Getting from here to there

A warm welcome to our new columnist Mike Davy Chief Member Advocacy Officer at MAS. Here, he shares his heartfelt insights into leading people.

My daughter is turning 16. How time flies. She’s incredibly practical, but, like a lot of teenagers, she has big ideas of what her life might be like as she leaves school and enters the next phase of her life. Recently, she talked my wife and me through her grand vision of living abroad while studying at one of Europe’s renowned universities. A noble ideal. Sounded amazing. However, after a few questions from us, she was off to research acceptance rates at said universities, tuition costs, accommodation options, the cost of airfares, and immigration requirements.

Her latest plan is a gap year followed by attendance at one of our own fine establishments here in Aotearoa, flatting with people she knows. And a possible semester spent overseas at some point during her studies. As I mentioned, incredibly practical and clever.

This exchange caused me to reflect on something I’d learned recently through leadership development work I had undertaken. I decided to invest in development that involved various forms of psychometric profiling, working with a behavioural psychologist and an executive coach, and including 360-degree feedback on how I showed up as a leader at MAS.

As part of the 360-degree process, one of my direct reports gave me some great and courageous feedback, and, equally courageously, she unpacked it for me in a catch-up later on. It felt like such a no-brainer, but it was such an ‘a-ha moment’ for me.

Now, if you know me, I’m a big picture, set a vision, capture hearts and minds kind of guy. Her feedback to me was something along the lines of “Mike, we love the vision you set for us as a team. We feel part of it, and we get excited by what we can do at MAS. But we have no idea how to get there. How do we get from where we are today to that vision you’ve painted for us?”. Boom, simple stuff, right?

It’s so easy for leaders and managers to forget that every journey begins with the very next steps. A big, hairy, future-focused dream or vision is great, but if you can’t outline the course changes necessary right now to steer the ship there, chances are you won’t get there at all. It will remain a dream with a fair chunk of frustration left in your team as a result.

And, once you’ve sat back and planned the first steps to your vision, you might also get a chance to course-correct, much like my daughter did. Nothing wrong with being practical.

Mike Davy is Chief Member Advocacy Officer at MAS and has been on the Executive Team for the past eight years. He believes that when people can bring all of themselves into their work and connect with passion and purpose, they’ll achieve great things.