“Lack of clarity leads to mistakes, disagreements about prioritization, it leads to sitting in interminable meetings…lack of clarity of purpose is extremely demotivating.” – Justin Rosenstein Co-founder, Asana.
Some time ago I was struggling with personal motivation. Why was I doing what I’m doing, and was there better ways I could use my abilities and time to serve God? I often felt that I was spending a lot of time on things that weren’t really valuable or making a difference. Oddly enough, the as I began using a todo list I began to develop a better sense of clarity. Justin Rosenstein, in his presentation to Chicago Ideas Week (which I posted in last weeks blog), states that we need three levels of clarity to feel like we are living life to the fullest:
Clarity of Purpose – Why are we doing what we are doing? What is the larger purpose that your works connect with? How does this affect our larger community? This makes even the more mundane things we do important because we see them as a part of the larger whole.
Clarity of Plan – The plan creates of peace because you know you aren’t forgetting things. Nothing that you could foresee will drop through the cracks. Sure, there may be things that you can’t foresee, but because you had a plan, it is now easier to improvise. Having a plan will give us courage us to take on even larger projects as we gain trust that our plans can succeed.
Clarity of Responsibility – This will avoid duplicated effort, and creates accountability for what is being accomplished. Ultimately one person is responsible for accomplishing their scope of work by a specific amount of time. They may need other people to help them, but it actually empowers people to make sure that particular task gets done. This also allows people to thrive in their specific gifts, and yet leverage the power of teamwork to do great things together.
To add to Justin’s talk, a “Clear vision of Christ” will help us realize there are things that are not in our control, but that we serve someone who we can trust with our past, our present, and our future.
“The difference between a team that lacks this clarity and a team that does know what they are doing is the difference between a team of people who have grand ambitions that remain pipe dreams and a team of people who are able to succeed in contributing their unique gifts to this world …and participate in this community and actually succeed in helping humanity thrive. ” – Justin Rosenstein Co-founder, Asana.
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