What is the company's mission, and why is it important?

This week, I wanted to share one of the most fundamental cornerstones of any leadership practice: a company's mission. 

People sometimes call it a vision, which is a bit more cloudy and too broad. Others think the mission is the purpose, which is closer to the point. The mission is much more precise than other popular terms.

When do you need to define your company's mission?

You need a company mission when you have a somewhat solidified product-market fit with your business. Why not earlier? Why not later?

Because before that stage, your only asset is your idea which turned into a prototype or vaguely working product. You still need validation. Before product/market fit, many companies change their product completely or amend it to fit the market needs. But when the proof is evident, the structure starts to solidify. 

Why do you need the mission?

It is pretty simple. If you want to scale, you need a mission. It helps you to:

• recruit people to your team;

• enlist stakeholders and partners for your company;

• differentiate yourself from your competitors.

What's in the mission?

The mission has three critical elements. 

1. The why. It defines the company from the problem/solution point of view. You are on the market to solve a problem. Your mission is to reach a state where that problem is solved. That is called the end state.

2. The what. It defines the sequence of actions to get to the desired end state. These are not tasks but high-level actions, much like a product roadmap.

3. The who. It defines the decision-makers and their role in getting the company from initial- to end-state. Not an organization chart. More like a list of areas of influence.

Why don't we have the "how" on the list? Because how the company work towards its mission is up to the team. It is their autonomous decision on what they are working on - until they work towards the mission accomplishment. 

#TLDR

1. You need to define the company's mission once the company has a somewhat solid product-market fit, not before.

2. The mission is your company's flag that enlists others to participate in your journey. By missing out on defining your mission, you will risk your growth.

3. The company's mission describes the central problem the company solves and how its product/service is solving that problem. It also describes the end state when the problem is solved.

4. The mission also defines the leading influencers who help others to perform a sequence of tasks to get to the desired end state of the mission.

5. The main benefit of the mission is helping alignment of team members on what the company wants to achieve.

6. Alignment is the most complex challenge for any remote leader.

I hope I helped you understand how to define a mission and why it is crucial. 

Peter

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How to make asynchronous decisions?

As a leader, the goal of making a decision is to decide how to solve a problem and get your team unstuck so they can move forward with the mission. 

There are two benefits to making decisions the async way:

1. You gain enough time to gather more information, reducing the risk of bad decisions

2. You pull your team into the process, increasing the overall transparency and engagement of your team

As an async leader, you are less like a decision-maker power player but more like a facilitator of collaborative decisions.

But why do we make decisions? To unstuck your team, solve problems, and let them move forward. And when do we make a wrong decision? Either our emotions get in the way, or we need more information. In both cases, having more time to make the decisions can be helpful. Involving others in the process can also be beneficial as a team reduces emotional rollercoasters as they can act as a feedback loop on new ideas.

Making async decisions is easy if you follow this 5-step process:

1. Assess the issue. Write down the assessment in a document with an optional solution already provided.

2. Collaborate on the written assessment document with your team. Invite them to give feedback and insights.

3. Review the document. Resolve comments and understand the insights, then provide a complete document review.

4. Integrate all the aspects. This step is the only one that can happen synchronously through a meeting. Discuss all the feedback and insights, and share the review with your team. Since a lot of preliminary written work went into this, the meeting will be super productive for everyone.

5. Align the entire team around the decision. It can happen during your integration meeting or asynchronously later, but you need to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Aligning the entire team means a lot as it shows the way forward for everyone, the very reason why you made the decision.

Once you make decisions this way, you will see two immediate results:

• Your team is more aligned and engaged

• Your leadership becomes more transparent, inspirational

If you still have doubts and are afraid of letting the control out of your hands, I want to highlight three things for you:

1. It is the leader who announces the decision-making process for everyone with a pre-written assessment of the problem

2. It is the leader who makes the final review of the collaborative document that the team produced on the problem

3. And it is the leader who does the alignment with the complete team

Another added benefit of this type of decision-making process is documentation. We are familiar with the "we had this problem before" situation. You won't have this situation anymore, as written documentation is everywhere and is the critical element of the process. 

I understand that decision-making is the most protected process of leadership. Even so, leaders sometimes mystify it. That should be different - decisions affect everyone, so everyone should be involved in making them.

#TLDR

1. We make wrong decisions due to the lack of time or engagement from our team.

2. By changing the decision-making process to a transparent, collaborative, asynchronous process, we gain time and clarity for our team.

3. Involving our team in decision-making helps us with alignment, transparency, and engagement. Everyone supports a decision more in which they have some part in the making.

4. There is a 5-steps process for better asynchronous decisions: assess, collaborate, review, integrate, and align. Most of the steps are asynchronous and involve the entire of your team.

5. The asynchronous decision-making is heavily documented in written form for archival and collaboration purposes.

I hope I pulled your mind a little on decisions.

Peter

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How to become an inspiring remote leader?

A leader's primary purpose is to lead the company through ever-changing times. Therefore, the most critical skill for every leader is to become inspiring. But how inspiration works, and how a leader becomes inspirational to their team?

Inspiration is a skill that can be learned but only after dissecting its parts and focusing on improvement. An inspirational leader can transfer the company's mission to its teams, ultimately securing a better future.

WHY DOES BEING INSPIRATIONAL MATTER?

Inspiration matters because it is the glue between the leader and their team. It creates a bond that transfers the company's mission to everyone, creating a shared mission and understanding. It ultimately leads to committed, productive, engaged teams.

CAN WE LEARN TO BE INSPIRATIONAL?

If we ask this question to a group of people, the overwhelming majority would think that being inspirational is a skill you cannot understand. You are either inspirational or not. People presume it works much like talent: you either have it or not.

I beg to differ. It is a skill that can get training, and it is something that you can learn and develop. Talent is overrated. There are temperament, affections, and maybe aspirations, but most are hard work and practice.

HOW CAN WE LEARN TO BE INSPIRATIONAL?

To learn to be more inspirational, we must dissect what inspiration is. Who's considered inspirational? What are their traits? Inspiration is a drive that gets you from a specific state to the desired end state—being inspirational means you can transfer this drive to others.

I think there are five key traits of being inspirational:

Have a vision.

You know where you will drive your team toward that end state. This trait is not something you can learn. It is the byproduct of analytical thinking and strategic planning.

Be positive.

A positive attitude accepts adverse outcomes but actively seeks solutions or way-outs to avoid them. Having a positive mindset is equivalent to being an excellent problem-solver. Which, as a leader, you should be anyway.

Be a team player.

It is the one where most leaders fail, and this is a trait that can resonate well for improvement. It means that you don't think of yourself separately as a leader sitting outside the team, requesting reports, briefing them, and, yes, micromanaging them. Instead, you are part of the team, giving support, contributing to the performance, showing gratitude, and, most importantly, you trust in your group.

Have a passion.

While a positive mindset is something that is more solutions-driven, passion is something that is more support-driven. If you are passionate, you care. Care about your work, company, team, results, and game.

Have integrity.

It is a combination of being kind and having some grit. Having grit means you have ambition, drive, and want to accomplish. It sticks to others, especially those who are competitive players. But being also kind means that you value human connections. You can create a space where team members can come to you, trust you, and talk about their needs and problems. And with the best of your knowledge, you help them.

Mastering these traits will lead you to today's big leadership buzzwords, like having a growth mindset.

The passion for caring about your people and the drive to achieve more will allow you to seek growth opportunities for yourself and your team members. Having a vision that you present to your team as someone who is part of the team will arm you with being a visionary.

#TLDR

• Being inspirational as a leader is critical, especially for a remote/asynchronous leader. An inspirational leader enlists their team for the company's mission, and inspiration acts as a glue between the leader and their team.

• Being inspirational is a skill that a leader can learn and develop to be better at it.

• To learn being inspirational starts with dissecting what inspirational is.

• An inspirational leader has a vision of the future and a positive mindset. The inspired leader is a team player with a passion for the company's mission and the integrity to act toward it.

• Buzzwords like "growth mindset" mean the leader inspires their team and company to move forward to the future.

I hope I helped to simplify and, most importantly, demystify the "magic" behind inspirational leadership. Inspiration is nothing more than self-reflection, empathy, and hard work. I will also share some practical tips on showing up as an inspirational leader for your remote team in the upcoming issues of Leadership Anywhere.

Until then, take care.

Peter

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