When facing a crisis, challenge, or problem, the natural tendency is the quick fix. Expedience, however, rarely produces excellence. “Kicking the can down the road” often results in the matter mushrooming in scale, costs, and damage compared to addressing it properly at the time — or, since I’m in cliché mode, “nipping it in the bud.”
Instinctively you understand the shortcoming. Practically and reflectively, however, you wonder “Why do I do that?”
Your answer to this corner-cutting is lack of a developed long-term strategic thinking process to put your good intention to work. The concept of a “long-term strategic process” may sound scary, alien, or overbearing, so let’s make it more user-friendly by putting it in On-Purpose® terms.
Your 2-word purpose statement provides the best, most solid strategic base. You’re already one step ahead. Now, write down what you envision as the preferred long-term outcome — your vision — for your challenge. Next, brainstorm your doable options — missions. Last, determine what really matters in terms of your standards, behaviors, and beliefs to use in guiding your decision — your values.
Armed with Purpose, Vision, Missions, and Values (PVMV), run your challenge, project, or problem through each of these lenses. With purpose you can ask “Why is this meaningful?” With vision, you can ask “Where is this leading me?” With Missions you can ask “What can I do?” Finally, with values, you can ask “On what basis will I decide?”
Your goal is to find a workable, peace-of-mind alignment of your PVMV. Realistically, there’s rarely perfect synchrony, so prepare for a degree of compromise. The value of PVMV, however, is that you’ve integrated a simple strategic process into what might otherwise be a purely emotional or a flight response flawed by convenience trumping conscience.
To calm down a distraught child, parents or teachers will ask them to count backward from 10 to 1. Similarly, as a distressed adult, “count” P-V-M-V and you’re more likely to come to your senses and make a wiser decision to address your adversity.
For decades, I’ve guided business consulting clients to use the PVMV methodology to create calm, improve decision-making, and produce better results. Develop your strategic muscles, put them to work in your life, and reap the rewards.
Be On-Purpose!
Kevin
