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What’s in a name?
If you are like me, you’ve probably read a lot of business books throughout your career. Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, and Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Every Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, pretty much anything by Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking – these are just a few of the books that I’ve enjoyed and absorbed over the years.
But I’d have to say the book that has been most long-lasting in its influence has been Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
First published in 1989, more than 25 million copies of The 7 Habits have been sold worldwide. The book has been translated into more than 40 languages and has been named one of the most influential business books of the 20th Century.
The second Habit is what Covey called “Begin with the End in Mind.”
At the risk of drastically over-simplifying, this Habit encourages followers to “envision what you want in the future so you can work and plan towards it.” This is important because the factors at play in everyday life can pull you in all directions, especially when you are the leader of an organization.
“Sometimes people find themselves achieving victories that are empty–successes that have come at the expense of things that were far more valuable to them. If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.”
But more than just setting goals, Covey argues: to be truly effective is to “strik[e] balance between obtaining desirable results with caring for that which produces those results”. The golden goose, as it were.
Very few of us get very far on our own.
Knowing where you are and where you want to be is critical to your personal and professional life. Your success as a human being and a business leader will be defined not only by the goals you achieved, but also by how you got there, and how you treated the people with whom you travelled.
Simply stated, “a line of sight” is the direction a person must look to see a particular object in the distance. A “clear line of sight” is about having an unobstructed view. Helping leaders bring into focus what matters most is what I like to do best.
That’s my sightline.
If you are looking to get a clearer line of sight on where you and your team are headed, let’s chat!