Lee: Great. Thank you Carollyne. The first word of the titles in all of the best practices are about “being.” For best practice one you’ll see Holder and that is the “being: part that I was mentioning earlier. Most people understand immediately what the vision and values means, but it takes the being part, the holder, to make vision and values come alive. Otherwise the vision that the leader has spent days creating may be sitting on the shelf in a binder and never see the light of day again. I know that some of you have had some of those.
The Holder of both Vision and Values means that you live the vision and values every day and measure everything with that in mind, measure everything that you do against them. I remember one company I was doing a first offsite with and I asked them if they had fully developed their vision and their guiding principles that we also call values set. I went around the room. They had many yeses. Said, “Yes. Oh yes. We’ve done that.”
So I asked, “Well what is your vision and what are your values,” thinking someone could easily recite them if they had them and knew them and there was suddenly a blank look around the room. I, being a coach as I am, I had to ask another question. So, I asked, “So did anyone bring a copy of them today,” thinking that maybe they did have a binder on a shelf somewhere [laughs].
One of the leaders piped up to say, “Yes. I think we made little cards to carry with us that fits in our wallet.” He pulled his back pocket to get his wallet out and pulled out the card. I said, “So it sounds like you’ve been sort of sitting on your vision and values in your pocket rather than holding them out for everyone to see and to follow.”
[Laughter] We all had a really good laugh together about that, but it made the point and they never forgot that. Best practice one is about holding out for all to see and to know and to keep alive the vision and values. That means living them every day and measuring everything that you do against. Do you have any other thoughts about –
Brenda: Wonderful. Thank you, Lee. What a beautiful story to illustrate that, holding rather than sitting on the best practice.
Lee: Yes.
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