Owner’s Box Vision
How do you look ahead with unblinking clarity when the onrushing waters of the future are so muddy, murky and uncertain?
The vast majority of any population can foresee what will happen over the next day or two. Many can see a month ahead to make that mortgage payment and some can even picture and plan their next family vacation. Only the rarest of individuals – Lincoln, Churchill, Einstein, Edison, Jobs – can contemplate a future five to ten years in advance or beyond their lifetime.
When leaders envision things beyond the current calendar horizon, they vividly connect multiple dots, see many causal chains, unintended consequences and the potential for permanent, enduring impact.
Sadly, that’s not what’s happening across much of the leadership landscape these days. Over the past 24 months, there has been a sharp increase of far too many business leaders staying too close to the ground, obsessively focusing on tactical implementation, KPI’s, monthly or quarterly results. In effect, that focus on daily operational and revenue issues has a way of acting like a giant King Cobra; strangling curiosity, imagination and long-term vision.
In Chapter 11 of BIG LITTLE LEGENDS, readers like you first learned of the remarkable, timeless story of a courageous business leader who stared down some of the stormiest economic and political conditions you can imagine. Located in a small Midwestern town, Bob was forced to play a much longer game. See far beyond the grim circumstances of the present. Long before Simon Sinek published the Infinite Game; Bob was the kind of leader who could see beyond the temporary and transactional and adopt a wider view of what his organization could accomplish in this lifetime and beyond. The greatest legacy from Bob Harlan’s leadership is how it continues to inspires thousands of small-to-mid size business companies to picture a much brighter green and gold future.
Get up from your stadium seat. Take the private elevator straight to the top. Acquire an entirely new perspective from up above and experience what “OWNER’S BOX VISION” looks like on this segment of Leaders & Legends.
“The empires of the future are empires of the mind”
p.s… As Simon Sinek explains in The Infinite Game, there are only two types of games. In ‘finite’ games, like football, chess or Risk, players are known. Rules are fixed. Endpoint is clear. However, in ‘infinite’ games, like business, politics or marriage, players come and go, rules are changeable and there is no defined endpoint with clear winners and losers. In many respects, OWNER’S BOX VISION offers significant advantage for any leader who can picture how things will unfold 5, 10, 20+ years ahead. Leaders in that camp understand natural cycles and don’t panic when things go off the rails.
Three Timeless Takeaways
1. The ability and capacity to hold the future in mind is a Learned Skill. It’s like a muscle. The more you flex, stretch and exercise your long-term thinking muscle, the more it grows.
2. Don’t confuse ‘Long-Term Vision’ with ‘Experience’. There are some leaders out there with 20 years of experience. There are many more out there who bring one year of experience to the table, 20 times over.
3. The key to securing OWNER’S BOX VISION in a tangible way is to hire right the first time. In our conversation with Bob Harlan, he stressed how crucial it was to bring Ron Wolf on board as general manager, the architect of a Super Bowl champion and a winning tradition that has sustained itself for several decades in Green Bay. CEO’s and entrepreneurs who make serious hiring mistakes inevitably find themselves dragged back onto the playing field of daily operations and putting out unnecessary fires. When he took over as Team President in 1989, Harlan was adamant that he was going to hire a proven football person to run the football operation while he stayed out of the way and not get immersed in that department.
PLANNING A CONFERENCE OR SPEAKING EVENT?
Could enduring principles from the origin of legends be applied to your company or industry association? In the face of frantic, unforgiving change? BIG LITTLE LEGENDS offers a deeper dive into timeless principles that NEVER change. If you have an in-person event on the 2025 or 2026 horizon, watch the ‘Movie Trailer’ and discover the endlessly fascinating, universally applicable message of BIG LITTLE LEGENDS.
“Heroes get remembered. Legends never die” - BABE RUTH
For more information on scheduling an In-Person or Virtual Speaking Program, contact us here: bookings@gairmaxwell.com.
BRAND STRATEGY: ON PURPOSE & ON TRACK.
It’s been called a metaphorical road trip that is both journey and destination. THE BRANDING HIGHWAY is designed for larger companies and organizations looking to emerge as an undeniable, undisputed, "Category of One.” This proven, market-tested process is an avenue for Executive Teams to discover both a highly distinctive Brand Identity as well as develop the foundation for your own Media Company. Impossible to describe. Filled with many twists and turns, here is a quick preview:
“No one remembers who took second place. That will never be me" -ENZO FERRARI
BIG LITTLE LEGENDS: SPOTLIGHTED IN FORBES 🌟
FULL THROTTLE VIDEO:
Every week, someone asks a question about our videos and our media partner responsible for the storyboarding, production, and editing. Headquartered in Toronto, ON with a Western Canadian office in Calgary, AB, DEFIANT ASTRONAUT MEDIA is uniquely positioned to help business leaders all over the continent rethink what's possible with this art form.
LET’S GET SOCIAL aND CONNECT
Feel free to share this post with others and subscribe to our YouTube Channel: