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50 CHAPTER 2

The CEO’s Vision (continued)

Interpreting the Story
The story provides a glimpse of Martin’s visionary leadership style, his way
of communicating. He tends to convey meaning through storytelling, often
speaking in metaphors and allegories. His conceptual communication is not
always appreciated or understood.
I understood that the four colors of this magical kaleidoscope are the com-
pany’s four core values—ethical behavior, learning, service, and profitability.
Martin’s vision for the company, told very obliquely, is to see the world
through these four lenses with the wonderment and idealism of the child, to
not be fearful of the capacity that we have as children (and often lose as
adults) to ask why and why not. Still, how effective is this as a communica-
tion strategy? I often watched the rolling eyes of Sanskrit team members as
Martin leaped into his visionary world while his teammates asked him prac-
tical questions: What on earth do you mean by that? How are we going to
achieve this? What are we going to do tomorrow? Or made statements like,
We have real work to do, Martin.

My role as facilitator was clear. I needed to bring this team together to appreciate
both visionary and administrative leadership styles. Both were needed, but neither
spoke the same language or understood the other. As we continued to work together,
this strange company and I, the need for development of people became even more
apparent to me. So I began coaching Martin and his leadership team, using assessment
tools to create awareness, communication tools to create a better working environment
for all, and evaluation tools to track how they were doing.

Leadership Development
A critical first step in the process was that each person on the management team
undergo leadership development training, to assist with both self-understanding
and understanding of others. An important feature of this leadership training would
be learning how to seek out and accept feedback from colleagues. Other important
features of this training included:

■ Desire to grow and mature. This is easier said than done, since most of us will pay
lip service to the desire to develop. But how truly open are we to this, even within
a company that has learning as one of its core values?
■ Seek to understand before seeking to be understood. The concept comes from
Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, a book the entire
management team read and discussed.