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Communicating Vision So People Follow - Episode 25 · Profit and Principle

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Most leaders think they've communicated their vision.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Their people would tell you a different story.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: The leader has said it.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: They set it at the all hands.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: They put it in the deck.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: They referenced it in the email they sent at the beginning of the year.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's on the website.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the job descriptions.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: As far as they're concerned, the vision has been communicated.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: What they don't understand is that saying a thing is not the same as communicating it.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And communicating it once is not the same as communicating it in a way that actually changes how people make decisions on a Tuesday afternoon when no one is watching.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: The test of whether your vision has been communicated is not whether you said it.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: The test is whether your team can say it back to you, in their own words, with conviction at a moment when they are not being evaluated.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: If they can't, the vision lives in your head.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And a vision that only lives in the leader's head is not a vision.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a secret.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Daryl Stein.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is Profit and Principle, and this is the last episode in our communication series.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Over the past five episodes, we've talked about the weight of your words, the courage required to give honest feedback, the discipline of genuine listening, and how to handle toxic communication.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Today we close the communication series with what may be the highest stake communication challenge any leader faces, articulating a future that doesn't yet exist clearly enough that people will sacrifice for it.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: You'll walk away with three scriptural frameworks for vision communication, a diagnostic for whether your current vision has actually landed, and two specific practices to carry into your organization this week.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let me describe the cost of vision that hasn't been communicated, because I think most leaders dramatically underestimate it.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: The first cost is alignment, or more precisely, its absence.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: When the vision hasn't been clearly communicated, every person in the organization defaults to their own mental model of what the organization is trying to do.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Those models are not the same.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: They are shaped by each person's role, their history within the company, their assumptions about what matters.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: The result is an organization where everyone is working and almost no one is working toward the same thing.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: The energy is real, the coherence is not.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: The second cost is decision making quality.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Vision is not just an aspirational statement, it's a decision filter.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: When a team member faces a choice between two good options, the clearest guide to the right one is the organization's vision.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Which option moves us closer to what we're trying to become?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Without a clear internalized vision, that question can't be answered reliably.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: People make decisions based on local optimization.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: What's best for their function, their metrics, and their immediate situation.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Reasonable choices that may or may not be the right ones for the organization as a whole.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: A leader who has communicated vision well is multiplying their own judgment across every decision point in the organization, even the ones they're not in the room for.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: The third cost is recruitment and retention.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: People don't leave organizations.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: They leave situations that feel purposeless.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the reverse is equally true.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Talented people will take less money, absorb more difficulty, and stay longer in organizations where they believe in what they are building.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: The leader who can articulate a compelling vision, clearly, specifically, repeatedly, and in a way that connects to the work people are actually doing is operating one of the most powerful retention tools available at no additional cost.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: A vision that lives only in your head is not doing any of that work.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: The question isn't whether you have a vision, the question is whether you've communicated it in a form that can travel.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take a look and see what Scripture says.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's look at Habakkuk chapter two, verse two.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it says this, and the Lord answered me, write the vision, make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: The context matters here.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Habakkuk is a prophet wrestling with what God is doing in a confusing and painful moment in history.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: He cries out, and God answers with a vision of what is coming.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then God gives him specific instructions about how to handle that vision.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say think about it.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say hold it in your heart.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says write it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Make it plain.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Put it in a form that can be carried, shared, and acted on by someone other than you.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now the phrase in Hebrew for make it plain, it means to engrave, to make something unmistakably clear.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: It carries a sense of cutting something into stone rather than scratching it lightly in sand.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: God is telling Habakkuk that vague vision is not sufficient.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The vision must be rendered with enough clarity and specificity that the person who encounters it can run, that they can move forward toward it immediately without requiring further interpretation.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: For the business leader, this is a direct instruction about the form your vision needs to take, not an abstraction, and it's not a ten-word tagline that sounds meaningful but tells no one anything specific.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Something specific, written, and clear enough that a person who reads it really knows what they're supposed to do with it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: The test God gives Habakkuk is the test.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Can someone run who reads it?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Can they take it and go without needing you in the room to explain what it means?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look next at Proverbs chapter 29, verse 18.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It says this, where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the most misquoted and misapplied verses in Proverbs, and getting it right matters for the business leader.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: The word translated vision means a prophetic word.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a communication from God that gives the people a framework for understanding where they are and where they are going.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is not simply an ambition or a goal.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's an orienting word that provides clarity about direction and meaning.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the phrase cast off restraint, it means to become ungoverned.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: It means to break loose from appropriate structure.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon is describing what happens to a community that has no orienting framework.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not explosive rebellion necessarily, but a gradual dissolution of cohesion.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: People begin doing what seems right to them individually.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: The shared sense of where things are going, and therefore what is worth doing and what isn't, well that evaporates.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: The organization doesn't fall apart suddenly, it drifts.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: The business application here is direct.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: A team without a clear, communicative vision doesn't mutiny, it drifts.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: People pursue their own priorities, they optimize for their own metrics, and they make reasonable decisions that serve their own area rather than the whole.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: The leader who looks at a drifting organization and can't understand why people aren't aligned is almost always a leader who has not yet given their people an orienting vision clear enough to prevent the drift.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now finally, let's look at Nehemiah chapter two, verses seventeen through eighteen.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then I said to them, You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me, and also of the words that the king had said to me, and they said, Let us rise up and build, so they strengthened their hands for the good work.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah may be the finest case study in vision communication in all of Scripture.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: He arrives in Jerusalem with nothing but a cupbearer's credentials and a clear picture of what needs to happen.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: He has no army, he has no budget, and no workforce, just a vision and a conversation.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And within a day of arriving and surveying the ruins, he's gathered the people and he speaks.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the structure of what he says.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: He begins with honest diagnosis.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: You see the trouble we are in, the ruins, the burn gates.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: He names the current reality without softening it.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Then he issues the call.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Come, let's build.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then he names the purpose, that we may no longer suffer derision.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then, and this is really important, he grounds it in something beyond himself, the hand of my God that has been upon me.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's not just reporting his own ambition, he is inviting people into a work that is larger than any individual.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the response is immediate, let us rise up and build, and they strengthen their hands for the good work.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: So they fortified themselves.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: They took a firm hold on this.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: This describes a kind of commitment that precedes sustained, difficult effort.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Fifty-two days later, the wall of Jerusalem was complete.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: An engineering and organizational feat that had been impossible for decades, well, it happened because one leader knew how to communicate a vision in a way that produced genuine commitment rather than grudging compliance.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah's four elements, the honest diagnosis, the clear call, a named purpose, and a grounding beyond self are as applicable in your business as they were in the ruins of Jerusalem.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give you a contrast between two leaders at the same inflection point.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: A technology services firm has just lost its second largest client.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: The CEO needs to communicate to the company what happens next.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Alright.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: The first CEO sends out an all-company email.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It has four paragraphs.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: It acknowledges the loss, describes the steps being taken to stabilize the business, expresses confidence in the team, and ends with a forward-looking statement about the firm's commitment to delivering value for the clients.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's honest, it's professional, and it says nothing that could be objected to.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And within 12 hours of sending it, the informal channel is running at full capacity.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: People are comparing notes about what it really means, whether layoffs are coming, which of the remaining clients are at risk.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: The email that was supposed to orient people has produced the casting off restraint condition that Solomon described.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: There is ungoverned interpretation.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: There is individual anxiety filling a vacuum where clear direction should be.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: She walks in with nothing but a whiteboard.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: She draws the current state of the business.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: She talks about the revenue, the client concentration, and the gap that just opened.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: She names it plainly and doesn't spin it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then she draws where they need to be in twelve months specifically.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then she says, Here are the three things we are going to do to get from here to there, and here is what each of you can contribute.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: She ends by saying, I believe this firm was built for exactly this kind of moment.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let's build.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Same situation, same external reality.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: One produced drift, and the other produced clarity.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: There were people who strengthened their hands for the good work.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the difference was not charisma, it was clarity, honesty, and a specific vision communicated in a way that people could run with.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: So what's the application?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's one thing.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Run the Habakkuk diagnostic on your current vision.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Write your organization's vision in one or two sentences right now, from memory, without looking anything up.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then ask yourself this if I handed this to someone on my team and walked away, could they run with it?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Could they make a meaningful decision based on it?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Could they explain to a new hire what this organization is building and why it matters?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: If the honest answer is no, if the vision is vague, abstract, or too long to remember, then God's instruction to Habakkuk is your assignment.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Make it plain.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Write it clearly enough that someone could run who reads it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: A vision that requires the leader to be in the room to explain is not yet a vision.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's still a private thought.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the other thing you can do.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Use Nehemiah's four elements to communicate a real challenge to your team this week.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need an all hands meeting and a crisis to practice this.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Find a real moment, maybe something like a team meeting, a one-on-one with a manager, an email to your leadership group, and apply Nehemiah structure deliberately.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Have an honest diagnosis of the current situation, a clear call to action, a named purpose that connects to something worth doing, and a grounding that points beyond individual ambition.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: That last piece is often the one leaders omit.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah just didn't say, I have a plan.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: He said, The hand of my God has been on this.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was inviting people into a story larger than himself.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: The leaders who communicate vision most effectively are the ones who can do the same.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me encourage you here.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is the last episode in the communication series, and I want to close it with something that's been underneath all five episodes.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everything we've talked about, the weight of your words, the courage to give honest feedback, the discipline of listening, refusing toxic communication, and now communicating vision.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: All of this is in service of the same thing, which is building something real with people you're responsible for.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is what leadership is.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're not just executing strategy, you are shaping a community of people who are spending a significant portion of their lives doing something together.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: The communication you practice or neglect determines whether that community has clarity, trust, and shared purpose, or whether it drifts.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah arrived at ruins and communicated a vision so clearly that in fifty-two days the walls were up.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have more resources than Nehemiah had.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have the same God.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Make the vision plain, let them run.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for you.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray for every leader listening right now who carries a vision they haven't yet found the words for, who can see where they're trying to go, but hasn't yet made it plain enough for their people so that they can run with it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Give them clarity, give them the courage to name the honest current reality before they cast the future.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Give them the wisdom of Nehemiah to connect the immediate call to a purpose worth sacrificing for, and to point beyond their own ambition to something larger, and give them the patience to communicate it not once but repeatedly in every room until it lives not just in their head, but in the hands of everyone who is building alongside them.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I thank you for joining me for this episode of Profit and Principle.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't been to our website yet, I encourage you to visit Profitandprinciple.com.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: There you're going to find several free resources.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, you can listen to this podcast again at the very top of the website.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you scroll down towards the bottom, you will find a one-page PDF that you can simply download and print out, and you can work through that uh with a small group, or you can do that on your own to further unpack this particular uh episode.
• 18:40
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• 18:50
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• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for listening.
• 18:58
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• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: So may the Lord bless you this week.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll be back with us next week as we begin a new series for Prophet and Principal.