Communicate Vision Directly, Clearly, and Early
What’s at stake when we do not communicate our vision directly? As leaders, it is our responsibility to hold the vision and communicate it clearly and often, while also trusting our teams to be expert in their own realms. If we do not find this balance, we risk misunderstanding, internal squabbles over siloed priorities and resources, and wasted time and energy spent moving in the wrong direction.
As an actor in a play, I see things subjectively, from my character’s point of view. The theater director holds the vision, sees the big picture. They are two different jobs. The director has to allow the actor to discover and develop their character within the vision and world of the play as the director sees it. This is a tricky dynamic, but an important one for all leaders to balance.
Many years ago I was in a profound and disturbing play called Thatcher’s Women about the women who took up prostitution in the 1980s during Thatcher’s reign to support their families. I played two characters, both sex workers. The sets were dark and moody with female body parts protruding. The feeling for the play was bleak, cold, and raw. We did a lot of exploration, visualizations, and exercises to “find” our characters. As my characters revealed themselves, the one who lived on the streets, really came alive for me. I saw her as gritty, messy, punk rock, sassy, sleeping in train stations and waking up with cigarette breath. Maybe not the most original image, but she emerged this way. Despite witnessing my character’s journey in rehearsal, I got the sense that the director didn’t like where I was going. Nothing I offered worked for her, yet she gave me no direction. Her slight look of contempt said it all. I felt negated at every turn, but my questions only received vague hints I could not decode. A week before opening I received my costume: I was to wear bubble-gum-pink fishnets, purple leather shorts, a multi-colored, sequined bustier with my hair teased high, red lip gloss, and an enormous pink bow. Where did this technicolor caricature come from? More Suzanne Somers in Three’s Company than Trainspotting, for sure. All of my work over the last weeks in developing this character was suddenly for naught; I was to play this woman as a chipper, happy, none-too-bright, gum-snapping, prostitute with a heart of gold. And everyone, from the designers to the producers and director knew that vision from the start. Everyone, except me. Only days before the opening, did the director let me in on her vision. She told me that the play was so dark, so relentlessly hopeless, that she wanted me to be the comic relief. Oh! My character was a break for the audience: a funny, fluffy, silly, much-needed release. Ah-ha! Of course! Yes! I could do that. And to this day, I wonder why the director took so long to let me in on her thinking. Her job as director is to carry the vision and to communicate it to the actors. As my father said, “Leadership is the capacity to translate a vision into reality.” I had not been privy to the vision until the very end of the process. Think of how much more we could have done, how much easier the process would have been, how much less hurtful, if she had been direct with me right off!
In contrast to this experience, I was lucky enough to be in a play by Ben Bettenbender, directed by Judy Minor. I had a small part, a waitress, who serves the protagonist played by Janis Dardaris. At first, I played the character the way I saw her, from a subjective point of view. I loved this salt-of-the-earth, warm, but brusque New Jersey diner waitress. However, Judy directed me to be mean, cold, almost abusive to my customer. She explained right off: This is the opening scene where we set up the conflict by showing the protagonist as isolated and abandoned, with no one on her side. My character was part of that set-up so the play unfolded in the right arc. Judy trusted me to see the purpose for her direction, shared her reasoning, and made it easy for me to give her what she and the play needed. She shared the vision directly, clearly, and early.
This week, think about things we may be keeping from others that might give them what they need to move forward, share your Vision directly.