Emotion Plus Logic

By Dr. John C. Maxwell

Clearly defined goals are a key component to team success. If employees don’t understand their company’s goals and its game plan, these goals won’t be achieved. Vision determines the direction of the team.

When it comes to casting a compelling vision, I believe that there are two critical elements: emotional and logical transference. This is where many leaders go wrong. Some are great at explaining their vision logically, but they lack the emotion necessary to carry it forward. Others are very emotional when casting a vision, but they lack the logic to sustain it.

If you want to cast a vision that will send your team in the right direction for the long haul, you must do it with logic and emotion. It’s not an either/or situation. You must have both. To transfer a vision emotionally, five elements are needed:

1. Credibility. This is the most important ingredient for successful emotional transference. The person casting the vision absolutely must have integrity. His team must know—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that he walks the walk and talks the talk.

2. Passion. It’s very difficult to pass a vision on to someone else if you don’t believe in it yourself. Half-hearted vision-casting simply doesn’t work.

3. Relationships. The closer a leader is to the members of her team, the quicker they’ll buy in to her vision.

4. Timing. There’s a right time and a wrong time to cast a vision. A good vision presented at the wrong time will fail.

5. Felt need. It’s hard for people to catch a vision when they don’t feel the goal is necessary.

On the other hand, to transfer a vision logically, these seven components are necessary:

1. A realistic understanding of the situation today. If you’re not realistic about where you are today, people will know that you don’t have a clue about tomorrow.

2. An experienced team. It’s tough to keep a vision alive without seasoned players who comprehend why it’s important to the success of your organization.

3. A sound strategy. The step-by-step process of how you’re going to achieve your vision must be well-reasoned and watertight; otherwise it will fall apart.

4. Acceptance of responsibility by the leaders.  The success of a vision nearly always is based upon the buy-in of the leaders who are willing to sign their names to the bottom-line number.

5. The celebration and communication of each victory. Such recognition provides an infusion of enthusiasm and gives your people something concrete to hold on to as they continue to move toward the ultimate goal of fulfilling the vision.

6. Evaluation and communication for each defeat. Be as open about explaining the defeats as you are about celebrating the victories. After each setback, tell your team, “Here’s what we did wrong; here’s why we did not accomplish what we need to.”

7. Time. This is interesting, isn’t it? To emotionally transfer a vision, you need proper timing. To logically transfer it, you just need time.

What happens when emotion joins logic in the transference of a vision? People unite around the goal and start working to achieve it because they believe in what they’re doing and they understand why they’re doing it. That’s how teams win!

John C. Maxwell is an internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker, and author who has sold over 16 million books. His organizations have trained more than two million leaders worldwide.  To find out more, go to www.johnmaxwell.com