A Monday reminder
I was a catcher when I played Little League (LL).
I knew the founder of Little League, Carl Stotz (Feb. 20, 1919 – June 4, 1992).
I live in Williamsport, PA – the home of Little League.
The Little League World Series is in town this week.
TV coverage of the Little League World Series reveals an intentional focus.
What I don’t see. I don’t see a focus on paid staff and organizational leaders.
What I do see. I see video shorts of LL players, fans, coaches, and volunteers. Specifically, the players are consistently front and center.
Little League (LL), knows that turning the spot light on players lifts the LL organization as a whole.
Leadership Lessons from Little League.
Focus on that which expresses your organizational mission not your structure, processes, or procedures. Organizations naturally turn inward and focus on themselves. It’s easy to think about things you are doing and lose sight of ultimate ends. When this happens organizations begin serving themselves and eventually die. LL knows it’s all about players and volunteers.
*****
What can organizations do to maintain mission focus?
Dan,
As a baseball fan myself, I love this illustration. Organizations must focus on the mission, not themselves.
All the best,
Chris
Christian,
Thanks for the affirmation and for privately pointing out that I needed to change “found” to “founder” I appreciate it.
A brief note of encouragement goes a long way.
Dan
Good morning Dan, the question you ask about maintaining organizational focus is a good one. I suppose for profit organizations have their own version of this dilemma. Working in a non profit, however, I have seen over the years a tendency to focus on our survival (because we have to get funding from the legislature every year), overshadowing the ability to remain focused on the cause of insuring uninsured children. The other question that goes unasked because it’s scary is, “is our model still the best way to accomplish this mission?”.
I wish we had a family representative on our Board of Directors to help remind us of why we’re here.
Dear Dan,
Organisation should reflect people who create value and align values to organisational goal. This approach sends strong signal to people on backsit or the people who are complacently engaged in routine activities. In fact, it produces muliplier effect. It creates value externally and earns reputation, image and presitge, Internally it inspires leaders and motivates others to become leader.
What can organisation do to maintain mission focus ? In my experience, organisation should have mission clear. It should be understood by each and every employees and stakeholders. Generally organisations have complicated mission and people confuse comprehending mission. The perhanps other effective way to maintain mission focus is to make it realistic, relevant and achieveable. After all, competent people with right skill will materialise the mission effectively and timely.
For me, maintaining mission focus comes in keeping a laser focus on the contribution the organization is making to their customers – The Reason for Being.
Hi Jim,
Couldn’t agree me… customer centric value.
Best to you Dan,
Jim is a featured contributor on Leadership Freak. I’ve posted his bio and contact info at http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/jim-leemann
True storytelling might be one way leadership can maintain/extend the mission and focus of the company. Real life examples are so powerful.
When we hear those examples of excellence that have positively impacted others’ lives, we know we are on the right path.
At that point it is clearly not about the company, the building, the finances, but about the people. (Yes, the others are foundational tools that must be in place and are essential for the existence of the company and…essential to serve others.)
Great analogy Dan
True leadership is demonstrated by those who remain behind the scenes. They get much more respect by their peers this way. They guide the way for others.
Similarly the way a director gets infinite more respect (not necessarily more spotlight) than their actor counterparts. They show them what to do, and allow them to shine. After all it’s in the best interest of the customer (or in the case of this analogy, the audience).
Best Regards
mark
Hi Dan. I also like the analogy very much. I also believe that as mentioned above focusing on the customers (in our case our patients) is the surest way to stay true to our mission. I like the idea mentioned by Doc on story telling. We do that frequently at the staff meetings and usually highlight several vignettes of great examples of service excellence. We have close to 1200 staff members and our HR dept. and COO identified 80 folks which we call Brand Ambassadors and represent and live our values, mission , and vision. They serve as discreet coaches to all of our staff. We similarly have about 20 MD Ambassadors with the same functioning but serving as role models for the physician group. Lastly we just organized our mid level providers and selected 7 of them as Mid-Level Ambassadors with similar goals. Every thing needs to hinge on Mission, Values, and Vision. Regards, Al