Getting Unstuck: Nourishing Believers for Sustained Organizational Success – a Conversation with Mike Vacanti
“My belief was always in the ideal that given the opportunity, people will amaze us. But I was continually pressured to work from the assumption that process is much more valuable than people, and that if we just plug people into a process, we will get the best outcome. And I felt very strongly about that being in reverse – that if we put our emphasis on the people, the processes will be done much more efficiently.”
Today on Getting Unstuck
Today we are fortunate to be joined by one of the most interesting minds influencing how organizations operate today, Mike Vacanti. Mike is a catalyst for positive change; a speaker and consultant; and an adviser to CEOs. He is the author of Believership: The Superpower Beyond Leadership. He is also the founder of the HumansFirst Club. We will talk about both in this conversation.
The Essential Point
Mike is a perspective changer. If we think of the normal organizational environment, we have leaders and staff. Leaders are traditionally looked at as the driving force of success because of some inherent qualities they possess and demonstrate. Staff then follow them. The organizational success story has focused on leaders.
In Mike’s view, we need to shift the camera lens from leadership to the people of the organization. They are actually driving success because they believe in the vision, mission, products, services. And because of that belief, they are the real energy of success. As Mike points out in the interview “Great leaders were able to get the best out of people, because they will fully committed to the vision, mission, product, or the leader. So in reality, it was the belief that was greater than the leadership.”
Great leaders nourish believers by listening intently for needs, ideas, and contributions, and by establishing meaningful relationships with the people in the organization. The organization moves forward, not by the command and control push of leadership, but by the pull of a staff wanting to carry out the vision and mission. This gives organizations the opportunity “to create business with imagination and idealism rather than to extract business with the traditional tools and methods and forms.”
Let’s listen in.
“I think the the greatest challenge – and maybe the thing that puts a smile on my face more now than ever – is this is an opportunity to envision going forward to work, not going back to work; that we want to refresh and reset with this pause to envision what we can accomplish. We don’t want to go back to normal because by all accounts and all statistics, normal wasn’t so good.”
For More Information on Mike
Mike’s LinkedIn profile
MJ Vacanti consulting
Believership the book
Referenced