Vision Trust Purpose

When I was lucky enough to be part or leader of the right team, I tried to understand what were the secret ingredients of that “magic” atmosphere, of that flow that seemed to work without any apparent effort.

Going deeper into the topic, with Stefano Susani, we agreed that, regardless of the type of team or mission to be accomplished, there were always at least THREE elements at the basis of that feeling. Naturally we wrote about it in our book #Ilteamgiusto and today I would like to give you an excerpt.

The three secret ingredients therefore are: Vision, Confidence and Purpose.

None of the elements is sufficient by itself. For example, a team vision, unlike an individual one, rests its foundations on strong elements of aggregation and sharing, such as trust and purpose. But how do these three great topics relate, how do they couple, so to speak? Let’s imagine them as three wheels of a gear:

• The Vision constitutes the first wheel, determines the direction and directs the team ‘forward’;
• The Purpose motivates the team, acts as the real driving wheel of the gear, explains why the group goes forward and thus feeds the vision;
• Trust creates the context of psychological security in which to move and operate, speeds up the formal steps, simplifies the decision-making process.

The three elements must therefore collaborate and be present, for the magic to succeed, so to speak.

As a personal observation, I would say that the efforts of companies have historically been very concentrated on the Vision and more recently on the Purpose (the famous “Purpose”) while Confidence has been taken as obvious. It is not so. In our book we talk a lot about Trust because we think it is the Shadow Value often taken for granted and therefore forgotten among corporate ones but essential for realizing great companies. Of course, trust is complex to create or earn.

Thinking about your current team, try to articulate the vision, and purpose, the strategy and tactics that are characterizing you. Share them with teammates. How much have they changed after sharing?

What aspects have changed? How would you rate the level of trust between team members and between them and the leader?