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Take your audience on an adventure
We came up with a really simple model in this next book. It’s basically a story structure that overlays on top of any journey – we call it a venturescape. And as a leader, when you’re actually driving people into the future, you need to walk them through the five stages of a venturescape. So it has a beginning, a middle, and an end structure just like a great story. So at the beginning it takes two stages: you have to dream – you have to cast, “Hey, this is where we’re going” – and then the people, you’re travelers, need to leap. So the first two stages are dream, leap. The middle stage is the messy middle. This is the part of the story where it gets kind of ugly. Every story gets a little ugly, and the protagonist has a hard time, and they endure, and they change. Well this ugly middle is the fight and climb phase. This is where if you’re trying to lead really incredibly large change, there’s incredible amounts of skirmishes and you get caught up in the fog of war and it’s confusing and not very fun, and people are kind of getting wounded and thrown back, and like, “Oh my God, can I keep going?” And then once you finish the battle you’re like, “And then I have to climb this huge hill? I have to climb now?” And you’re already kind of war-torn. And that fight and climb phase is the hardest part, and it’s sometimes the longest lasting part. And then ultimately you do arrive, and you’ve finally made it. The initiative is done, the big transformation is done – whatever it is that you’ve been called to lead is done.
So it has the five stages: dream, leap, fight, climb, arrive. So in the dream phase, you need to create a moment of inspiration. That’s what they need – they need to be inspired. So you tell a great speech. Now you’re speech may be a vision speech, or it may be a revolution speech. A vision speech is a motivating speech, but a revolution speech is one where they need to be warned out of their complacency. So each stage has a different type of speech, story, symbol, and ceremony that needs to be delivered by the leader to create the kind of momentum that you need.
Once you’ve established the dream, you need people to commit. And so that’s what the leap phase is – it’s a moment of commitment, where people are drawn in. It may look as simple as a standing ovation after you’ve declared your dream, or something as complicated as saying, “I really need you guys to sign off on the dotted line and march with me.” Whatever is that commitment needs to happen in the leap phase.
In the fight phase, the leader needs to create a moment of bravery where they’re emboldened, because it’s going to be hard. Some of the insights there came from the old fashioned war dances, like, how do you rally a group of people together and get them excited to launch into battle? I mean, that’s what you’re really asking them to do.
And then in the climb phase, that’s where you need a moment of endurance. Some leaders cop-out in this phase by creating slides with dorky metaphors, or sports metaphors, or race cars, like all those overused metaphors. But it’s in this phase where you need them to muster the energy to actually re-commit and keep going.
And then once you’re done, you arrive. When you’ve finally arrived, you need to give the travelers time to reflect. This happens a lot of times in myths and movies, where they’ll gather around a watering hole or just have a moment – a cathartic release – to know that they’ve made it. And this creates a moment of reflection. Sometimes you have to reflect on your battle scars; you pull up your sleeves and you say, “Wow, that fight phase was really hard!” And you need to give them a moment to actually reflect on that. And some leaders will shut down any sort of communication that isn’t flattering to the organization or to the leader themselves, and yet, you can look at really difficult leaders and some are really willing to serve because the battle scars were worth the reward. So it’s in the moment of reflection that they weigh the cost: “Was that worth the sacrifice I made?” And you need to let them do that. So that moment of reflection is very important.