Where is your azimuth? Have you set one for your company or organization? In Episode 2 of Robert’s leadership podcast, he dives into the importance of defining your azimuth. After all, an effective leader must define the direction for his or her organization.
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Podcast Episode 2: Set Your Azimuth
Robert Mixon:
Welcome to today’s podcast in the Level 5 series. Today’s topic is ‘setting the azimuth.’
You know, of the Big Six, ‘setting the azimuth’ is the first.
The second is ‘listen.’
Third is ‘trust and empower.’
Fourth is: ‘do the right thing when no one’s looking.’
Fifth is ‘when in charge, take charge.’
And sixth is ‘balance the personal and professional.’
All of them fit together, but today I want to focus on ‘setting the azimuth’ — because it is first for a reason.
Briefly, I think I’ll just discuss at this point in time what an azimuth is because a lot of people ask me that.
Technically, the azimuth is the cardinal direction that you have, your organization has… such as a compass bearing, for those of you that have a scouting background.
I learned the term from my military career, and I thought it would have great utility in leadership.
And so I’ve been working over several years to translate it in that regard. Plus, it’s a cool word.
You know, a lot of people just don’t know it. They ask me about it. And so I like it from that context.
Just by way of departure here, you know, that there are organizations and leaders that don’t have much of an azimuth, if any.
One of my favorite stories, being a deep intellectual, is Alice in Wonderland. And, you know, Alice goes to the Cheshire cat and asks him, well, “which road do I take?” And he basically asks her, well, you know, “where do you want to go?”
She says, well, “I’m not sure.” And then the cat says, well, “then any road will get you there.”
And the importance of the azimuth is just that.
I don’t think any organization that’s going to be successful in the information age of today and that of tomorrow … can afford not to have an azimuth.
And so today I’ll talk about what the components are, in a leadership context… of how do you set your ‘compass bearing’… and then give you some ideas about how you can bring it to life in your organization.
I think it’s the first among our Big Six because it may well be the most important one in getting you where you want to go.
So what’s our Level Five ‘azimuth’ consist of? Well, it’s got four key components.
The first is the mission. Who are you? What do you do? And why do you do it?
The second component is the leader’s intent. What’s your end state? What are the key tasks that you have to perform to get to that end state? And what’s the purpose? What’s the why for each of those?
The third component of the azimuth is your values. What do you believe in as a team or an organization? You know, what does your heart tell you … as well as your head?
The fourth component of the azimuth is culture. What are the behaviors that you’re going to represent and expect everyone else in your team to represent … to bring those values into action?
So of the four components of the azimuth, you’ve got to build all four of them, put them together, and then stay with it. Be persistent … and don’t just set your azimuth and go on to something else.
It’s got to be part of your daily life.
Now let’s talk about what it takes to build it.
First of all, I think you’ve got to have a team effort to do this.
Don’t just sit down and say, “okay, I’m now going to write our company’s azimuth” because then you’re going to be the only one who owns it.
You’ve got to do it as a team and I think you’ve got to build it and put it in writing. Sitting around the table and talking about it is not going to make it so.
I think you’ve got to put it in writing, all four components, and make sure that your leaders do it as a team and then having done it, they go out and message it as a team.
The next component here is they’ve got to review it often. There’s a saying that if you want someone to receive a message and process it effectively, you’ve got to tell him or them seven times.
I think in my experience it’s more like 70 times. You’ve got to have the consistency of the message to really have it sink in. And so once you build and set your azimuth, you’ve got to carry it forward.
It’s got to be part of the way you behave, think, operate as an organization, not just today or tomorrow, but next week, next month, next year.
Now we’ll talk about each of these components individually.
First, the mission.
I’d rather you take your leadership team and you start with a blank sheet of paper in developing your mission. Get them all prior to coming together as a team to sit down and write out what they think our mission is in terms of who are we, what do we do, and why do we do it. I would schedule a specific meeting for this purpose.
In fact, I would make it into an entire day if I could with your leadership team to talk about setting your azimuth. It’s that important and we’ll go back to that a little bit later.
Have them all bring in their mission statements that they’ve written out, one or two sentences, come together as a team, and then put those different mission statements up on the wall.
First of all, I think you’ll find that they are not aligned as clearly as you think they would be.
Let me give you an example of an outcome of this brainstorming session in developing your mission statement of who you are, what you do, and why you do it.
You’ll end up with one or two sentences that everybody at some point, there’s consensus that this is, okay, indeed our mission statement.
And I’ll use mine as an example of Level 5 Associates. So here’s the Level 5 mission statement… “Level 5 Associates provides those we serve with values-based leadership development, coaching, and strategic planning to build and sustain world-class cultures.”
So one sentence for us.
Let’s think about it and dissect it a little bit.
Who are we? We’re Level 5 Associates.
What do we do? We provide those we serve with values-based leadership development, coaching, and strategic planning.
Why do we do it? We do it to build and sustain world-class cultures.
So if you can think about those three components in the Level 5 mission statement, I think that’ll help you and your team as you develop your own.
But again, have them do it individually prior to this ‘Azimuth’ meeting… then come in with those different versions, put them up on the wall, and see how you can ‘brainstorm’ bringing them together into that concise one or two mission capture of who are we, what do we do, and why do we do it.
Be prepared to do several attempts of this.
I’ve seen organizations where they had an initial Azimuth meeting on a mission statement. They came in, having brought their own individual, drafts in, talked about it, and then said, okay, ‘let’s sleep on it and come back in tomorrow and revisit.’
That’s a good technique too.
So consider that as a way of ‘getting at it.’
Maybe you have an initial meeting that’s a little smaller and shorter in duration, and then you have a follow-on meeting after people think about the different versions that they’ve had a chance to look at.
The next component of the Azimuth is the leader’s intent.
This is another tool I learned in my military career as a way of taking the mission statement and expanding it to identify the discrete components of the mission statement.
Those components are: the end state, the key tasks we must do to get there, and the purpose (the ‘why’).
Here’s an example of an end state in a leader’s intent… “By December 2022, we will be the leading provider of financial services in our four-state region.”
And I’ll say that again, an ‘end state’ of an organization.
“By December 2022, we will be the leading provider of financial services in our four-state region.” Note there’s a date here, a time frame associated with the end state. And I’ll explain a little bit more why this is important a little bit later.
With the end state established, you and your team can now identify the key tasks associated with that end state. The key tasks are ‘must-do’s.’ They’re not ‘nice-to-do’s.’
So these are the muscle moves that must be in place at that time frame of end state. And again, going back to a time frame, that gives you a specific goal.
If you simply say “we’ll be the leading provider of financial services in our four-state region,” you don’t have that ‘time factor’ to drive the organization to achieve that end state.
And the other part of it is it’s going to be much harder to have measurables to track your progress. And as we all know, in the world of any type of organization, ‘that which is measured gets done.’
So let me give you an example of some of the things that I’ve seen organizations develop as ‘key tasks’, just as benchmarks for you to think about.
One, “we have a bias for action.” Two, “we promote two-thirds of our leaders internally.” Three, “our turnover rate is less than 10%.” Four, “we have a fully functional internal communication system.”
Now, each of those four are just examples, just as the end state was an example. But I think you can see from the way they are captured here that they are discrete.
And in each one, you’re going to have management plans that reside inside those key tasks, which typically will have a 12-month time horizon. But you’ll be able to measure achievement progress against the success of those key tasks because those key tasks must be in place by December of 2022, or whatever date you decide.
Typically, two to four years is the time frame that I’ve seen in most companies when they’ve been setting their azimuth for that end state.
How many key tasks should you have? Well, in my experience, four to eight is about the right number, depending on how you define your end state.
But again, these are must-dos.
They’re not nice-to-dos.
So, the condition setting for that end state are what drives the key tasks that you and your team come up with.
Remember to include the purpose in the leader’s intent as well, the ‘why.’
Explain the reason these key tasks are key tasks.
So, let’s say if you have a bias for action as one of your key tasks, why is it essential? Well, one why would be the bias for action enables us to move more quickly than our competition to adapt.
And I think when people understand the why, they’re going to be more prone to ‘go after it’ because they can buy in.
The third component of setting your azimuth is establishing your values. Values are the organization’s DNA, what you believe in.
Some leaders believe that you can assume that ‘everyone knows what our values are.’ I’ll tell you that’s a poor assumption. We have to define our values to explain not only what they are, but what they mean.
Here are some I’ve helped leaders of different organizations develop with their leadership teams.
Again, like the key tasks and other examples of the azimuth, these are just examples.
Values:
One, integrity. Doing the right thing, our word is our bond.
Two, family. We value each other as more than just co-workers.
Three, trust. You can count on me — and us.
Four, respect. We hold each other and those we serve with dignity and appreciation.
Remember to develop these as a team because they will drive your culture.
And again, there’s no specific number.
I gave you these four examples that I have observed in leadership teams as they have developed their values as an organization, their beliefs in what underpins their behaviors.
So these values now will drive your culture.
The final component of setting your azimuth is establishing your culture.
As I describe it in my book, “We’re All In,” … the culture is your ecosystem. These are the behaviors you expect that everyone on your team represents.
Culture brings values to life.
Let’s look at a representative list of cultures I’ve seen captured in organizations as part of their azimuth.
One, we do things on time. And that ties to the value of respect.
Two, we do what we say we will do. That ties to the value of trust.
Three, we celebrate our successes… and learn from them, as well as from our failures. That ties to the values of integrity and family that I just mentioned earlier.
And then fourth, we communicate and create understanding. And that ties back to family, trust, and respect.
So, what we’re talking about in culture is identifying the behaviors that we expect everyone to represent every day.
And each person across the organization can tie his or her behaviors to the values. And if their personal values nest with the organizational values, then you got a real chance of success with that person being a long-term member of your team.
So these components we’ll review again.
- One: Mission.
- Who are we? What do we do? Why do we do it?
- Keep it to one or two sentences.
- Two, what’s our intent?
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- What’s our end state with a time frame associated with that? As I mentioned earlier, normally two to four years would be your horizon.
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- What are the key tasks that we must perform to achieve that end state? You know, what do we look like in terms of those key tasks, those parameters at our end state?
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- And what’s the purpose? Why are we doing them?
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- Third : what are our values?
- What do we believe in as an organization? What’s our organizational DNA?
- And fourth, our culture.
- How do we behave in order to bring values to life?
I’d recommend you devote at least a half day, if not a whole day, to setting the azimuth with your leadership team. And you may want to go at it with a mission broken into two components, do day one ‘mission,’ day two ‘mission.’ Then when you reach consensus there, go into the other three components of the azimuth.
But it’s going to take some time to do this. And I don’t think you can do it electronically. I think you’ve got to do it face-to-face where you can share the body language and understanding as you have the conversations … and agree to disagree sometimes too.
We can help you do this in terms of a workshop framework to set your azimuth. You can contact me.
But if you think you’re too busy for setting your azimuth, I’d encourage you to reconsider that.
Think about the benefits of setting your azimuth. Here are just a few of them that I’ve seen and experienced.
Setting your azimuth creates a stronger sense of alignment, which is a big challenge for most of us.
Next, it improves your level of buy-in. When people participate in setting the azimuth, they have a much stronger sense of ownership of the cardinal direction of the organization… ‘Where are we going? Where will we be in two to four years? What does it take to get there? … What’s my role in leading and putting my shoulders to the wheels so that this end state comes to life?’
Third, setting your azimuth helps develop clarity. That’s one of the biggest questions I get when I go into different organizations is “How do I develop clarity? … How do I develop a more common level of understanding of what are we doing and why are we doing it?”
Next, I think setting the azimuth creates a sense of belonging. When people know where we’re going, they can more easily determine where they fit.
One of the great exercises that I would encourage you to take and put as a tool for your toolbox is ask the people in your organization what they do every day that contributes to the success of your mission. A lot of people don’t know, but if you ask them, they start thinking about it. But of course, if you don’t have the mission, intent, values, and culture, that question becomes much more difficult to ask.
So, as you build your azimuth, think about how you can engage the whole organization in belonging and being part of that azimuth.
Next, you can set the conditions for a strong and viable strategic plan. A strategic plan is a more comprehensive framework for the organization.
I think setting the azimuth is an initial step, but building that plan and then having that plan come to life because you measure benchmarks of those management plans I talked about earlier that are bringing that end state to life, now you’ve really got a very specific focus for the organization.
And the next, I think, value add, you know, ‘what’s in it for us’ is you begin to grow leaders who ‘get it.’ You know, when you have conditions like a bias for action, people are going to do the right thing when no one’s looking and they know what right is.
They know it and they’re going to do it because they own it.
And having that sense of purpose, having that azimuth helps you grow leaders who say:
“Okay, that’s what right looks like. I want to make sure that in my team, my members understand they belong.
They understand where we’re going, what it takes to get there. And I’m going to help enable them to do it. I’m going to recognize them when they do it well.
And we’re going to learn from the times when we don’t do it so well.”
So, there’s this ecosystem that we’re talking about developing really that becomes a culture of engagement, what I like to call a culture of commitment.
I’ve seen organizations where they had a culture of compliance, where you were expected to do things because you were told to do them.
I think in creating a culture of commitment, we have a clear sense of purpose, our azimuth is set. We all know where we fit. We have a role and we’re proud of it.
And we know we’re going to be recognized for doing well. And we know we’re going to learn from the times, not only when we do well, but when we don’t do so well as a learning organization. I’d say saddle up with your leadership team sooner than later.
If this isn’t a top priority for you… maybe it should be.
Set your azimuth and then sustain it through persistence and leadership.
That’s where the great organizations emerge from those who are really good.
Enjoy the journey!
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