John C Maxwell - 07 The Law Of The Compass

Summary

In a captivating discussion on leadership, John C. Maxwell elaborates on the seventh law of teamwork: The Law of the Compass. This law stresses the importance of vision in providing direction and instilling confidence in a team. Vision is defined as a future picture that ignites passion within individuals. Successful vision casting depends on various components like clarity, connectedness, purpose, goals, honesty, stories, challenge, passion, modeling, and strategy. Each component plays a crucial role in making vision effective, from providing clarity and purpose to including everyone and keeping the team accountable. Maxwell shares relatable stories and humor, making these leadership lessons engaging and accessible.

Highlights

• Vision as a future picture that ignites passion is at the core of leadership. 🌟
• Clarity in vision avoids confusion and ensures everyone understands the direction. 🔍
• Connectedness in vision links past, present, and future, providing a strong foundation for trust. 📆
• Purpose gives meaning to actions and drives commitment to the vision. 🎯
• Goals provide measurable steps that keep the team on track and focused. 📈
• Honesty maintains integrity and credibility in vision casting. ✨
• Stories make visions relatable, fostering personal connections within the team. 📖
• Challenges inspire growth and separate committed members from uncommitted ones. 💪
• Passion is the fuel that heats up dedication, energizing committed individuals. 🔥
• A strategic approach organizes the vision into manageable processes. 🗺️

Key Takeaways

• Vision gives direction and confidence, creating a passionate pursuit within a team. 🎯
• Effective vision casting includes clarity, connectedness, and purpose. 🌟
• Challenges and passion are crucial in stretching a team's capabilities and fueling commitment. 💪
• Strategies and storytelling personalize and bring a warm touch to the vision. 📖
• Great leaders transform vision from 'me' to 'we,' ensuring collective ownership and success. 🤝

Overview

John C. Maxwell introduces us to the seventh law of teamwork, known as The Law of the Compass, which emphasizes the necessity of a clear vision for guiding teams effectively. He defines vision as an inspiring future picture that stirs passion, and elaborates that a mere picture of the future isn't enough without the accompanying zeal to achieve it.

Maxwell breaks down the essential components of vision casting which include clarity, connectedness, purpose, measurable goals, integrity through honesty, and engaging storytelling. Each component ensures the vision is not only understood but also embraced and pursued by the team. Clarity avoids fuzziness, while connectedness ties the past to the future, establishing trust and a shared mission among team members.

The discussion wraps up with the importance of challenges and passion in propelling a team towards growth. Maxwell jovially separates winners who thrive in challenges from whiners who shrink away. He stresses that passion fuels commitment and emphasizes that the ultimate success of a vision lies in its transformation from an individual goal ('me') to a collective mission ('we'). This transformation is key to instilling ownership and ensuring the vision's success.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to the Law of the Compass The chapter "Introduction to the Law of the Compass" discusses teamwork and introduces the concept of the Law of the Compass, which emphasizes that vision provides team members with direction and confidence. Vision is defined as a picture, suggesting that having a shared vision helps team members to know where they are heading and how to approach their goals.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Defining Vision In the chapter titled 'Defining Vision', the focus is on understanding what true vision entails. It's emphasized that a vision is not merely a picture of the future; it should be something that ignites passion within you in the present. The chapter discusses the importance of having a vision that moves you emotionally and inspires action, rather than just serving as a distant goal.
• 01:00 - 01:30: The Significance of a Viable Vision A viable vision is essential for organizations as it not only provides a clear picture of the future but also ignites passion and motivation today. Simply seeing a vision is not enough; it must inspire and compel action. In 'Developing the Leader Within You,' entire chapters are devoted to teaching vision casting and understanding its power and importance.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Vision Casting Essentials The chapter emphasizes the importance of having a vision as a leader. It points out that every successful leader is driven by a vision or dream. A leader without a vision is merely a leader by position, lacking genuine leadership qualities. The narrative encourages leaders to nurture their dream and passion.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Clarity in Vision Casting The chapter 'Clarity in Vision Casting' emphasizes the critical importance of vision casting for both leaders and team members. It underscores that a leader's ability to clearly articulate the vision and a team member's capability to understand and embrace that vision are key determinants of the team's success. The chapter promises to provide a breakdown of vision concepts and presents a checklist of essential components for effectively casting a vision to a team.
• 02:30 - 03:00: The Importance of Connectedness The chapter discusses the significance of connectedness and highlights the vital components needed for effective vision casting, regardless of one's role—be it a school teacher, business professional, pastor, or government leader. The first key component emphasized is clarity, as it facilitates understanding.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Purpose as a Component of Vision The chapter discusses the importance of clarity in casting a vision. Using a personal anecdote of attending Padres games in San Diego, the author emphasizes that a vision needs to be clear and compelling, even if initially things don't seem promising or successful. The metaphor of the Padres' struggles is used to highlight the need for a clear and persistent vision despite challenges.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Role of Goals in Vision This chapter discusses the role of goals in vision, using the metaphor of baseball gameplay and entertainment during the innings, particularly focusing on the unique way of displaying baseball players' images on a screen piece by piece. The highlights of this method serve to engage and capture the audience's attention, illustrating the broader concept of how goals and visual inputs are interrelated in both sports and other areas.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Honesty and Integrity in Vision In this chapter titled 'Honesty and Integrity in Vision,' the concept of building understanding and recognition is explored through the metaphor of assembling a puzzle. An experience is described where a diamond vision screen gradually reveals the image of a ball player by adding one piece at a time. Initially, the audience is unable to discern who the player is, but as more pieces are added, the picture becomes clearer. The process symbolizes how pieces of information fit together to form a complete understanding, much like how honesty and integrity are essential in maintaining a clear and truthful vision.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Incorporating Stories into Vision The chapter 'Incorporating Stories into Vision' discusses the importance of clarity in organizational vision. It compares the process to solving a puzzle, where the pieces come together revealing the complete picture. Similarly, when a vision is made clear to a team or organization, it becomes evident and comprehensible, much like a crowd realizing the identity of a player once enough pieces of the puzzle are assembled. The key takeaway is that clear vision is crucial for organizational and team success.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Challenge as a Motivating Factor The chapter titled 'Challenge as a Motivating Factor' discusses the concept of clarity in vision and the impact of 'fuzzy' or unclear visions on teamwork and motivation. It emphasizes the importance of having a clear vision by asking and answering specific questions such as, 'What do you want them to know?' This approach aims to eliminate ambiguity and improve team motivation and cohesion by providing clear goals and expectations.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Passion as Fuel for Vision The chapter emphasizes the importance of clarity when casting a vision. It suggests focusing on two key questions: 'What do I want you to know?' and 'What do I want you to do?' These questions are crucial for providing direction and understanding within a team. Ensuring everyone is on the same page is paramount, as lack of clarity affects both the leader and the team members. Moreover, connectedness is mentioned as another essential aspect of effective vision communication.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Modeling and Accountability The chapter "Modeling and Accountability" discusses the importance of creating a vision that connects the past, present, and future. It emphasizes the need for a sense of connectedness, suggesting that a successful vision should acknowledge past foundations while aspiring towards future goals. The chapter critiques the common tendency to focus solely on the future without considering the groundwork that has already been established.
• 06:30 - 07:00: Strategy and Process The chapter emphasizes the importance of connecting the past, present, and future in strategic planning and process development. It highlights the danger of focusing solely on either the future or the past without acknowledging the foundation laid by previous efforts. Recognizing past sacrifices and achievements is crucial in creating a holistic view and a robust strategy for moving forward. The process involves integrating these elements to ensure a comprehensive approach.
• 07:00 - 08:00: Case Study: San Diego Church Relocation This chapter explores the theme of connecting past achievements with future visions within the context of relocating a church in San Diego. It highlights how acknowledging past efforts provides value to older generations, while offering a sense of security to newer members. The discussion underscores the importance of linking history with future prospects, emphasizing a sense of connectedness as crucial to the overall vision for the church community.
• 08:00 - 09:00: Lessons from the Journey Chapter 'Lessons from the Journey' explores the concept of purpose in relation to vision. It emphasizes that purpose gives meaning to the vision, explaining not just where you are going but why you are going there. Without understanding and embracing the 'why', a vision may lack the compelling force needed to motivate individuals consistently toward a destination. This chapter discusses the importance of aligning vision with a strong purpose to sustain momentum and engagement.
• 09:00 - 10:00: Closing Thoughts on Vision The chapter emphasizes the importance of having a clear purpose or 'why' in order to stay committed to a vision. Without a strong reason to motivate actions such as spending money, time, and energy, one is likely to abandon their vision quickly. The purpose serves as the guiding factor that keeps an individual focused on achieving their vision. Additionally, the chapter introduces the concept of setting goals as a crucial element related to the vision.

John C Maxwell - 07 The Law Of The Compass Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 today i want to talk to you about law number seven of teamwork it is the law of the compass and the law of the compass says vision gives team members direction and confidence let me define vision vision is a picture
• 00:30 - 01:00 of the future that creates passion within you today what i want you to see is it's a picture of the future but if all you see is a picture of the future it's not a vision that moves you it's got to create passion within you it's kind of like the picture before you the passion within you in other words
• 01:00 - 01:30 it's very possible to see a picture of the future of your company or your organization and not be stirred that's not a viable vision a viable vision not only gives you a clear picture of what tomorrow looks like but it's kind of stokes of fire within you today in my book developing the leader within you i have a whole chapter that is set aside of teaching vision casting and the power of the vision and the reason for that is is because
• 01:30 - 02:00 every successful leader has a vision isn't that true i've never met a leader that didn't have a vision if you go up to somebody and say hey what's your dream and they look at you i have no dream at all and i'm the leader of the organization but it beats me what we want to do they are leader in position only they're not a leader because if you're a leader you've got the vision you've got the dream and you've got the passion within you so what i want to do
• 02:00 - 02:30 because vision casting is so essential your ability as a leader to cast vision to the team and your ability as a team member to catch the vision of the team is going to determine the success of your team let me break down this whole idea of vision and let me give you the vital components of casting the vision because what i'm this is i i guess the best way to explain this this is a checklist for you if you have to cast a vision to your team
• 02:30 - 03:00 whether you're a school teacher or in the business community or a pastor of a congregation or a government uh leader if you've got a cast vision there are certain components that you need to check off to make sure you have in your vision casting speech that'll make it successful let me give it to you number one clarity clarity brings understanding
• 03:00 - 03:30 to the vision in other words when you cast the vision when you when you when you draw the dream it's got to be clear i used to live in san diego and um for several years i i i had a wonderful seats right behind the first base dugout of the padres games and and uh so i i went to some padres games and i know they're not very good but in fact when i was out there they were pretty terrible in fact i i used to say they're
• 03:30 - 04:00 the finest minor league team in the majors but anyway during about between about the third or fourth inning on the big diamond vision they always did something that was very interesting you know between innings they try to entertain you a little bit and between i don't know third fourth inning sometime in there about the middle of the game uh what they would do is out on the diamond vision they would put they would they were going to put the picture of a baseball player on on the screen but the way they did instead of putting the whole picture up there they would put one piece of of of of the puzzle of the face of a
• 04:00 - 04:30 ball player they would put it up now obviously when they put just one piece on the diamond vision you couldn't tell who it was so basically the whole crowd is watching the dimension they put one you know one one piece and you're kind of looking at it because you don't have a clue and then they put another piece and okay now you look a little bit more and they would put another now what was interesting is after they would put maybe four or five pieces of the face puzzle together on that diamond vision all of a sudden you could hear the crowd they go oh now all of a sudden they had enough
• 04:30 - 05:00 pieces to know who the player was i've often thought to myself the response of that crowd watching that game watching that puzzle at that time the response of the crowd when they had enough pieces of the puzzle to figure out who it was is what happens in your organization on your team when you begin to take the vision and begin to put the pieces together and all of a sudden it becomes clear enough that everybody has it figured out clarity is essential on the vision if
• 05:00 - 05:30 the vision is fuzzy the people are fuzzy and we don't need any more fuzzy people we don't need a fuzzy team well we just have a wonderful group of people they're quite fuzzy but they're wonderful people so how do you make the vision clear by answering by asking and then answering two questions question number one what do you want them to know and question number two what do you want
• 05:30 - 06:00 them to do if you can answer those two questions what do i want you to know what i want you to do those two questions will begin to clear up the picture clarity is number one so ask yourself when you're casting the vision is it clear let me put it this way if you can't figure it out neither can the players on the team okay number two connectedness
• 06:00 - 06:30 let me explain this if the vision is to be successfully cast it has to have a feeling of connectedness it has to bring the past the present and the future together in fact i put the state because i like it when people touch the past they will reach for the future you have to have a connectedness here's what i find many times when we cast vision it's all about the future and it's not about the foundation that has been laid
• 06:30 - 07:00 yesterday so what happens is when we talk about the future but we don't talk about the foundation that has been laid whether it's the price that was paid years ago or the sacrifice whatever when we just talk about the future we eliminate part of the picture just as if all you do is talk about the past there is no future so what you do is you develop a connectedness you it's not either or it's both in you bring and here's what happens
• 07:00 - 07:30 when you talk about the past you bring value to the people that have already paid the price when you talk about so the older people receive value out of it and the newer people receive security from it they say oh my goodness wow somebody has been thinking about this way before i ever got here there somebody's already paid the price there's a security that comes when you're able to connect the past with the future connectedness it's very key division
• 07:30 - 08:00 casting component number three in casting a vision purpose purpose brings sense to the vision purpose makes the vision make sense the vision describes where you're going purpose describes why you're going and people won't constantly go to a destination unless
• 08:00 - 08:30 they know the reason why isn't that true why are you spending that money why are you taking that time why are you expending all that energy if you don't have a why if you don't have a purpose in the vision you won't stay on target for the vision you'll give it up very quickly you'll lay aside why because the the purpose the purpose is what keeps you on the path to the vision itself number four goals
• 08:30 - 09:00 when you cast vision correctly there are goals because goals bring measurement to the vision goals keep goals keep the vision realistic there's a measurement how well are we doing are we there yet how far are we how soon will we get there now too many of us were like my friend charlie brown
• 09:00 - 09:30 now there's a study in leadership charlie brown's in the backyard he's got his bow and arrow and he's having target practice what he's doing is he pulls back the string he lets the arrow fly wherever the arrow flies no matter no matter wherever it sticks in in in in the board fence charlie brown takes a marker and wherever the arrow is he he draws a target
• 09:30 - 10:00 and he lets it fly and you know he's over here and he's drawing another target well lucy comes out you know lucy the mother of all board members and lucy comes out and she sees all these targets all over the fence and she says charlie brown that's not the way you do target practice and charlie brown says i know it but if you do it my way you never miss
• 10:00 - 10:30 now i know all kind of people that's exactly how they do vision casting they just they just put a vision up there and they just slap any goal they want to and they hope are you all right and let me tell you something hope is not a strategy [Laughter] i remember oh yeah well we hope to yeah well we're hoping to get there we we're hoping that this is going we're hoping it'll all turn we're hoping it all turned out hope's not a strategy
• 10:30 - 11:00 and so in your vision have measurable goals so you can always see where your progress is number five honesty honesty brings integrity to the vision and let me say what else it does it brings credibility to the vision caster make sure that your dreams and your
• 11:00 - 11:30 vision is honest in other words if i get up in front of you if i'm leading you as a team and i get up in front of you and every six months i put a dream out here or a vision out here that we don't accomplish but every six months i put up another dream i said well this for the next six months we're going to do this or the next six months we're going to go there but we never get there we never do that after i do that a half a dozen times with you when i get up to cast vision you're basically saying here comes hot
• 11:30 - 12:00 air again because there's no integrity in the vision and when there's not integrity in the vision the vision caster loses credibility you gotta be honest you gotta let them know where you are number six stories you've gotta have stories in your vision because that brings relationships to the vision that makes the vision warm when you tell stories
• 12:00 - 12:30 telling stories about how somebody in your company has helped that goal become a reality those kind of things draw people to you too many times we try to cast vision without stories put stories and the stories warm up the vision the stories personalize the vision the stories make the vision identifiable by the average person number seven challenge the challenge brings stretching
• 12:30 - 13:00 to the vision in other words in your in your dream in your vision have stretching room give them room to fly don't be afraid to challenge people sometimes i'll run into leaders they'll say well i don't know if i want to challenge the team i'm not sure the team's ready for this uh you know let me tell you something put the challenge high stick it up there here's what i find winners stretch to the challenge whiners shrink from the challenge and the greatest way to get rid of your
• 13:00 - 13:30 whiners your weak link hello is to put a challenge up there they'll run fast their first question is not how do i climb mount everest their first question is where's the exit see what i when you put the challenge high to winners they they say sick them and the whiners it makes them sick and there's a world of difference between those two number eight passion passion brings
• 13:30 - 14:00 fuel to the vision passion heats people up by the way again talking about the winners and whiners here's what passion fires up the committed and fries the uncommitted just does when you turn the heat up some people get fired up some people get fried number nine is modeling
• 14:00 - 14:30 modeling brings accountability to the vision modeling basically says i'm going do you want to go can we go together number 10 is strategy strategy brings process to the vision as i look back at my leadership with the team my greatest days of leadership will never show up on paper
• 14:30 - 15:00 and the reason why is my greatest days of leadership is not when my organization grew the fastest in san diego california in the mid 80s i was this growing dynamic church and the only way we're going to be able to keep growing was to relocate the church and so we realized we were going to have to do that and so we found 80 acres on the freeway and we began the process of relocation now i'm not going to go in the story today because it's way too long in fact
• 15:00 - 15:30 it's way too discouraging but we had all the setbacks any person would ever want to not want to have in a relocation process the biggest setbacks were mainly environmental and if you're in southern california in fact the wall street journal interviewed me one time and the wall street journal said if you pull this off you'll be the last church in southern california that'll be able to buy 80 acres of land and pull it off i guarantee he said it isn't going to happen again because all the environmental laws there was a bird called a black-tailed net catcher
• 15:30 - 16:00 didn't even live on the property just flew over the property and every once in a while landed rested you know just because the blacktail nan catcher landed on the property the environment said we couldn't build our buildings on the property now i could go through barriers and bears in fact finally we got through that we how we got through that was by by buying 28 acres somewhere else for the birds to land on as if you train
• 16:00 - 16:30 a black-tailed net catcher say you don't land here quarter of a mile over there that's your landing spot eight years later millions of dollars later we got the zoning eight years millions of dollars you talk about a
• 16:30 - 17:00 challenge i had to raise millions of dollars on land that i couldn't even assure the people we would build on i had to keep hope alive on land that we were not even sure would be ours and for eight years i kept hope alive what was it napoleon said leaders are dealers in hope and i became a dealer in hope and what's beautiful was in may of 2000
• 17:00 - 17:30 i flew back to san diego to dedicate the first building on that mountain 5 000 people absolutely excited about what had happened but as i got back on the plane to fly back to atlanta georgia i began to think about the price that was paid and the vision that was cast and all i'm saying to you is is as leaders constantly they're keeping the picture in front of people because they know this if the people lose the picture the passion
• 17:30 - 18:00 leaks out of their life so i put in your notes it's out of my developing leader within your book some closing thoughts on vision here's what experience has taught me the credibility of a vision is determined by the leader the acceptance of a vision is determined by the timing of its presentation the value of a vision is determined by the energy and direction that it gives
• 18:00 - 18:30 the evaluation of a vision is determined by the commitment level of the people and the success of the vision is determined by its ownership by both the leader and the people one last teamwork thought great leaders take the vision from me to we
• 18:30 - 19:00 that's your goal the vision has to go from me the leader to we the team and until that happens the vision will never be successful but law number seven is a great law it's the law of a compass vision gives team members direction and it gives them confidence