Sharing your vision..!
Robert Clements
Friday, March 02, 2012 - Two day ago I was at a meeting where chairmen and secretaries from different housing societies around expressed their dissatisfaction with the way their area was developing. I knew they were ambitious men and women but realized, since I was chairing the meeting that I needed to make them dream, “What is your vision of this area?” I asked them, “Tell me your dream?”
About a 1000 years ago, a sage was drawn to a construction site. He watched from the edge of a clearing in the forest as the workmen bent over their individual tasks. Finally his curiosity drove him to one workman at the edge of the site, whom he asked “What are you doing, my good man?” The workman looked up briefly and went back to his work “I’m working” he said curtly.
Not satisfied with the answer, the sage approached a second workman to ask him the same question. “You can see I’m breaking stones” he replied. The sage was made of stern stuff and he wasn’t leaving without an answer, so he walked over to a third workman with the question. “I’m building a temple” replied this workman smilingly. The incident opened the sage’s eyes, because all three of them were breaking boulders into smaller stones, but in their minds they were not doing the same jobs.
The third workman was working for a cause much larger than himself and it showed in his approach to work. You can just do a day’s work, or build a career, a team, an organization, or a nation. Wonderful, but that by itself is not enough, the real good leader learns to share his vision with others- An individual’s overpowering sharing of his vision can be the glue that holds together and powers forward a team, an army or a country.
This has been proven time and again by various leaders from history. Alexander The Great, and Gandhi are just two names from the past. If we look at corporates today, examples abound of ambitious leaders who built great institutions. Narayana Murthy of Infosys enjoys creating millionaires in his organization. When he could have focused on making himself a billionaire and then a trillionaire.
Those who share their vision also share its results. The rewards of a whole team’s work gets fairly distributed. Today, that seems to be the only way to build a lasting institution. Share your vision. Be not just the one who builds a temple but the one who shares the temple blue prints with others..!
—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com
About a 1000 years ago, a sage was drawn to a construction site. He watched from the edge of a clearing in the forest as the workmen bent over their individual tasks. Finally his curiosity drove him to one workman at the edge of the site, whom he asked “What are you doing, my good man?” The workman looked up briefly and went back to his work “I’m working” he said curtly.
Not satisfied with the answer, the sage approached a second workman to ask him the same question. “You can see I’m breaking stones” he replied. The sage was made of stern stuff and he wasn’t leaving without an answer, so he walked over to a third workman with the question. “I’m building a temple” replied this workman smilingly. The incident opened the sage’s eyes, because all three of them were breaking boulders into smaller stones, but in their minds they were not doing the same jobs.
The third workman was working for a cause much larger than himself and it showed in his approach to work. You can just do a day’s work, or build a career, a team, an organization, or a nation. Wonderful, but that by itself is not enough, the real good leader learns to share his vision with others- An individual’s overpowering sharing of his vision can be the glue that holds together and powers forward a team, an army or a country.
This has been proven time and again by various leaders from history. Alexander The Great, and Gandhi are just two names from the past. If we look at corporates today, examples abound of ambitious leaders who built great institutions. Narayana Murthy of Infosys enjoys creating millionaires in his organization. When he could have focused on making himself a billionaire and then a trillionaire.
Those who share their vision also share its results. The rewards of a whole team’s work gets fairly distributed. Today, that seems to be the only way to build a lasting institution. Share your vision. Be not just the one who builds a temple but the one who shares the temple blue prints with others..!
—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com
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