Vision Overload No More - A Simple System to Win With a Visionary Leader

You've got your week planned out and you're ready to make things happen. 

You've just sat down to sink deep into a project when a text message arrives from your Visionary Leader, with the four words that make your heart sink:

"I've got an idea."

Anyone that's partnered with a Visionary Leader has experienced this moment, and knows the implications:

• Working late to incorporate the new idea
• Time wasted reworking your plans
• A graveyard of half finished projects

The worst part? It's your fault. 

You are 100% responsible for your life, which means you're 100% responsible for what you tolerate from your Visionary Leader. 

It can change for you today. 

When I first partnered with Visionary Leaders, I was overwhelmed by the amount of ideas they dropped on me, and only found a way to win when I took 100% responsibility, and built a simple system to win with Visionary Leaders. 

We'll get into the simple system to win with a Visionary Leader, but first lets understand how you got here in the first place. 

Why Visionary Leaders Generate Endless Ideas

Very simply: Visionary Leaders generate endless ideas because they want to win. 

The ideas they generate are simply potential paths to winning. 

Now I can hear you screaming "Yes, but are all these ideas necessary for us to win?"

Of course not, but they increase your chances of winning. 

And therein lies the incentive for every leader to keep generating new ideas: what if the next idea is the winning one? 

If you're responsible to partner with the Visionary Leader to make these ideas happen, this can be overwhelming if you don't have a system in place to manage the ideas. 

Good news: we've got a simple system for you to win with a Visionary Leader, that you can put in place today. 

A Simple System to Win with a Visionary Leader

Step #1 :: Capture all the ideas to a single list (aka Backlog)

Before you can help your Visionary Leader make ideas happen, you need to get all the ideas into a single list (or Backlog) so you can decide together which ideas are most important to execute next. This can be as simple as an Excel file or Google Sheet. 

By the way, if you're a Time Boss, this is the "Dump What Needs to Be Done" step from the Weekly Planning Meeting. 

Step #2 :: Ask the Visionary Leader to force rank the Backlog

Warning: this step is deceptively hard. Visionary Leaders love their ideas because of the Ikea Effect: our propensity to overvalue things we create ourselves. This makes ranking the ideas a painful process. Your Visionary Leader's temptation will be to say they are all equally valuable. If this happens, suggest the following use case: "8am Monday I'm going to sit down and work on one of these ideas, so which one should it be?".  Logically you can only do one thing at a time, so it forces your Visionary Leader to choose.  You are turning your time (or your team's time) into a finite currency to be spent on these ideas.

Again, Time Bosses will recognize the "Decide What to Do" step here from the Weekly Planning Meeting. 

Step #3 :: Determine the "cost" of the top ideas

Venture capitalist John Doerr famously said "Ideas are easy. Execution is everything." Determining the cost of the ideas, both the time it will take and any capital cost, brings a reality to what it will take to execute the idea. The time cost in particular is critical here. If you have not done a process like this in the past, it will feel like moving from paying with credit card to paying with cash. Again, your time available is a finite currency, and understanding the cost forces you to pay with cash. 

Step #4 :: Agree on ideas to focus on for the next month

This is the critical step. Based on the prioritized ideas and the costs you identified, you are agreeing with your Visionary Leader on what ideas to focus on this next month, and just as important, what ideas to ignore for the next month. This step may be painful for your Visionary Leader, as the ideas you're ignoring may feel to them like children they are not feeding. You need to counteract this feeling with the excitement that will come by executing on the ideas you agreed to prioritize. 

By the way, a month is an arbitrary time frame to plan for, however it may be the most palatable for your Visionary Leader if they've never operated this way. As they begin to trust your execution, you may be able to expand out this timeframe to a quarter, giving you more room to execute on the ideas. 

Step #5 :: Commit to the plan together

This might be the shortest part of this process, but it might make the difference between you making these ideas happen or falling back to your old habits. You are very simply looking at the ideas you agreed to prioritize, and looking at the costs involved, and agreeing that you both will do whatever it takes to make this plan happen. 

For you, as the person responsible to lead the work, this is all about execution. If this has been a challenge for you in the past, check out the free Time Boss Weekly Operating System Masterclass. It's a step by step guide to make your priorities happen week over week. 

For your Visionary Leader, this will require them to hold off on introducing any new ideas that come in this next month, to give you and your team time to focus on the agreed upon ideas. Good news is you now have a Backlog where your Visionary Leader can add new ideas as often as they come up, and you have a simple system to review and prioritize these on a monthly basis. 

Rinse and Repeat Each Month

The value of this simple system is in running it month over month, paying attention to the results, and making adjustments as you go. As you execute successfully on the Visionary Leader's ideas, you will reinforce the value of the system to the Visionary Leader, and they will begin to trust it as the best way for you to win together. 

How to Make These Ideas Happen

You've done the work to agree on ideas to prioritize, and you've fleshed out plans to make the ideas happen. Now it's time to execute. 

If you are confident in your ability to make plans happen, go get it. The entire Time Boss team is rooting for you!

If you've struggled in the past to manage your time effectively to make plans happen, or if you're making plans but it's costing you significant stress and anxiety, check out the free Time Boss Weekly Operating System Masterclass. It's a step by step guide to make your priorities happen week over week, with clarity, peace and freedom, no stress and anxiety required. 

Interested in learning how Time Boss for Teams can help your organization get alignment on your priorities to find your highest sustainable pace without stress or anxiety? Schedule a 15-minute discovery call to see if Time Boss is a good fit.