Dennis P. Drent says that
you can’t lead others if you
can’t first lead yourself, so you
need to develop your self-awareness and know who you
are and what your values are. In
turn, that self-awareness will
allow you to develop a vision
for your organization.
Drent has developed a vision
for Veterinary Pet Insurance Co.
that will not only help the pet
insurance company continue to
grow, but it’s also one that he
believes in and can live each
day.
“You do have to have that
natural passion for the business
and believe in what the business does, and if you don’t
have that, any other vision will
be false, and people are going
to see through it, and it’s not
going to work,” says the company’s president and CEO. “The
key is you have to actually
believe it.”
Creating a strong vision that
he believes in has helped Drent
grow the company to 2007
revenue of $148.9 million with
425 employees.
Smart Business spoke with
Drent about how to create a
vision for the future of your
company.
Determine the present and future. You have to figure out where
you’re at — here’s where we’re
at today, what realistically can
we accomplish with the company, what do we want to accomplish with it, where do we want
it to be in three years, five years,
10 years? Then start working
backward.
It has to be genuine. You have
to believe in the noble purpose
of your vision. People want to do
business with a company that is
transparent, trustworthy, caring
and easy to do business with.
Transparency is underpromising and overdelivering. Trust
starts with simply being competent. Customers begin to trust
you when you deliver on basic
promises with no hassle. The
company must demonstrate
character. Character mostly
includes doing the right things
for the right reasons.
Company values need to be
well-defined and communicated
to all employees.
If you’re just in it to make
money and you’re not genuine
about your vision … if your real
vision is, ‘I just want to get rich,’
anything else you do … people
are going to see through it
because your behavior is going
to be all about making money.
So you have to have a genuine
vision of what you want the
organization to do.
Understand what the vision means
for your employees. You have to
look at understanding what’s in
it for the people. You have to
think about what’s in it for the
employees. The vision has to be
compelling to the employees, as
well, what’s in it for them and
try to convince them.
Most employees assume the
CEO is in it for the money and
is overpaid. Part of selling your
vision is to convince employees
you are genuinely concerned
about customers and employees
as much as making money for
your shareholders and yourself.
Once people realize you are
genuinely trying to improve the
lives of everyone — customers,
employees and shareholders —
you gain credibility, and they are
more likely to follow your lead.
It’s a good idea to first see
what the employees think the
vision is or should be. Ask them
what they think are the company values. Whatever the vision,
it has to be genuine and have
some greater purpose that
employees can feel good about.
The vision has to provide guidance, set expectations, inspire
and give employees a glimpse of
what’s in it for them.
People always want to know
where you’re going. … They
want to know why you’re going
there and want to understand it
so they want to be able to buy
in. They want to know that
where you’re going they can
sign up for that because it
meets their values and what
they’re trying to accomplish in
their lives.
If you don’t have that, you
resort to sort of the herding
cats, people go all over the
place, there’s no alignment to
what people do every day to
where the organization is trying
to go, and without that alignment, you don’t know where
you’re going to end up. If you
don’t put that stake in the
ground, the organization can’t
get aligned behind it, and therefore, you don’t know where
you’re going to end up.
