S1E1 - Vision To Results Introduction

Every leader has a vision. Not every leader turns it into reality. In this kickoff episode of Leadership Matters, Glenn Price and Terry Reynolds lift the curtain on the Vision to Results (VTR) framework—25 years of hard-won strategy and leadership wisdom distilled into something you can actually use on Monday morning.

From the young leader who feared being fired to the global teams nailing both performance and culture, this episode explores the surprisingly simple balance of rational structure and emotional engagement that separates winning organisations from the rest.

If you want clarity, momentum, belief, and a bit more discretionary effort from your people—start here.

Buckle up. This is where your vision becomes a result.

Transcript

Welcome to Leadership Matters, a podcast series designed by LeaderShape Consulting to help leaders take their vision and deliver results. My name is Glenn Price. one of the directors at LeaderShape Consulting and I'll be joined on this podcast series by my business partner and co-host Terry Reynolds. Over the last 12 months, we've written a book based on 20, 25 years worth of research called Vision to Results and we've been asked by many of our clients to put a short podcast series together to give them some tips, tools and strategies to bring that model to life so that they can make a difference in their organisations. Terry and I started leadership consulting. We are based in Sydney, Australia, but have clients all around the world. And we're very fortunate to have worked in the field of strategy consulting and leadership development for the last 20, 25 odd years. And we focus in two areas. One is that formulation, that design facilitation, if you like, of strategy for both small teams, Australia based teams or global organisations, and then working with those leaders in a strength based approach to develop their strengths in order to execute on those strategies. In this podcast series, our plan is to have a conversation with you. We'd like it to be facilitative. We'd like you to maybe ask yourself some slightly different questions. 

But this first podcast is to introduce the vision to results framework, the research behind it, and bring that model to life so you know where to spend the majority of your time that adds the best bang for buck.

It was quite a few years time ago when we were having a partners conference from our previous company and Gerald Tappell, one of our equity partners, came and shared a story about a young man that was on a leadership development program that he had been delivering. At the end of that week, this young gentleman came up to him and said, well, look, the program was great, but I'm still going to get fired. Clearly, Gerald couldn't leave that young man just standing there with that type of emotional energy. And so he asked him to stay back and eventually got to the opportunity to ask him why. The young man said, well, look, thank you for reminding me of all of the things that I'd forgotten to do in leadership. But what would have been more useful for me is what should I consider in priority order that gives me the best chance of taking a vision and delivering a result? Because my boss gives me a goal, a target, if you like. And if I can't execute on that within 12 months in my organisation, I get fired. And Gerald brought that story to our our partners conference. And from there, Terry and I, amongst others, spent the last two to three years looking at teams that could execute well. And when I say execute well, I mean not just deliver financial results, but also deliver the emotional results with them as well. And what we found was a little bit exciting, a little bit non-expected, that we found a balance between two elements, one very rational element and one more emotional. And it's the conjugal bed, it's the balance of those two hemispheres, if you like, that enables teams, leaders, organisations to take that vision or goal and execute and deliver and make maximum the results that they could possibly deliver at the end of that strategic period. So my intention in this introduction, as I said, is to just give you a bit of a frame up of the model itself to highlight some areas that we'd like you to consider. And then for the rest of this podcast series, we'll be going through each of the 12 drivers and the two amplifiers that are the difference that makes the difference.

So let's start with explaining the vision to results or what we refer to as the VTR framework from a macro level. Four key steps I want you to focus on, all of them logical. The first is to set direction. Where is the firm going? Once we know where we're going, then we need to focus on the second section, which is all around engaging and exciting, whether they be your colleagues, whether it be your leaders or whether it be your customers. There's an element where we need to make sure that they believe and they come on the journey with us. So those first two big chunks, set direction and engage and excite, create the right environment for performance. And leaders need to be patient enough to get those elements right. In this podcast series, we'll be exploring how you create vision, the importance of strategy, how do you get people aligned? And if you do make these choices, what impact will that have on the customer experience and the employee experience? How do we get people to actually believe that we've got the right strategy to get us to our vision. And even if they believe, how can we make sure that they're fully engaged where they give their discretionary effort to help us get there?

Second, the third area is enable and execute. Now we focus on the rational components of structure. Do we have the right resources in the right areas? And do we have the action plans or operational cadence, the operating rhythm that's required to execute at the highest level? And lastly, chunk four is all around, well, once we've gained that momentum, how do we sustain it? How do we make sure that people have targeted sniper development where we're giving them the tools and the cross-training required for them to be at their best? How do we hold people to account? And last of all, how can we co-elevate where without asking for return, each person, each team and each part or function of the organisation is helping each other win? Now, set direction and enable and execute tend to be fairly rational components. The engage and excite and sustain momentum elements, however, tend to be emotional. and the connection of those two is really powerful. The second thing that we noticed is that if those first two areas around set direction, engage and excite create the right environment for performance, then enable and execute and sustain momentum is where we actually drive for results. And we're not asking you to do one of these in order, we'll be doing all of them simultaneously. But if a leader does concentrate on each one of those areas, they give themselves the best chance of taking a vision or a goal and delivering a result. 

Now, there are two amplifiers that cut through all of those drivers and sections. The first is clarity and communication. Often in engagement surveys, the number one thing that comes out is that we need more communication. The reality is that people want clarity. Your ability to give clarity in each of the drivers, 12 drivers in each of those four sections, amplifies your ability to be able to ensure that people have role clarity and goal clarity. And lastly, energy and visibility. And all I'm going to say here is how do you have the same level of energy on day 365 of the strategy than you do when you launch it on day one? How do we make sure that leaders are visible all the way through the journey and they're catching people out doing things right? 

So our intention with this podcast series, as I said, for by clients is that we're going to spend some time around each one of the drivers, vision, strategy, alignment, experience, believeability and desireability, structure, resources and action plans, development, accountability and co-elevation. And we're going to look at both of those amplifiers, clarity and energy. And we trust that that's really useful in your leadership journey.