Vision Is a Team Sport

Mark Cole:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do today. In fact, I truly am so excited about the podcast today, and that’s because for the first time ever, today’s lesson will be brought to you live in studio by one of our very own Maxwell Leadership thought leaders. It’s Jeff Henderson, everybody. You’ve read his books, you’ve heard us talk about him, he’s even been on this podcast. But today, Jeff is going to take the segment normally held by John Maxwell and he’s going to teach to you and to me on Vision is a Team Sport. That’s right, Vision is a Team Sport.

I’m so excited because as Jeff teaches you today, he’s going to teach you how to grow people, he’s going to teach you how to grow people from simply benefiting from the mission to participating in the mission. Then after Jeff’s lesson, he will join me. We’ll discuss how we’re applying these principles here at Maxwell Leadership. I’m excited to learn from Jeff. I’m going to sit here in the studio, I’m going to learn from him as you learn by video or audio.

But before we get started, as always, we’ll have a bonus resource for you. This is a free fill-in-the-blank PDF worksheet that accompanies Jeff’s lesson. Just go to maxwellpodcast.com/teamsport and click the Bonus Resource button. You can also watch this episode on YouTube. I hope you’ll join us today. We’re both live in the studio. Go to maxwellpodcast.com/youtube. All right, get ready. You are going to learn from my friend, my co-leader, Maxwell Leadership thought leader, Jeff Henderson. Let’s go, Jeff.

Jeff Henderson:

Today’s episode is entitled Vision is a Team Sport, as Mark mentioned. And as you know as leaders, vision’s incredibly important. In fact, many times one of the reasons an organization’s not gaining traction is because people don’t clearly understand the vision. And so, I want to talk about, before we get into vision as a team sport, why this is important. What I’ve discovered, and you have too, is that thriving organizations and thriving leaders know a secret. They know how to move people from benefiting from the mission and vision of an organization to participating in the mission and vision.

So what does that mean? Well, let’s say if you’re a nonprofit leader, how do you move people from just benefiting from your organization to participating in it? By volunteering, by recruiting more volunteers, by recruiting more financial contributors to what you’re doing. When you move people from simply benefiting from what you’re doing to participating in it, what that means is they have bought into the vision. Or if you’re a business leader, how do you move customers from simply benefiting from your products to participating in your mission and vision by telling their friends about your business? Here’s why that is important.

In today’s world, a business is no longer what it tells customers it is, a business is what customers tell other customers it is. And when you can create a community of people that talk about your business, tell their friends to go there, what you have done is you’ve created a sense of belonging, and that sense of belonging comes down to the fact that they’ve understood the vision of what you’re trying to do. So you have moved people from simply benefiting from your resources, from your products, from your services to, “Hey, I want to be a part of that. I want to volunteer for that. I want to contribute financially for that. I’m going to be a repeat customer. And not only am I going to be a repeat customer, I’m going to tell my friends about your business and your organization.”

The question is, how do you do that? How do you move people from simply benefiting from to participating in? Well, vision is one of the most critical and vital tools in the toolkit of any leader in any leadership team. But often when it comes to vision, vision is often portrayed as the game of golf. Now, don’t send me any emails about the game of golf. I love the game of golf, I love it, can’t wait for the Masters, got it. But typically in leadership and vision, and yes, there is the visionary leader, we’ll talk about that in just a second, but typically in organizational life, there’s one person knocking the ball down the course and the rest of us are just following along.

When that happens, when the vision is on the backs of one person, what we’ve done is we’ve put a lid on the potential of that vision because there’s only so much that one person can do to continue to cast the vision, communicate the vision, and live out the vision. And at some point, if the vision relies on that one person, the vision will eventually go away. That’s why in today’s lesson I want to talk about that vision isn’t an individual sport, that for vision to have a long runway and to reach more and more people, vision is a team sport. Instead of golf, look at it or consider it like football. You’ve got a team on the field, there is a quarterback, we could call that a visionary leader if you will. That quarterback is leading the way, but everyone on the field has a role, everyone is playing a part in moving the vision, moving the team down the field.

When you show me a team, an organization, that has a group of leaders, a group of employees, a group of coworkers that understand what we’re going to talk about about vision, I’ll show you an organization that is moving people from benefiting from to participating in the mission and vision of the organization. Now, to get there, to understand that vision is a team sport, here’s what we’re going to do In today’s lesson. I’m going to give you one question, and my hope is that you would take this one question that I think can really help you do this to move people from benefiting from to participating in, I want you to take this one question and I want you to put it throughout the entire org chart. I want you to send it to everyone to say, “This is a question that I want to bother you.”

When I was a nonprofit leader at a church here in Atlanta called Gwinnett Church, the question that I’m about to give you I gave to every single person on our staff. In fact, I created a little sticky note and put it on their laptop and said, “If you’ll just open your laptop every day and answer this one question about vision, it’s going to help us move people from simply benefiting from coming to our church and enjoying what we do to participating in it. It’s going to help us recruit more volunteers. It’s going to help us recruit more financial contributors, and it’s going to help get more and more people involved in what we are going and trying to do.”

The overall principle is this, and kind of the bottom line of today’s episode is simply this, that the more vision carriers you have, the more vision casters you have. The more vision carriers you have, the more vision casters you have. So when you see vision as a team sport, you’re inviting more and more people on the field. You’re inviting more and more people in the field of play. And the more people that you have in the field of play in your organization that clearly understands the vision, the further and faster you’re going to go and the more people you’re going to transition from simply benefiting from to participating in.

Now, before I give you that one vision question that I want to, in a really good way, bother you and your team, I want to share with you the three levels of vision buy-in. There are three levels of vision buy-in that’s happening in your organization right now. This is true if you’re a nonprofit, true if you’re a for-profit. In every organization, there are certain levels of vision buy-in. This could be for your team. This actually could be for your customers if you’re a nonprofit. These are the folks that aren’t on your staff team, if you will, but they are your volunteers or they could potentially or they drift in and out of your organization. Every single person that is attached to your organization in some form or fashion, they are at one level of vision buy-in.

The first level of vision buy-in is they buy in to the vision in order to benefit from it. What do I mean by that? Well, if I like your restaurant, I’m buying in to the vision enough to come to your restaurant and eat. That’s about all I got. If I like your church or your nonprofit, my buy-in is I’ll come on a Sunday or I’ll come when you’re open or I’ll come if it benefits me. So my level of buy-in is that I am able to benefit from it, and that’s all there is.

The second level of vision buy-in is people who are comfortable to contribute to it. They contribute comfortably to the vision. Maybe more easily recognizable in non-profit world, but they may throw you a few dollars at the end of the year. They’re not going out of their way, they’re certainly not going to volunteer, they’re certainly not going to participate, but they may throw a few dollars your way. They are willing to buy in to the vision to contribute comfortably to it. There are people in vision buy-in to benefit from it, and that’s all they’re going to do. They may contribute comfortably, but they’re not going to go out of their way.

But then the third level of vision buy-in is this: people who are willing to give their lives to it. Now, I know that sounds like daunting, but what I mean by that is people who would say, “You know what? I’m going to spend a good portion of my career here. You know what I’m going to do? I’m not just going to throw a few dollars to your nonprofit at the end of the year, I’m going to volunteer, I’m going to get involved, I’m going to set up recurring giving every month because that’s how I believe in. I’m willing to give my life to your organization.”

So three levels of vision buy-in: people who contribute to benefit from it, people who contribute comfortably to it, or people who are willing to give their lives to it. And here’s the role of every single leader listening to the podcast today. Your role and your goal and my role and my goal is to take the people in the first two levels of vision buy-in, they will buy in to benefit from the vision and mission, they will buy in enough to contribute comfortably to it, our goal is to move them from those two levels to the third level. The more people that we can bring along who will give their lives to what you’re trying to do, the further and faster you’ll go. And not only that, what we’re talking about is we are trying to create more vision carriers. And the more people who are willing to give their hearts and lives to what you’re trying to do, the more traction you’re going to get.

There are a lot of ways to do that, but one of the most significant ways to do that is vision. So that leads me to the vision question, this question I hope bothers you in a really good way. But not just bothers you, I want it to bother your team, and again, for them to get to the end of the day and look at this question. Again, as I mentioned, I gave the team at Gwinnett Church this little sticker, and every time they opened their laptop and closed it, they saw it. I wanted them to get to the end of the day asking themselves, “Did I answer this question?” And the question is simply this, this is the vision question, the vision is a team sport that when you get people, your team around this question, it helps you move people from benefiting from to participating in, the vision question is simply this: what did I do today to cast vision for our organization?

Let me say that again. What did I do today to cast vision for our organization? When I gave this to our team, I highlighted and underlined the word today because that’s the key. I wanted them as they closed their laptops at the conclusion of the day, I wanted them to say, “You know what? It was a busy day. We got a lot of stuff done today, but you know what? I have an answer to this question. I sent a thank-you note to a volunteer. I called someone. I posted something on social media reminding everyone, this is what our vision, this is who we are about. I saw something that really was a huge achievement in our organization, and I wanted to celebrate that because what’s rewarded gets repeated. What did I do today to cast vision for our organization?

What happens is I wanted to make sure everyone knew that we all play a role in vision. And many people in organizational life don’t understand that. Let me give you an example. When I was at another church, Buckhead Church here also in Atlanta, one day I noticed that our receptionist said the delivery packages would come in, people were coming in, the phone was ringing, she was responding to people online. Her name was Joanne Burns, and I just walked up to her and I said, “Joanne, you’re one of the best vision casters in our entire church.”

Joanne said, “Oh, Jeff, I’m not a vision caster. I don’t like to get up in front and talk to people.” I’m like, “No, no, no. That’s a portion of vision casting, and that’s usually reserved for the leader, I totally get that. But no, no, no, what you’re doing, how you’re interacting with people, the language that you’re saying, you’re repeating the language back to what we want people to understand and to understand who we are. How you are treating them, it’s incredible. You’re an amazing vision caster.” That was maybe the first time that Joanne understood that, “Wow, I am a vision caster.” But everyone in the organization is a vision caster, but more often they think, “No, that’s for the top leader or that’s the visionary leader.”

No, there’s truth of that, there’s a visionary leader that’s saying, “Follow me, let’s go there,” but everyone has a part to play as it relates to vision. That’s why this question, “What did I do today to cast vision for our organization, is so helpful, and here’s why. Vision rarely repeated is quickly forgotten. Vision rarely repeated is quickly forgotten. When the team isn’t repeating the vision to one another, to the people that they’re serving, then the vision can get lost. This is why as we talk about vision as a team sport, the other question I would consider you as the leader to ask is, “What is the language that the team is using to talk about our vision? What is the language?” In fact, I would encourage you as a leader to do a vision inventory.

What is a vision inventory? A vision inventory is just walking around and going, “Hey, what do you think our vision is here around here? What do you think our vision is? What do you think that is? I’d just love for you to hear it.” And just listen to what they have to say. And if there are blank stares or they stumble over some words or they’re not really clear, then the warning light on the dashboard of your organization should be blinking. But when you walk around and when people understand, “Oh, I can tell you what our vision is. Not only can I tell you what our vision is, let me show you what I did today to cast vision for our organization. I made a phone call, I wrote a thank-you note. I communicated to a group, this is what we’re about. We took great strides today to move us closer to who we are because that’s what our vision is.”

So as you look at your team, look at you going forward and wondering, “Does the team really buy in to the vision?” remember the three levels of vision buy-in that we talked about. But ask yourself this question, “What would it look like if I let this question, what did I do today to cast vision for our organization, What would that look like for you? How would you implement that in your organization? And here’s my hunch, if you’ll do this, and if you’ll consistently talk about this and reward the behavior you want repeated as you see different team members moving the ball down the field closer to the organization that you want to become, what you’re going to discover is, as the leader, you’re going to discover a lift.

What I mean by that is you’re going to discover as the leader that you’re not alone, that there are people that can help you. As the visionary leader, as the leader of the organization, or wherever you may be in the organization, the more that you have people that are standing shoulder to shoulder with you moving the vision of the organization forward, you begin to understand the power of using a team sport mentality. Yes, vision is a team sport, and yes, you can move people from benefiting from to participating in, but it’s a daily, daily challenge. It’s a daily, daily task. That’s why I believe this question, what did I do today to cast vision for our organization, can be a game changer for you and your team.

Personal Growth Day:

Hey, podcast listeners, how would you like to be equipped with the tools to continue your personal growth and refine your strengths and weaknesses, all while being surrounded by other growth-minded leaders like yourself? You may have heard of Personal Growth Day. For our second time ever, Maxwell Leadership is hosting this one day event on March 13th in Orlando, Florida. This event is designed to dig deeper into who you are and how you tick, so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you’re unable to attend personal growth day in person, we also offer virtual access to the event. If you would like to participate in a one-of-a-kind experience and stand shoulder to shoulder with growing leaders who will sharpen your skills and equip you to create powerful positive impact, go to maxwellleadership.com/personalgrowthday to learn more or get your ticket. We’ll see you there.

Mark Cole:

Hey, welcome back. I told you that you were going to love today. In fact, I told Jeff when he got done, I said, “Jeff, I needed 15 more minutes of this talk.” He said, “Well, I’ll tell you what, just invite me back.” And Jeff, you’re coming back, you’re coming back, coming back, coming back.

Hey, by the way, if you want to know more about Jeff, of course you can find him at Maxwell Leadership. I’m going to tell you how to book him to come speak to you in your organization in just a moment. But Jeff wrote a book, this is not his most recent, I love his most recent, we’ll talk about that maybe next time, but it so relates with what you talked about today. We’ve put this book, FOR, in the show notes, and we’re giving you a 15% discount. You can go to the show notes, enter in the keyword. I think podcast is the keyword that you should enter there to get that discount.

Also, Jeff speaks for Maxwell Leadership Thought Leaders. You can go to maxwellleadership.com/speaker/jeffhenderson, and you can find out more information about bringing Jeff there. But Jeff, as I was listening today, number one, you’ve got these one-liner buzzwords, these little one-liners like John Maxwell. John’s going to have to take notes from you or something because, man, this idea of getting your team to grow beyond benefiting from the mission to participating in the mission. And then you said something else that every one of us key leaders thought, you said, “You can get farther faster if you will get people buying in to the vision.” I don’t know how many of you would agree with me, but I’m all into the farther faster idea.

Jeff Henderson:

That’s right.

Mark Cole:

Thank you again for being here today, and thanks for the content. Really good.

Jeff Henderson:

Absolutely. Well, I’m honored to be here because when we’re talking about vision carriers, honestly, you’re one of the best vision carriers I’ve ever seen. Obviously, John has a vision, you’ve come alongside him. But as I’ve been around the Maxwell Leadership world, I’ve noticed that it’s way beyond Atlanta. When I go to these events or I’m on a call, it’s literally people around the world. What I’m curious to understand is how has Maxwell Leadership created vision carriers around the world, allowing you all to go farther faster?

Mark Cole:

Well, we have, and you know this Jeff because you’ve been so active with me here for the last few years, but we have 46,000 coaches that are vision carriers. And you’ve met them, you’ve spoken to them, they’re using your content, FOR. They’re rabid. They’re vision carriers. In fact, sometimes I think their vision inspires because they are just so fired up. I think one of the things that I learned from John a long time ago is if you want to have vision carriers, you’re going to have to put their picture in the flag. You’re going to have to make sure that when they see the flag they see their place in the banner that you’re carrying. Many years ago, John decided, “Hey, I’m going to make the coaches the champion, not Maxwell.”

Jeff Henderson:

Right.

Mark Cole:

I think that’s a big deal here in what you’ve been teaching today and something that I’ve seen, John, you’ve got to make people the hero in your company’s story. And if you can’t figure a way to do that out or you can’t figure a way to do that, then I think that you’re going to have people that can repeat it, people that get excited about it, but I don’t know how much they’ll carry.

The second thing that I would say I think that John and our team has done really well is empower them. Give them the guidelines. Every company, every organization has its set of values, a set of disciplines. Get all those set, but then get your hands off as a leader and let people make it theirs. When you can give people a sense of empowerment, there’s a greater propensity they have to be that vision carrier and to be a part of the team.

And then the final thing that I would say is celebrate often. I’ve watched you do this, I watched you do this at Gwinnett Church where you talked a lot, I watched you do this at Chick-fil-A in your experience there. You figured a way out that when people were vision carriers you would celebrate loud, you would celebrate often. That that gets rewarded gets done. When people get rewarded and vision carrier activities, guess what they want to do tomorrow? Carry the vision a little bit more-

Jeff Henderson:

That’s right.

Mark Cole:

… because they were celebrated. So I think it comes from that empowerment. I think it comes from a sense of celebration. I think it comes from a sense of identity. Give them an identity.

Jeff Henderson:

That’s so good. Now, I’ve seen you personally, I’ve seen John empower you. In your role now as owner of the company, just interested, over the years, how has John poured into the vision to make sure that if he’s not here and you’re somewhere speaking on behalf of John he’s completely comfortable with that?

Mark Cole:

Yeah. So I think early on, I’m a driven guy, I’m a type A personality, obnoxious beyond comparison. All of us Type A personalities, we drive everybody crazy. But when I joined John’s team, and more specifically when John accelerated me to the role of CEO 13 years ago, I had to determine something as a leader, and that was I was not going to be the vision creator. That wasn’t my role as a second chair. I wasn’t going to be the vision castor in a lot of cases, that was John. But I could be a vision carrier as you talked about today.

And so I’ll talk to all of you second chair leaders out there as well as those now of us that carry a vision what to look for in a second seat leader. I’ve taught this before, even shared it a little bit on the podcast, it bears repeating today, that when I first come and started working with John as CEO, I realized that I really had an agenda. John had an agenda. My agenda very quickly needed to be altered to be a carrier of John’s agenda. What happened for me, Jeff, is I was a vision carrier, but I was also passionate about casting vision and even creating vision.

But I discovered as the second chair or as a teammate that quickly I needed to let my agenda go and John’s agenda needed to become my agenda. But what happened over several years is while I gave up my agenda originally, by making John’s agenda my agenda, it captured John’s attention, and pretty soon his agenda became our agenda. And then pretty soon, he began listening to me to help craft his agenda from my thoughts and ideas. There becomes this mutual respect the longer you work together, but it starts as a second chair that it’s their agenda. Their agenda becomes my agenda as a second chair. And then ultimately my agenda became his agenda. Our visions became together.

I think when you look at people that are leading companies that are visionaries, and that’s many of you that are watching today on YouTube, many of you that are listening, if you will do a good job of creating, as Jeff said, an idea of a team sport around your vision rather than, “This is my vision. You need to listen to it. You need to implement it. You need to consume it. It needs to become you,” and you become more collaborative, as Jeff talked about today, in making sure that the vision becomes exactly that, it’s ours, the benefit and the sense of fulfillment will create that sustainability of further, faster that you talked about.

Jeff Henderson:

Here’s the temptation of leaders… You and I are preacher’s kids, so we grew up in this. People of faith, if I can use church language for a second. In church world, the leader could say, “Hey, I went up to the mountain. I heard from God. God told me what to do. I’m coming down. So if you disobey me, you’re really disobeying God. Follow me.”

Mark Cole:

That’s right.

Jeff Henderson:

Now, here’s the great thing about that, it gets things done quicker, faster.

Mark Cole:

That’s right, it does.

Jeff Henderson:

We don’t have to have a committee and all that. But I know when I talk about vision as a team sport, some leaders may say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, that gets complicated because I got more people in here.” It does get more complicated.

Mark Cole:

Yep. Yep.

Jeff Henderson:

But you quickly understand who’s really bought in to the second chair or the third chair. And if you got some people that aren’t bought into the second chair, third chair, that’s fine, they may have a vision that they need to go pursue. So while it can be intimidating and it definitely takes more time, anytime you deal with people, it takes more time, vision as a team sport. I think you, John and the team here have modeled it so well because it’s not dependent on just one person.

Mark Cole:

Yeah, Yeah. That’s exactly right. I’ve learned from people like you. One of the things that I will tell you about Jeff, not only is he good at one-liners, only good at communicating and all that, but Jeff has this incredible ability to synthesize things that gives people handles. And that’s a little bit what we’re talking about here, is that for people to carry your vision, you’re going to have to give them a way to hold it, to carry it, to make it theirs, that identity thing that we talked about a little bit earlier.

You guys on podcasts, you hear Jeff quoted all the time, and sometimes you may not even know it. But Jeff, when you made the statement, wrote the book FOR, I’m going to challenge you if you don’t have it, pick it up. If you’ve got it, you need to give it to somebody else, somebody on your team that you want to be a vision carrier. But you made a statement that has stuck and has been quoted on this podcast. Why don’t we as companies, as leaders, as organizations, why don’t we stop trying to be the best company, the best organization in the world and start being the best company of the organization for the world. You can remember saying that. I quote you all the time on that. Because truly for us to make that team sport that we’re talking about is going to come into our ability to do something that is beyond ourselves. The vision cannot be about self-gratification at the leader level or even at the team level. It’s got to be about something bigger. Also, it was you. Go ahead and say something on that.

Jeff Henderson:

Well, I’ll just say, what you’re tapping into, I think, is a fundamental human need. We all want to be a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves.

Mark Cole:

That’s right.

Jeff Henderson:

That’s why vision as a team sport allows people to do that. Not everybody will buy into your vision, that’s okay. But those that can and those that will, when they understand that, “I belong to something that’s bigger than me,” they lean in. We have this sense of belonging. We want to belong to something bigger that will outlast us. I think that’s God give, honestly. And so when we’re talking about vision as a team sport and that we don’t want to be just the best company in the world, we want to be the best company for the world, that means we have a vision that’s bigger than us.

Mark Cole:

Wow. That is exactly right. You think about vision leaders, and you’re a visionary. John Maxwell, visionary. Got John and now has given me a chance to be a visionary. I think the biggest thing that I’m learning right now is in casting the vision, it’s more than just to get a nod or a “That’s good. I like that,” there’s a sense of responsibility that visionary has to make sure that they’re creating momentum around the vision, that they’re mobilizing people. I think that’s why it’s so important that you teach us as a first step to creating vision that it’s got to be seen as a team sport.

We go to the mountain, as you talked about a while ago, we come back. Sometimes we use that old non-arguable phrase, “God told me,” and then everybody checks out because what am I going to say to that? Who’s going to argue with God? But I think the primary driver of what you’re teaching us today is vision, even though it’s got to be derived and originated from a person that really has captured the focus and the direction of the organization, it needs to start at the very beginning being that team sport.

Jeff Henderson:

Well, as John says, eventually if you turn around and no one’s following you, you’re not a leader, you’re just taking a walk.

Mark Cole:

That’s exactly right.

Jeff Henderson:

But one of the things that vision does require is a problem. What is the problem that we’ve gathered together to solve? With Maxwell Leadership, we’ve decided that everyone deserves to be led well. There’s a problem, there’s an underlying statement there that not everyone is being led well. I’m fortunate to be on the Maxwell Leadership text thread, but what that is a lot of stories of places around the world, people around the world who are being led well in that language. So how do you continue to put the flag up and say, “This is Maxwell Leadership. Everyone deserves to be led well.” That’s a catchy phrase, but that’s not enough. How do you live it out on the text thread and other ways?

Mark Cole:

Well, let me again give honor where honors do, and once again, everyone deserves to be led well was in a leadership retreat you were in, and you said that that that came from your brain, and you said that. You remember? I mean, I say it rolling off my tongue, I’ll say it at the end of this podcast today, but boy, the first time, Jeff, you said that as a part of this team of what we want to be known for, it grabbed. I think that goes back to what you’re asking, the language has got to grab people at the heart level not just the head level. It’s got to make sense, yes, to build strategy, to build tactical plans. It’s got to make sense at the head level. It’s got to make sense at the heart level. There’s got to be something that drives that vision, that language that is more than just a bottom line. It’s got to be a bottom heart, a bottom connection.

I think the second thing that I would say about language, it has to touch the heart. I think the second thing it has to do is it has to connect with the activity. So many times we have vision, and it sounds good, but we go, “We’re not even doing anything about that.” Sounds really nice, but there is no disciplines that we demonstrate to give action to that. John says, “Quit telling me and start showing me.” I think vision has to illustrate, it has to show, it has to connect with actions. And then the final thing that I would say is it’s got to be bigger than the organization. We call that significance. It’s got to be about successful bottom line productivity of the organization, but it’s got to be something bigger that do we want to be best company in the world, the best company for the world. I believe in today’s world, with today’s generation, it’s got to be bigger than the organization’s benefit. It’s got to be for the community benefit.

Jeff Henderson:

And I think that’s what people are looking for.

Mark Cole:

I do too.

Jeff Henderson:

With the resignation nation and people resigning from their jobs, what I think they’re looking for is a purpose that they can belong to.

Mark Cole:

Right.

Jeff Henderson:

When you can communicate that with vision, they’ll lean in, they’ll buy in, they’ll get on the playing field, and you’ll go further.

Mark Cole:

Hey, before I sign off and give a comment of a podcast listener that just I love, I can’t wait to talk about Maryanne, I’ve talked about this book. There’s two questions you ask in this book: what are you known for? What do you want to be known for? And that’s at the personal level, at the professional level. Can you give me just another minute of this book and what’s going to benefit our podcast listeners if they listen to it?

Jeff Henderson:

Sure. Well, ultimately, again, the two questions, what do you want to be known for? That’s your vision. That’s your, Steve Jobs would say, your dent in the universe. The second question is, what are you known for? That question isn’t yours. That question is your customers or the people you’re trying to serve. The power of those two questions is this, Mark, when what you want to be known for is what you’re known for, when you’re compelling purpose, your great product, your great service, your great church, your great nonprofit, when customers experience that, they tell other people about you, and they become your vision carriers. It’s that simple, and it’s that hard, because in every organization, there’s a gap between what you want to be known for and what you are known for. In the book, I try to teach organizations how to shrink the gap.

Mark Cole:

So you want to make vision a team sport in your organization? Get everybody on your team this book right here. Go to the show notes, we’ve got a link there. Enter the promotional code PODCAST and we’ll give you 15% off.

Let me again say one more thing. If you would like Jeff to come speak to your organization, you’d like more information about that, you can contact our team, we’ll make that happen. Go to maxwellleadership.com/speaker/jeffhenderson, and it’ll get you right to Jeff’s bio and more information about him. Jeff, thank you, thank you.

I want to go to Maryanne. She listened to a podcast episode called Great Leaders Are Great Teachers. We’ll put that link in the show notes if that sounds intriguing to you. Maryanne said, “As always, another great episode. Pondering John’s lesson today wherein he says, ‘One must go to where the students are,’ has given me great insight into how to lead and be in my personal leadership. I am not a formal leadership role, I don’t have one currently. With the help of Maxwell team, I am able to prepare for the inevitable position in the future.” I love that, Maryanne. That’s faith. That’s hope. That’s a vision. “Many thanks to the entire podcast team.” And I’ll join you, Maryanne, in thanking people like Jeff, Jake, Jared, people like Andrew that’s in our studio today. They make this possible. Hey, we do all this because of this, we want everyone to experience powerful, positive change through your leadership, because everyone deserves to be led well.