Full Steam Ahead: Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life

This month’s focus is on planning the future.  A key success factor is having clarity of vision, as you plan for the future.  I like the approach Ken Blanchard outlined in his book Full Steam Ahead: Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life.

Patrick Lencioni, President of The Table Group and author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team penned the foreward to the book and noted that anyone who wants to create a transformation—in either one’s personal or professional life—will have to overcome the fear of rejection and can do so through the wonderfully powerful and simple lessons Blanchard outlines.

Lencioni explains, “In our work with organizations worldwide, we have observed that the biggest impediment to managers becoming great leaders is the lack of a clear vision:

  • Knowing who you are (Your Purpose);
  • Knowing where you’re going (Your Picture of the Future); and
  • What will guide your journey (Your Values).

In fact, less than 10 percent of the organizations we visited were led by managers who have a clear sense of where they are trying to lead people.”

Our world desperately needs visionary leaders.

Click here to learn how to become one

Happy National Book Lovers Day

National Book Lovers Day is celebrated on August 9 every year in the United States. This is an unofficial holiday observed to encourage reading and literature. In fact, people are advised to put away their smartphones and every possible technological distraction and pick up a book to read.

In honor of National Book Lovers Day, I offer a summary of Max DePree’s leadership masterpiece Leadership is an Art.  This is the book’s 30th anniversary of its 1989 publication.  It is an oft-quoted book among leadership books.

I picked it up in a Half-Price Bookstore in Tumwater, Washington while on a trip to speak to the State of Washington’s Department of Retirement Services.  I read it at Angle Lake Park in Seattle (pictured above)—a great setting!

Click here to enjoy a summary of Max DePree’s Leadership is an Art