Alternate Title:  Blurry Vision is a Result of Lazy Leadership

There are two questions in this article’s title.  The answer to the second one is “definitely maybe”.  The answer to the first will change every time depending upon whom you ask.

After having seen a few of these technical overviews at a particular large national client, I would have to say that they are only marginally beneficial.  The reason I answer this way is because the technical overviews were performed before the an adequate understanding of the basic business functionalities had been laid.

There is “the way it is”, and there is “the way it should be” (or at least the way I think it should be).

What I have seen is this: very smart people with lots of knowledge sharing their screens with dozens of people who know very little about the application being discussed.   These SME’s (subject matter experts) showed and discussed only databases and tables.  There were no process flows; no depiction or discussion of the business process flows or how the users actually use the application.  There was little insight shared about the big picture or why the application even exists.  Things apparently were started and continue to perpetuate under the silent and false assumption that everyone has the same point of reference as the tenured SMEs leading the meeting.  And as is typical with that type of paradigm, those who don’t know what is going on are intimidated into not asking questions out of fear of looking ignorant.  Have you ever seen this before or had it happen to you?

Imagine that you want to know what an application is and what it does, and you want to know how it is used.  So, does starting off with several minutes (or several hours in some cases) of images and talk about database schemas and SQL queries help you?  No, of course not.  And that is exactly why on several occasions new team members have come to me in confidence to voice their concerns about the confusion and void of knowledge around the core applications they are supposed to support.  In the end, I can serve only to assure them that they are not stupid, and that there is indeed a deeper root to the problem – one which, no matter how hard they try, they can never solve unless middle or upper management commits to defeating it.

While these technical overviews might be helpful to people who are already familiar with the application, they do little for the newbies or even for many veterans.  That is my beef.  Many organizations are too busy keeping in motion that they don’t think about direction.  The problem might at first appear to be of a tactical nature.  But it is not.  It is more systemic than that.   The problem is the lack of strategic vision.  There is a lack at the lower levels of the organization because there is a lack of intentional prioritization at the upper levels.  The deeper you analyze, the more undeniably revealed is the truth that at the root is the want for needed leadership.

There, I said it.  When there is a lack of vision within an organization, it is because of the dereliction of that aspect of leadership.  If not dereliction, then neglect.  I do not intend to be harsh.  But instead the reality is harsh that the top leaders of the organization should be well enough in tune with their downlines that they know whether their strategic visions are being disseminated and articulated to the ends of the earth and the ends of their org.  They should have their fingers on the pulse of their organizations.  If they don’t, it is because of ignorance at best, or maybe laziness or something else at worst.  Regardless, it is incompetence in my opinion.

Many people in leadership positions believe that vision dissemination should occur only at the top-of-the-enterprise level.  But I disagree.  In addition to your Michael Dells and your Steve Jobs and Your Bill Gates and your other charismatic and iconic-or-not CEOs evangelizing the corporate dream and vision, you should also have department heads and group managers and team leads communicating their smaller parts of the big plan to everyone.  And while there are a lot of excellent leader types in the lower ranks who do their best, it is only when the top organizational leaders consciously, willfully, and purposely promote vision dissemination that everyone can hope to see things clearly.  The more complicated the nature of the business, the more important the need.

So, enough of my ranting.  Let’s talk about you.  Does your company have vision?  Can you see it?  Do your superiors and top managers and executives consciously endeavor to promote that vision to the ends of the org?  What is the best example of vision articulation and promotion that you have seen?