Did your kids stop wasting toothpaste when they started buying their own? Your important things will not become important to those you lead until they become leaders too, until they own shares in the greater vision. Remember that tit for tat person who was justified because they communicated the required details? Eventually they left to find a better fit. A team member’s failure in responsibility toward the vision shows up as a failure in the communication process. They don’t see themselves as part of a team but as an individual inside the team. They are only responsible for their own actions, not for the greater vision.

So develope and train in the process of communication. The ‘this is how we do it’ process that exists because of your vision and is built around your culture.

Communication is incomplete unless you think in terms of:

~ and the development of leadership in the people involved

Miss any one of those and you will have people who don’t care because they just think in terms of information.

In my story today, our level of aptitude in communication revealed our level of competence as a team in handling responsibility. Our integrity is judged by the robustness of our communication.

Until people care, they won’t actually read your emails. Until the vision captures their attention, they will not regard your information. The vision and plan are what make the information valuable. People won’t care about details until they care about the purpose.

People that disregard communication from you are actually disregarding you, they are not engaged in your purpose. In effect, disregarding communication from someone is how we let them know that we are not engaging in that purpose, in short, “I don’t care about that.”

Leaders must make the communication process clear and keep the pressure on for those who ought to whole heartedly share in the responsibility. Brushing your teeth is good, but don’t waste toothpaste and make a mess while you’re doing it.

Comment if you can 🙂