Your Vision Is Only as Strong as Your Plan

In 1985, when I was a first-time manager, I had a great vision! Take the team and department I was responsible for from the bottom to the top of the company. I remember the day my manager sat down with me to talk about my vision, "Cyndi that is great! So how are you going to accomplish it?"

I stopped dead in my tracks. At twenty something I had no idea how to make that vision a reality let alone how to create a plan, inspire a team, and lead them to the top. After many deep conversations with my manager and team, we created a plan with milestones and targets. In six months and lots of sweat and patience, resilience, and perseverance, we reached that goal. The president and vice president of the company wanted to know what I had done and could I duplicate it in all the departments and stores. In fact, they created a position for me to have this become a reality. At twenty-five I took a company’s vision and created a strong plan to propel a whole company forward in the marketplace. Now, I would be lying if I said it was easy and that it did not come with some missteps, it did. Through the process I learned to take my eyes off myself and onto another by learning to ask questions.

Several years later in my late thirties, I faced a similar learning situation when I led a drama program in a small private school. I became responsible for teaching preschool through high school how to share themselves through stories on stage in front of an audience. During this challenge, I had to confront some of my own childhood demons; told and not feeling that I was good enough, and having my peers tell me I was stupid, and ugly. I had to learn how to take my eyes off myself again and think about how to protect and uplift the young people. How could I translate teaching them confidence, resilience, and flexibility so that they would feel capable of sharing themselves. How could I show them they were important and belonged? For the year I held this position, I learned a lot about myself and how to ask good questions while guiding all ages to share confidently.

In my forties I found myself again having to figure out how to recreate this in the health and fitness world where I became a mentor and trainer for triathletes, a youth swim team, active older adults, and an aquatics team. We had a vision as a team to increase our connectedness with the community. I learned that sometimes the most effective way to translate this team vision for health or fitness was by finding out why the community existed. Why were these members here? What brought us together? As we peeled back the layers of the members why, we found a way to accomplish the vision. The questions I asked were, why do you want to do the triathlon? Why are you on the team - for fun or to get good at a certain stroke so you can compete on a bigger stage? Why do you come to Silver Sneakers or Water Fitness? Is it to be mobile, reduce pain, recover from an injury, or is it simply to be in community with another person because you live alone. 

Over my 40+ years of work, I have experienced this in the world of theatre, retail, arts, music, marketing, writing, churches, nonprofit businesses, and for-profit businesses. I have gone into each place and space with the question of what is possible, followed by how that is possible, and finally why are all these people here doing this. When I was a leader in one of these places an interesting thing occurred when I asked these questions. For those who hired me, if they had never really considered these questions, they began to look at their work differently and something shifted. When it did, the business shifted and the team either jumped on board or replaced themselves so the owner could accomplish their vision. This has been universally true wherever I have been. 

For the last seven years (except for 2020) I have been working on the vision of defining what it means to be a family, either related or one we find and create ourselves. I have chosen to do this in a community theatre. I have had the pleasure of building communities of 20 to 40 people on stage and offstage who are on a journey of learning what it means to belong, grow, and create an impact with their story.

I usually start the rehearsal process with a question, why are you here? Why is this important to you? What do you want to get out of this experience?

As we make our way through the six to eight weeks of rehearsals, I continue to ask these questions and tie it to the story we are sharing. Then I ask how it relates to each person in their own lives, whether they are on stage, offstage or in the pit.

What ends up happening by the time the show closes, we have become our own chosen family who care for, want to stay connected, and are genuinely interested in each other.

This is how I create, inspire, and lead to empowering the world one story at a time.

I am curious, have you experienced this? How? I would love to hear from you so that this is conversation and not just me sharing my stories. Please either comment below or on one of the social posts or email me. I want to hear from you!

Cheers until next week!

Cyndi