Unreasonable belief drives unbelievable success

One more story, this time about Tiger Woods, arguably one of the most successful professional golfers of all time. Actually, the story is about Chris DiMarco, another professional golfer, who twice lost to Tiger Woods in all-important Majors, including one that has one of golf’s most memorable moments at the centre of the story.

The Masters Tournament, also known as the US Masters, is one of the four major championships in professional golf. It is the first of the four Majors to be played each year and is the only one to be held each year at the same location – the Augusta National Golf Club in the city of Augusta, Georgia, in the United States. For many, it is the major tournament to win.

In 2005, during the fourth and final round on the Sunday, the tournament came down to a two-man duel between Tiger Woods and Chris DiMarco. On the 16th hole, Tiger Woods made a sensational chip, aiming far to the left of the hole and letting the ball run down a steep slope to it. The moment that followed was captured on television and must have been shown a million times or more around the world, to the delight of golfers everywhere. Tiger’s ball, with the Nike logo resplendent, appeared to stop on the lip of the hole, paused, then dropped in for a sensational birdie. DiMarco was two down with two to play. Somehow, Chris managed to claw his way back, win the next two holes and finish the game tied with Woods. It all came down to a dramatic sudden death on the 18th hole, where Tiger buried a birdie putt to win his fourth Masters and his ninth major title.

DiMarco finished at 12 under for the tournament. Afterwards he said:

‘I went out and shot 68 around here on Sunday, which is a very good round, and 12 under is usually good enough to win. It was just that I was playing against Tiger Woods.’

Later that year, at the Sun City Golf Classic in South Africa, at the famous Gary Player Country Club, I had the enormous privilege of partnering Chris DiMarco in the pro-am tournament on the Wednesday before the championship. After 12 holes, I felt I knew him well enough to ask the questions that were burning to be asked.

‘Where do you go from here? How do you improve in order to beat Tiger?’

Chris looked at me with a scowl, and I feared I had overstepped the mark. He shook his head and said:

‘I don’t believe that I can make any improvements to my technique. I think my technical skills are as good as they will ever be. The difference is in here,’

he said, tapping his forehead.

‘When you play against Tiger, you can just feel his belief. His belief is so strong that it can give him that one shot extra that he needs to beat you. He just sees the end result more clearly. I have to work on that, not on my technique.’

So, my third observation is about the power of clarity, commitment, passion and belief!

How do these three observations combine? First, you have to have a clear and motivating vision. It has to power the passion of all of the individuals in your team and give them a clear sense of shared purpose. The more clear and compelling the vision is, the greater will be the commitment to it. The more clarity around their individual roles and how they contribute to the vision, the more cohesive and competitive your team will be. The stronger their belief in the purpose, your cause, the more likely you will be to achieve your vision.

Rational or emotional?

Too often, however, leaders use the achievement of financial goals as their purpose, because they are more comfortable being rational and objective. Too often, as we noted in Chapter 3, followers say they don’t get out of bed in the morning to achieve financial or other numerical objectives. They come to work and want to be inspired by a sense of doing something important, something that makes a difference.

Which one to choose? My answer is that a great vision needs to contain both of these elements, in order to satisfy both constituents. Leaders need to create a framework that enables decision making and empowers front-line staff to succeed without having to go up and down the chain of command. In an age of blinding speed, radical transparency and connected consumers, we do not have the luxury of command and control processes. We need to enable leadership everywhere, and this can only be done by providing a framework for freedom of decision making.

I believe that the ‘vision thing’ is all about telling a story that is both emotional and rational. The vision of the future needs to describe the commercial goals of the business, but it also needs to describe what success will ‘feel’ like to all the stakeholders who will benefit from that success – whether this be shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers or even local communities. Feelings and emotions are the driving force of our lives. It is why I put so much emphasis on the word ‘feel’.

Great communication has to be about feelings as much as it is about facts. Head and heart. Your vision framework needs to contain elements that are uplifting and inspiring, as well as elements that are about clear goal setting and prioritization.

What elements should such a framework contain if it is to provide employees with a complete picture of the strategic intent of the business? I believe it should have two sides to it.

Purpose and performance

First, it must capture the emotional and inspiring purpose of the organization, the values that drive actions, and the desired standards of behaviours that stem from these values. These are all on the emotional side of the framework and are what employees consistently find most inspiring. This is what I call the PURPOSE side of the framework.

Second, it must capture the desired future, the four or five strategic priorities that must be delivered to achieve the future, and the key objectives that will deliver each of the strategic priorities. This side of the framework is the numerate side – the strategic, highly rational and measurable aspects of the vision story. This is the PERFORMANCE side of the framework.

All six of the elements discussed in more detail below are needed for the framework to work, and provide a full story. It is only when all six are articulated that the story is complete in an employee’s mind. Sometimes, I have been able to insert a seventh element in work I have done with clients – something I call their True North. This True North is a never-ending quest, one that they will always be seeking to achieve and, if they have achieved it, always trying to maintain. I will explain this in more detail a little later.

One of the most significant problems I have experienced in this field of work, is that leadership teams always use many different words to describe ‘the vision thing’. They use ‘vision’, ‘mission’, ‘purpose’ or ‘strategic intent’. The first problem here is that very often people will be using the word ‘mission’, but everyone around the table will have a different view of what it means. Is it about delivering value to shareholders? Is it about a noble purpose? Is it the top line of our business plan?

When you are working with a team to set a vision framework, it is crucial that everyone agrees the meaning of each of the words you choose to use. So long as everyone has a common understanding of what you mean, you will be more likely to provide clarity.

For the sake of clarity in this book, I define them as follows:

· Your purpose is why you exist, what you are here to do for your ‘customers’ that makes a difference to them.

· Your values are your core principles, the qualities you consider desirable, the powerful beliefs which will drive all of your behaviours.

· Your behaviours sound obvious, but should clearly link to the achievement of both your purpose and your vision. These are your beliefs in action.

· Your vision is your picture of the future, described both in numbers and in terms of the quality of key relationships needed if all of the organization’s goals are to be achieved.

· Your strategic priorities are the crucial things you have to do if you are to achieve the vision, usually confined to between three and five.

· Your objectives are the clearly defined, supporting goals that must be delivered if each of the strategic priorities is to be achieved.

The main reason for setting this framework out so clearly, is to enable line management to communicate and interpret the framework right down to the front line of the organization. The job here is to ensure that all employees on the front line have a clear line of sight from their jobs to the overall vision of the company that employs them. That line of sight is one of the most important tasks of leadership, and is only delivered when leaders work with the teams to interpret the overall framework to local circumstances.