The LeaderLab: Powered by LifeLabs Learning

Grow Kind: Vision Statements

• LifeLabs Learning • Season 3 • Episode 35

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In this week’s episode of The LeaderLab, we continue our discussion about how leaders can play an active role in helping their teams and people through periods of growth in the kindest way possible. We invite Massella Dukuly, Director of Team Enablement at LifeLabs Learning, to explain why using vision statements is one of the best ways to get people on board with, and even excited about, change.

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[Music by Blue Dot Sessions]

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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Leader Lab, the podcast powered by LifeLabs Learning. I'm your host, LifeLabs Leadership Trainer and Director of Product Strategy and Operations, Vanessa Tenisian. Join me and my lab mates as we distill our findings into powerful leadership tipping point skills, the smallest changes that make the biggest impact in the shortest time. We'll also welcome members from our learning community who share how they experiment with these skills in their world of work and beyond. Leader Lab listeners, welcome back to another episode about Growing Kind, Leadership Edition. How do you enable your teams to thrive while your business is scaling? Today, I have Masella Dukley on the podcast, a longtime favorite and also our director of team enablement. Welcome to the show, Masella. Hello, hello, everyone. I'm super excited to have you here to talk about Growing Kind, but I also know that you're doing a different kind of growing right now in your backyard. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00:

I am. I moved to Connecticut last year and never did I think that I'd be a green thumb. Well, I was a plant parent, but now I'm like elevated to suburban planter and it's fun. I've got roses. We've got some hydrangeas happening. I'm very into it. So you are growing kind inside and outside

SPEAKER_01:

of the workplace right now. I am. It's a good time. So my first question for you, Masella, is what were your first thoughts when you heard that growing kind was our theme for the year at LifeLabs?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great question. I actually felt really grateful because I have a work history of startups. And what's always exciting is seeing this thing that you have been part of building grow. It definitely

SPEAKER_01:

meant a lot to me as well, because with growth comes so much change, which brings that tension that can happen when we're scaling a business. So I'm curious, Masella, what are we expecting We're going

SPEAKER_00:

to be talking about how to lead change well. And this is one of my favorite topics because as leaders, sometimes we get in our head. We're often very close to whatever the change might be, meaning that there's just some sort of attachment that's a little bit different than how it might land with other people. And when we think about leading change well, the game plan is much deeper than implementation. It's also about making sure that we can get people on board.

SPEAKER_01:

What's the singular behavioral unit that we might be digging our, oh my gosh, I love these gardening puns already, digging our fingers

SPEAKER_00:

into today? Well, today we will be crafting a vision statement. And if we want to keep the plant thing going, we're thinking about really sort of pruning out all of the types of things that feel thorny and difficult for people to accept, which is often why change just doesn't land.

SPEAKER_01:

So vision statements, can you tell me what it is and

SPEAKER_00:

what are the components of it? A vision statement is a statement that you want to share with your stakeholders. We'd want them to have an idea of what the change is, understand its benefit and its impact, and then also know that you see and hear what this might mean for them. So the major components of a vision statement, that's your acknowledgement, your heart, your head, and your urgency. So we've got our acknowledgement statement appealing to the uncertainty that somebody might be experiencing. Next, we've got our heart statement. We're speaking to emotions. We're telling story. And some of us, this is like the appeal. Like for me, heart is everything. Like tell me why this matters. Tell me what we want to accomplish. Tell me we're going to make the world better. And I'm like, I'm in. Then we've got our head statement. Head is all about data, essentially. And when I say data, this could be numbers. This could be facts, research. And then last but not least, we have got our urgency statement. Why this change needs to happen now. One important thing to note is that the heart and head are interchangeable. Maybe you're a heart person. Maybe you're a head person. Maybe the people that you're talking to are head people. Most people lean towards one or the other. Usually it's your preference. So again... I'm definitely a head person. So at least we're balanced

SPEAKER_01:

on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we're definitely balanced here on the podcast. But you can see how that might be dangerous, right? Like imagine if Vanessa and I are working together on a project and I now have to present some sort of change that's going to be maybe a little bit cumbersome, at least up front. And I only lead with heart. Vanessa's like, yeah... You totally lost me. It's not happening. It's over. It's not fun. So lead with whatever you think is going to resonate. But just make sure... Okay. It sounds

SPEAKER_01:

like the four parts of a vision statement are acknowledging what's top of mind for the folks that it's impacting, speaking to emotions, that heart statement, speaking to logic or data, that head statement, and then finally the why now, that urgency statement. What would happen if we didn't use a vision statement, actually?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I want everybody to think about the last change that they went through. All of the different emotions that popped up for you. When we don't have a vision statement, often people can be confused about why it matters, how it's going to impact them. People can feel as though it wasn't co-created with their perspective in mind. And as a result... change is way less likely to succeed. There's Harvard research that talks about how 70% of change management initiatives aren't successful. And what it's really getting down to is the fact that it's easy to say that you're going to change something, but we want to make sure that the change actually sticks. And a vision statement is all about making sure that the change is something that other people buy into. Co-creation is the goal.

SPEAKER_01:

One of the things that I'm hearing you say is it's really about creating that sense of safety and belonging. I think what's interesting about growing kind from a leadership level is it keeps coming back to psychological safety, right? As we move through change.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Even what you're bringing up reminds me of our leading change workshops So I was working with a company of lovely people and this gentleman said, I loved this session so much, not because the concept of change was new, but because it hadn't dawned on me the emotional toll that it has on people on top of the smaller things that are happening in our day to day. And so thinking about how change lands just for humans in general is a great step that we can be taking as leaders to set our teams up for success.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm taking from this conversation already that we communicate change well so we can help people buy in, commit, be reinforcers of that change, or at least figure out who the detractors are. That's a great point. So in true Leader Lab fashion, I think it's time to take this thing for a spin. So can

SPEAKER_00:

you

SPEAKER_01:

help me craft a vision

SPEAKER_00:

statement? Let's do it. I'm ready. So Vanessa, let's think about a change that's happening here at LifeLabs. Can you share with me a change that you are leading or implementing?

SPEAKER_01:

So at LifeLabs, as we're growing kind, it really has us turn a lens on performance enablement and performance management. We've had in the last year, more lab mates join than ever before. So it necessitated us changing our promotion cycle to make sure that there's a little bit of ownership on our team, as well as

SPEAKER_00:

our leaders. Sounds like this change impacts a number of different audiences. Is there a particular audience that you would like to share your vision statement with?

SPEAKER_01:

Zoom out conversations are super important because Yeah. So the acknowledgement statement is, I know that this isn't the way that we used to do things and that might

SPEAKER_00:

feel a little crunchy. especially given the fact that it feels like change is happening even more rapidly these days, it is extremely important to acknowledge the fact that, hey, I know it feels like everything's changing. I know it feels like this is just another thing on top of all the other things. That can even go a long way, okay? So what about the heart? What's the vision for this change?

SPEAKER_01:

I could potentially say, when we think about career growth, especially since we teach it, one of the big components of that is ownership. And what would it look like if all of our teammates at LifeLabs really owned their career growth. And it wasn't just on the leaders to make those assessments or some annual cycle that feels meaningless.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. We have a totally different vision for what this experience is going to be like on our team. What about the head? Some data, logic?

SPEAKER_01:

So our engagement levels at LifeLabs are in the 90th percentile. And one of the things that we're working on is I do what I do best every day. And in changing the Zoom out conversations so that way people are really taking the time to assess that, we're able to make a difference in that priority metric. And last but not least, urgency. Why does this have to happen now? So the reason why this matters now is that we are growing as a company. And it's super important that we are intentional about performance management, because if we're not, it becomes a really messy, awful experience. And we want to ensure that every lab mate, whether that's tenured or new, knows exactly what's expected of them in order to advance and takes ownership of that conversation. So that way we can continue to have the engaging, wonderful workplace that we always have. And it

SPEAKER_00:

is that simple, my friends. That is a vision statement. You've got your acknowledgement, your heart, your head, your urgency statement. And again, simply a way of getting people warmed up to the change. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01:

And that brings us to our Leader Lab listener experiment. So Masella, what are we asking our listeners to experiment with in their laboratories of life?

SPEAKER_00:

All right, folks, this week's experiment, whether you are part of a change that somebody else is leading or you are leading your own change, I would like you to share a vision statement with your stakeholders. That's going to include your acknowledgement, your head and heart statement, and an urgency statement. Doing this is going to make sure that your stakeholders are bought in, they understand why the change is happening, why it needs to happen now, and it's going to make it more likely that your change is going to stick. And thanks, my gardener

SPEAKER_01:

extraordinaire, beautiful friend, for joining us in the lab. Later, friends. And that's a wrap of another episode of the Leader Lab podcast, powered by LifeLabs Learning. If you're loving the Leader Lab, subscribe so you never miss an episode. The Leader Lab is executive produced and hosted by me, Vanessa Tenisian. Alana Berman is our creative director and senior editor. Juliana Jack is our assistant editor. Lauren Feller is our associate producer. And Yadier James is our senior producer. You can find all our episodes, transcripts, and more at lifelabslearning.com slash podcast. While you're there, you can learn more about our learning programs to help you build an engaged high-impact team faster. See you in the lab.