8 Tenets of Success - Have a Clear Direction

This episode kicks off an 8-part series on my 8 Tenets of Success. We begin with the foundation of all great leadership: Having a Clear Direction.

Direction creates alignment, and helps teams understand where they're going and why it matters. In this episode, we discuss defining where you want to go, where you want to take your team, clarifying roles and responsibilities, communicating with purpose, creating buy-in, evaluating progress, and regularly revisiting what you value most.

If people don't know where they're headed, it's difficult to expect them to arrive. Great leaders create clarity, communicate consistently, and keep the vision in front of their teams.

Join me as we explore the first of the 8 Tenets of Success and how a clear vision can transform your leadership and your organization.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Average Joe Leadership Podcast, where we are unlocking the leader inside you. Or if you're already a leader, you already know you're a leader, we are just refining those leadership skills each and every time out. My name is Joseph Milms, and I am learning and leading right alongside you. Welcome back to another episode of the Average Joe Leadership Podcast. This week, I want to start something a little bit different. So I've been kicking around this idea of tenants of success, right? So uh as I've been kind of thinking through becoming growing my own leadership capacity, if you will, one of the things I was thinking about is okay, if I was to basically uh write a manual, write a book, uh have tenets of success, what would they look like? And so that was kind of one of the things I just challenged myself with was to figure out what my tenants of success would look like so that if I was leading large masses of people, then I could um drive my leadership with these eight or these tenets of success, which are eight tenants of success. And so over the next eight weeks, I'm gonna talk about each of these tenants of success. And again, you could take them all as one, or just look at each individual uh tenant and say, How can I incorporate this into my leadership, my company, my organization, my team, whatever needs to do, because each of these standalone are also great leadership uh assets, skills, qualities that will help drive any organization, any program, any company, any um team. And so, with that being said, just to kind of give you a quick overview of the eight tenants that we're gonna talk about over the next eight weeks is uh one is have a clear vision. And actually, I've I've modified that to have a clear direction. That's what we're gonna talk about more today, and I'll explain that here in just a little bit. Um be intentional in all that you do, have an expectation of accountability, be better every single day. Remember you can't do it alone. Follow up and follow through, be committed and grow others. These are the eight tenants that I believe will drive success in any organization, any program, or anything that we do. And so part of the reason that, again, I wanted to kind of explore these and unpack these is because as I continue to grow my own leadership, one of the things I want to do is just have a driving set of philosophy, a driving set of principles that just kind of guide my leadership with more intentionality. And so I believe that as we grow as leaders, a lot of us are gonna be leaders because of God's blessings. A lot of us will grow into being great leaders, a lot of us are just natural leaders. And so with that, sometimes we lead, but when you look back at your leadership skills and your leadership sets, do you really have a pinpoint on what makes you a great leader or what drives your leadership, what drives the definition of how you lead? And so kind of challenging myself, that was where I came up with these. I just really wanted to find, you know, what was it that I felt like makes a huge difference? And then I wanted to start to define them a little bit more because if I can define them more, then my belief is that then I can start to teach others. And if I'm leading an organization, clearness, being that clarity of message is going to make a huge difference and be more productive. And so I wanted to make sure that as we're going through these eight tenants of success, I could I can regurgitate them, teach them, uh, and and guide my organization that I'm gonna lead with these eight tenants of success with so much clarity that people can get on board and help follow through and execute whatever we needed to execute, whatever goals and whatever vision, whatever direction we want to go, um that's what we can do. So, with that being success, uh with that being said, excuse me, we're gonna drive towards success with our eight tenants of success over the next eight weeks. So let's dive right in again to the very first one, which is have a clear vision. Nay, have a clear direction. Initially, I said have a clear vision. I mean, because that's that's what we hear all the time, right? Is that you gotta have a clear vision. You gotta have a mission, a vision, a clear vision in whatever organization. But I was listening to uh a podcast or a sermon the other day, and it was a pastor actually that was kind of doing this leadership lessons and podcasts. And the thing that I found that was fascinating and kind of mind-blowing, because like I've had this have a clear vision written down for quite a while, and I've recently just kind of modified it to the have a clear direction. He said that we can all have a vision. We can all have something written on the back of a t-shirt, we can all have something written on a wall, we can have something on a bumper sticker, whatever, but the vision gets us nowhere. It's the direction that matters, it's the direction that's going to make a difference in where we go and what we accomplish and the actions that we take in order to, you know, make that vision come to life. And so, really, before we really have a clear vision per se, we need to have a direction. In having this direction, you're gonna establish where you want to go. So the very first part of that is where do you want to go? So if you're leading a team, and let's just use a sports team as a reference, you as a coach or a general manager or an owner of a sports team, you're you may want to go to the pinnacle. You may want to go to the Super Bowl, the World Series, the World Cup, whatever. We are World Cup season, right? That may be your goal. And so you have to establish where do you want to go. For somebody like myself who's in education, I want to take my campus to higher levels of achievement. So while it's kind of an interesting facet when you're in education, we are rated on, especially in public schools in Texas, on an A through F accountability system. And while we don't have to necessarily agree with every aspect of the rating system, that is, in the grand scheme of things, our report card. And so the thing that I will tell you about that is that the growth of students is an impact and a factor of this A to F accountability. And so in my brain, I connect the dots to say, hey, I want to take my campus to a higher A to F accountability because uh, one, it is going to show that we are growing kids. It is going to show that we are doing right by students. And so in the grand scheme of things, we where I want to take my team, where we want to go, is a higher letter grade for our A to F accountability. You might be in corporate business world and you might want to take your team to higher sales levels. You might want to have more client impact, better customer service. You might want to win a particular award in your industry or standard. So a lot of different things you can decide to do as the leader of an organization. But the first thing you have to do is almost establish, like I said, in a in a way, in a roundabout way, is that vision of where you want to go. The next part of this is where do you want to take your team? Okay. And the reason those are two different things, where do you want to go and where do you want to take your team are two different things because where you want to go and where you want to take your team may line up nicely. If you have a veteran team and you've got a team that it's all in sync, you know, running in stride, rowing the boat in the same direction, everybody's got the same vision, everybody's got the same goal, everybody's locked in like that, then it may be exactly the same thing. Oh, hey, I want to take my team to the mountaintop. But the reality is this is that it's not always the case. You can be on a team that has rookies, you can be on a team that has new people, and where they personally want to go, because again, everybody's gonna have an individual answer to that question, right? Where do you want to go? Because as a leader of teams, you've got many teams all the way down, right? All the way down the chain, you have many teams, and each of those teams are gonna have a different vision of where they want to go and where they want to take their people and so on and so forth. And so when you start talking about taking your team to a certain place, then it starts to change the dynamic. Because if all of the direction of all the different teams and all the different layers that you have within your organization or within your team, if all of them are moving in the right direction, then you as an organization are gonna move in the right direction. So when you start talking about where you want to take your team, now you're kind of breaking down, you're narrowing your focus to say, okay, I need to improve my team's capacity. So I want to take my team down this pathway that's going to improve their capacity to grow sales, improve their capacity to uh improve customer service. I need to grow my teachers in a manner to better serve their students. I need to grow my administrators in a manner to better create systems and hold people accountable to those systems so that we are creating better teachers, so that those teachers are creating better students and so on and so forth. So it just goes down that path. And so when you talk about where you want to go, that's the big large end game. But all the little things in between, you have to start focusing on those teams. Where do you want to take your team? And again, if you're if you're the CEO of a company, you might have a different direction for each of your teams, right? And so, for example, let's say that you have a retail organization, a retail business. So you might have a team that is super customer service oriented, but they struggle on the sales side. Well, you want to win an award, let's just say, for a great retail company of the world. And what happens is you may say, hey, we're gonna keep we're gonna keep on with our high levels of customer service, but we're going to shift our focus to increase our, you know, revenue stream. We're gonna we're gonna increase our sales. So we're gonna start to teach our team to maintain the customer service, but also start giving them strategies for upselling or giving them strategies for you know locking customers into sales and and deals and different types of programming so that they can increase sales within the same company. So while you might want to win this award that includes customer service, that includes sales, that includes you know, all the different things, you may already you need to focus your team specifically on an area of just sales or something to that to that nature. Again, like like for me in education, which is much easier for me to speak to as I fumble through some of this retail stuff, is that I want to take my math team, for example, my math team has got to get better at getting their students to be successful on the standardized test. And so that's step number one. They're at a lower level of need than let's say my English team. On my English team, my English team does a great job. We're getting students coming from the middle schools and to the high schools that are already at a basic level of passing. Now we have to increase their level of knowledge and we have to bring them higher and grow those students' capacity to higher levels, to a grade level at grade level or above grade level. Where I'm just working on getting my math team to get those gaps closed so we're getting closer and closer to the grade level. So it's two different strategies and two different directions I need to take my team because down one strategy it's going to be about practice, it's going to be about getting students the extra repetition in the classroom. On the other side, it's going to be about getting my students, my teachers to get their students to start really thinking and critically thinking and diving deeper and adding rigor and adding deeper levels of conversation and discourse in the classroom because it's just different types of learning, different types of education, if you will. And so uh again, that second part of this, after you know where you want to go globally, is to start looking at your specific teams and where do you want to go as a team? Where do you want to take your teams? And then from there, as you start to identify those things, then you start to talk about specifically the roles and responsibilities of the individuals on these teams or within your organization in order to ensure everyone moves in that direction. Because at this point, again, we're creating systems. I'm a big systems guy. So you figured out where you want to go, you have an idea of where you want to take your team, what their specific needs are. Now you got to create the roles and responsibilities within those teams because you're creating that clarity of message. You're creating an opportunity and you're setting them up for success so that they can get better every single day. And so that way they can move in the direction that you need them to go. So again, I'm gonna use another sports analogy because it's slightly easier. But for my son, he was a uh college baseball player and he was a pitcher. And then he's tall, really, really skinny. Well, for him, and this is gonna be a very low-level example, but for him, if I'm the head coach of his college team, where I need him, his mechanics were fine, his pitches were fine, you know, his VLO was okay. Um, but what I needed from him as a freshman in college, his role and responsibility is to put time in the weight room. His whole role and responsibility is to focus on his nutrition because he needed to gain 25, 30 pounds. If he gains 25 or 30 pounds, he will be that much more of a dominating force. Now, again, he's going to continue working on his mechanics and he's going to continue to work on his craft of pitching, but he also has a responsibility to his health. He's also got a responsibility to his fitness and his training that maybe a guy that's coming in already, you know, in great physical condition doesn't need to focus on that where he needs to focus on, you know, the mechanics piece. So you're really identifying the roles and responsibilities for each of your members on your team. You know, for me, I actually just finished today creating some of the roles and responsibilities, or at least assigning some of the roles and responsibilities to my assistants so that they know specifically where they're working on. Like I got an assistant that's gonna oversee the special populations on our campus. Their job is to specifically lock in on our special education students, on our 504 students, on our English language acquisition students, you know, they're gonna focus on those areas and we're gonna specialize that particular administrator to make sure he's focused on those particular areas so he doesn't get in the weeds of everything else and he can lock in on that area to move those particular kids. And so we are gonna identify the roles and responsibilities because in my brain, if we have one particular person working on those students, now it frees up other people to work on other things. And now we're all starting to do a job that moves us in the global direction of improving our A to F accountability rating. My son gaining weight is going to move the team in a global direction because as he gains weight and he becomes more physically imposing, he's going to add more to his mechanics and he's going to be a more dominating pitcher, which is then going to give the coach more options for pitching, which is then going to give them more flexibility as they start to go towards, you know, the playoffs and World Series and so on and so forth. So you really have to start focusing on roles and responsibilities of each of your people. And some of you probably already have those in your organization, but you probably have them at a very surface level. Like if you're and again, in retail and you might you might have a front-end manager. Well, that front-end manager has jobs and a duty, jobs description that probably says something along the lines of customer service, overseeing the cashiers, making sure that everybody is working at an efficient level, so on and so forth. But what this level of roles and responsibility is asking for is to really lock in and say, okay, you as the front end manager, you have a role and responsibility, but now you have to create roles and responsibility for each of your cashiers. What do each of your cashiers need to work on? What is their role and their responsibility? Yes, it's generic, but what do you need to specifically lock in and say, hey, you're responsible for getting better at customer service? Make eye contact, be friendly, greet the individuals. I mean, and I know that sounds crazy, but you guys have been into any kind of retail organization or fast food or anything like that. That's not normal anymore. So teaching them that, hey, that's part of their responsibility to grow in that area makes it clear. And again, you're moving that needle to a more specified need. You're breaking it down for that individual to make it very clear, to make it very understandable that that individual now needs to work on this. If he can get better there, he's gonna move the organization into that global direction that we're all trying to go as a whole. So again, create those very specific, clear roles and responsibilities in order to move the team in that direction. And I've said this a whole bunch of times, kind of ingrained throughout, but clear communication around your direction is going to be vitally important. So, again, you as a leader of your organization, this is where you might come in and establish a mission and a vision for your organization. So a lot of, and again, uh we'll talk more about this at another time. Uh, we've kind of talked a little bit about it before, but you as a leader might say, okay, what's the mission of our organization? What's the vision of our organization? You establish that, you know, and once you establish that, then you clearly communicate around that, right? Because that's going to set the tone of the global vision. And then what you're going to do is start to say, hey, look, this is that mission and vision we've talked about. That's the vision, but it's just a writing on a wall if we don't have clear direction. And so as you're communicating, are you communicating in a manner in which you are ingraining everything you do around that global direction? Around that direction. Hey, at the end of the day, yes, our vision is to, and I'm just throwing something out there generically, but our vision is to grow kids holistically so that they can be competitive in a global marketplace, right? So they can be successful in an ever-changing world. These are all very generic type uh educational missions. But when we are talking about the direction, we can say, hey, as we create a role in responsibility, does what you are doing, is what you are doing, going to move us in the direction towards creating this competitive student, this holistic student, so they can be successful in an innovative global marketplace? You can ask that question on a pretty regular basis. Is that what's happening? Because we want to communicate and we want to remind the stakeholders, the players in the game, we want to remind them regularly. What is the mission and vision? Why is it that we're on this path in this direction? And is everything we're doing going that way? Because if it's not, then we're wasting time. So at the end of the day, if I'm trying to create a holistic student and I want that student to learn as much as possible and have value in everything they do, and I go into an English class and they're watching, you know, um Lion King or Little Mermaid, or they're watching some random cartoon, and there's no reason for watching the movie. They're just doing a long extended brain break, if you will. How is that making our student holistically better? How is that making our student globally competitive? Because in the grand scheme of things, is while I could argue and I can create lessons that allow us to watch some of these movies, but then we are going to analyze, break down, synthesize, and we're going to connect learning to that movie, that's going to move towards the global direction that we're talking about. But if you're going in there and you're watching kids just lounging in a classroom watching a movie and they're not taking notes, they're not prepping for a project, they're not asking questions, they're not breaking down the film or whatever, then you're not moving in the direction that you need to. So then what happens is you can ask that question, hey, does this match our vision? Are we is this part of the direction that we're going? And that's how you start to hold people accountable. And that's how you, and again, if you're one of those people who are executing the direction, trying to take the students, trying to take the team, trying to take the organization down that direction, you take that mission and vision statement and say, hey, is what I'm doing today taking us in a direction towards accomplishing this goal? And if you ever do some self-evaluation and self-reflection and your answer is no, then you need to change what you're doing. You need to modify it, you need to do better, you need to get better so that you can actually move in the direction that you need to go. So again, clear communication around that direction. And again, that's got to come from the leader. You, as the leader, have to set that clear communication. Nobody's gonna guess it. Nobody's gonna, and if in fact, if they have to guess it because you're not communicating, you're not talking about it enough, they're gonna miss the boat. They're gonna miss it completely. So you're going to have to be the one that sets that clear direction. You're gonna have to set that mission and vision, and you're gonna have to really start to train your people to ask the question and say, hey, is Everything that we're doing moving us down the direction that we are looking to do. Okay, as we move into the last couple things, how are you going to establish buy-in? What's the buy-in process? Because again, all great organizations that run smoothly, that are super successful, if you peel back the layers and you get to peek inside their day-to-day operation, what you're going to find is a large number of staff on a successful organization are bought in. They're bought into the direction that everybody's going. They're bought into that vision. That's why they're on the clear path, the clear direction, because they believe in what they're doing. And so some of that starts at the hiring practice. And we're not going to dive into that today because that's not the point of today, but you got to hire people who are going to follow directions. Yes, last week we talked about hiring the assistant that's going to make the principal look good. You're going to have to hire a building and organization that's going to make the company look good as a whole. And the reason that you they do that is because when they come in to interview, you're interviewing, you're hiring people who are going to lock in on whatever the direction, the vision, the mission of your organization, your team, your company, your church, whatever is, because they're excited to do what you're wanting to do. So if we're trying to to, you know, we're trying to give everybody high quality customer service. The person that you hire, the people on your team, they all need to believe in giving people high co high uh quality customer service. You can't have people on your team that say, look, I'm just here for a paycheck. I don't, you know, at the end of the day, I don't care, you know, if if we are serving all these people with our politeness. You you don't. And so you can't have people like that. One of the things I think is fascinating about a company like a Chick-fil-A, you go into Chick-fil-A and you feel like everybody that works at Chick-fil-A wants to be there, that they love working at Chick-fil-A. I was just uh on on a little mini vacation with my wife, and um we were sitting by this pool, and I was looking at this lifeguard, and I looked at my wife, and I jokingly said, I said, Man, that kid hates his life. Because that kid is just sitting there and he's just staring off into oblivion and looking like he's contemplating all his life choices. And so I thought to myself, man, you know, this guy again, it's not that he's not representing his organization well, but it's clear he doesn't want to be there. And so my thought is, is he awake? You know, if I'm drowning, is he really going to try to save me? Does he care that much? You know, these are the things you have to think about when you have your people. So that buy-in piece, how are you gonna get your people to buy in? And that's that's a tough question. That's a very difficult thing to accomplish with a lot of people, especially the bigger your organization is, is how do you get, you know, a thousand people in your organization to buy into the same goal? Again, I think it starts with hiring practices, but I also think it starts with that clear communication, that clear message, and the clear constant, which we're gonna talk about here in just a second, reminders of saying, hey, this is why we're here. This is what we're here to do, this is what we're to accomplish. You know, in my mind, and I'm not gonna use the Cowboys as an example because it's probably not the greatest example, but for the longest time, if you look at the Yankees and the things that they were doing, they wanted to win. They wanted to do everything it took to win. And so every decision they were making, to the pinstripes that they wore, to the having the shave the facial hair, to the money that they spent, all the things that they did, their organization was about winning. That's what they wanted to do. And everybody they hired in that organization wanted, should, and speak to winning. And if you didn't, you probably didn't work there. And so it's very important that you sell that that vision, sell that mission, and then again get people to on board. And to me, one of the things I'm gonna challenge myself to do this year as we roll out a new mission and a new vision and a new direction this year is I'm gonna ask people when they're not meeting standard, when they're not meeting expectation, I'm gonna ask people, why is it? What is it that you don't believe in the mission and vision? If you don't want to grow holistic students, if you don't want to make students better, if you don't want to close the gap, if you don't want to be the best version of yourself and you don't want to make students the best version of themselves, tell me why that is. Why are you doing what you're doing? Because at the end of the day, that's what you're here for, that's what you're getting a paycheck for. And you got to have those conversations, you gotta have those accountability conversations, you and you have to try to instill current confidence and encourage them and motivate them. And if they can't do it, then you have to kind of encourage them to maybe do some self-reflection to find out if they're doing the job that they really need to do. But you got to get that buy-in because that buy-in is going to make a huge difference. And if everybody's buying in and everybody's moving the same direction, again, it's a great analogy of a boat. If you've got all these people rowing one of them old Viking ships, and you've got, you know, 50 guys at the bottom of this Viking ship, all with their, you know, paddles and oars and their and they're rowing. If every one of those guys is like, hey, I'm just gonna do what I want to do, that boat's gonna go nowhere, and it's gonna go nowhere fast when in all reality, if you're chasing another boat or you've got to run from another boat, everybody's got to be moving fast in the right direction. And so that's where you really need that buy-in to come into place. Everybody paddles, rows in the same direction so you can get to the goal that you're trying to, that clear direction that you're going to. And then as we get closer to the end here, a couple more things. Evaluation, make sure you're constantly evaluating, checking out data. How are you progressing in that direction? It's got to be clear direction, but then check it. When you have that clear direction, is the data say you're moving in the direction you need to? Use the data as a conversation piece to talk to your organization. Hey, we're not moving in the right direction. You know, our sales are not going up, they're going down, in fact. So why are sales going down? Let's evaluate what's causing our sales to go down. What's the issue there? Why are we not growing students? You know, test scores are revealing that students are regressing in their learning. You know, hey, we're starting to lose ball games. What is it that we're doing wrong? You know, do we change the way we practice? Do we change our game plan? Do we change our approach? You know, mentally, are we tired? Do we need a break? Because here's the thing is you might have a clear direction, a clear vision, a clear system, a clear operation. But at some point you might have to shift gears or you might have to pause, you might have to take a break because you know, after a while, people get tired or people get worn out or they get burnt out or they get exhausted. So as you're using that data, maybe that data is telling you, hey, shift gears, do something different, or hey, maybe it's time to breathe a little bit, take a break. Maybe some people need a pickup. You know, what are you gonna do for a pygmy up? So, with that being said, celebrate. If you're doing great things and your data showing that you're moving in the right direction, celebrate. Celebrate with your student, uh, your people, your team, your organization, and tell them that they're doing great things. Keep the motivation and the energy high and the buy-in high because they're doing awesome things and you guys can celebrate. So any chance you can to celebrate, celebrate. The funny thing is, that's one of my weaker areas, and that I'm gonna, again, do better on this year in order to keep that energy and that motivation high. And then last but not least, be transparent. Update, keep an update on the direction. How are things going? Make sure you're telling your company, your organization, your crew that, hey, we're doing well, or you know what, we're missing the mark here. So, and maybe that's time for a strategic meeting. Let's bring in some stakeholders. Why are we missing the mark? What's keeping us from following our direction and being clear on our goals? And bring in your people and ask those questions as we update. And then make sure you're transparent because at the end of the day, if people don't know there's a problem, they can't fix a problem. So update them on the direction, celebrate them if things are going well and you know, keep the troops uh you know happy, fed, and moving down the right track. And if they're struggling, let's let's look at root cause analysis. What's the problem? What's slowing us down? And don't be afraid, and this is again another conversation for a different time, but don't be afraid to collaborate with your stakeholders. Bring the people in who are executing the direction, who are moving down the road with you, bring them in and get their input. Find out. So you can make sure you're updating that on a constantly regular basis, and then of course, always do self-evaluation. You, as the leader, what are you doing to move the direction? Do you need to change something? Have you shifted your mindset? Are you doing what you're supposed to do? Because you got to lead by example. You know, I'm a big believer in servant leadership, but you also got to lead by example. And so you got to make sure that if you're gonna stand on the front on the pulpit that you're following the word, okay? So make sure you're uh self-evaluating as well. And then last but not least, and I've said this already once before, but you got to constantly revisit. I used to have a superintendent that I worked for, one of the best superintendents I've ever worked for, and uh she used to always say, revisit what you value. And so the same thing here. Go back and revisit all the time and remind people what is the direction that we're going. Because again, and I've mentioned it before, whether it's weekly, whether it's bi-weekly, monthly, whatever it is, and that's a great way to tie back into your vision and mission, but always go back and say, hey, remember where we started. Remember what we started for this year. Our goal was X, Y, Z. This is the direction that we wanted to move. This is the direction everybody was fired up to move. This is where we're pushing each other to go. This is where we're all traveling together. We're in the work together, we're doing it together. This is just a reminder, but constantly remind them because again, sometimes we forget. We forget all the time. And I mean, think about it. I think about again, I'm gonna use my son as an example. You know, um, he he had a goal at one point to play Division I, you know, college baseball. And as he kept going down the path, you know, he got distracted, uh, he got discouraged, he got injured. Things happened, right? And so what happens is when these things get in there, they start to um become noise, they start to create walls, and they start to create separation from that original vision and direction that he wanted to go. And so somewhere down the road, he needed to revisit what his goals were. And if you revisit what your goals are, you might have to change. You might have to update it, you might have to um change your path or change your direction because maybe your goal wasn't realistic, or maybe uh you have accomplished your goal already. But in all reality, at the end of the day, if you don't revisit that goal, sometimes it just fades away. Um, another great example of this is think about New Year's resolutions. How many times are New Year's resolutions lost? Because we just forget, we don't remind ourselves. And so we're trying to lose weight, so we go to the gym, we hit it hard and heavy in January and February, and then we get tired, and then you know things start to happen, and spring break comes along, and so then it's nice outside, so we're not going to the gym as much, and then we actually forget or lose sight of what our goal was, and then we start making uh decisions that take us away in the opposite direction of where we want to go. So we're kind of going away from our direction and trajectory, and so then what happens is we lose sight of our goal, or we get discouraged because we feel like we're so far off track, we can't get back on track. So we've got to consistently and constantly revisit what we value, revisit that direction, remind the people on your team, remind the organization on your team where we're doing, what we're doing, and why we're doing it. And especially if you're playing 162-game season, like in the Major League Baseball, 82 game season, the basketball, you know, you've got 177, 187, however many days it is in school nowadays. I mean, you you these are long years, these are long seasons. And so you gotta constantly remind them of why they're doing what they're doing, uh, and and just kind of give them that prompting and that poking because it matters, okay? So, with that being said, you know, uh, this is the first tenet of success in my head, is that is that clear direction. Have that clear direction. Where do you want to go? Where do you want to take your team? Create clear roles and responsibilities in order to move that in that direction. Have clear communication around the direction you want to use. Again, this is where you start to tie in that mission and vision statement. If you want to have that or you should have that, you got to buy, get that buy-in. You got to build that buy-in up and then evaluate. Evaluate your progress, use data specifically, don't just use your eyeball test. Celebrate when you can celebrate, and then consistently revisit what you value. Revisit it, tie it back to the mission, remind people of why you're doing what you're doing, remind people of the direction that you started off with so that you can hit that goal. Because we want to at the end of the every year, every year, every quarter, however you're celebrating, we want to celebrate. You want to hit those goals, you want to execute. In order to do that, you got to follow those those steps. You have to have that clear direction. Once you start losing clarity on that direction, then all of a sudden you're getting all off course, out of whack, and it's hard to get back, and then you just are scraping to just to just survive, and and you gotta stay away from just the survival mode. All right, guys, that's it for this week's episode of Average Joe Leadership. I appreciate your time as always. And as always, guys, be better today than you were yesterday. All right, people, let's grow, people.