
The same thing is true of any organization. It’s not enough for you to communicate the goal or the vision and then have everybody get to work. As a leader you have to remind people on a regular basis why they’re doing what they’re doing. What’s the prize?
An analogy: if you’ve ever seen races at a dog track, you’ve seen that little fake rabbit that goes down the track in front of the dogs. The dogs chase it all the way around the track, until the race is over. Do they just put that rabbit out there for the first few yards and then take it away, hoping the dogs just keep going on their own? Of course not. If they did that the dogs would just stop and stand around. They have to keep the prize in front of them throughout the whole race. So it is with you & your business.
Think about the prize you’re chasing, personally or professionally. Do you even remember what the prize is? Make time to focus on the prize & re-energize yourself and your organization.
