Vision And Integration: What Every Business Owner Needs To Know Today
A business only gets so far with a vision. Integration is the glue that holds an organization together and moves the needle forward.
The visionary and integrator roles are both critical roles of any organization. One without the other will hinder your business growth. Do you have both roles in your business?
Let’s take a closer look at vision versus integration, and what they mean for your company
Vision and Your Business
Vision — every business needs it, no matter the size of the organization. It’s the visionary’s role that brings innovation, creativity, and the passion necessary to give the business a true trajectory and direction.
Visionaries see the big picture and are strategic thinkers. They put in the time, dedication and research to innovate and drive ideas, products and services that expand the business.
However, as a company grows, visionaries may lose momentum. Visionaries often hit a threshold when through growth phases and when workloads increase. Their top strengths are creative insights, design and innovation. Often they’ll need help maintaining or managing major business functions, implementation of large projects and day-to-day operations.
Visionaries are extraordinary with relationships — important clients, vendors, and industry associations. And they typically excel at closing big deals.
They have a special ability to envision what next generation products or services look like. Normally they don’t need diagrams or workflows – they see it in the minds’ eye. They constantly push for more and consistently reach higher and higher. These are not learned skills. These are innate skills and how visionaries are genetically encoded. They see the future.
Yet, even the most innovative, hard-working visionaries cannot take on every task required in business. This is where, to be effective, an integrator needs to step in to fill the gaps.
Integration and Your Business
You know how glue sticks everything together? That’s what integration is. Integrators are like the glue that holds everything together in your business.
Integrators happily oversee all the major functions of a business — sales, marketing, finance, operations information technology and customer service. An integrator naturally operates on logic and helps drive results toward operational effectiveness. Below are just a few of the ways they accomplish that:
- Manage day-to-day operations
- Coordinate with the visionary and interpret the plan
- Execute the visionary’s strategic plans
- Hold the visionary and internal teams accountable
- Direct all major business functions
- Implement standard operating procedures
- Measure KPIs, metrics and systems analysis
- Lead constant and neverending Improvement
Integrators execute the company vision. In other words, they take the vision and bring it to life by drawing the roadmap and making sure everyone knows and goes the way.
They run the day-to-day operations and remove obstacles so people can execute effectively. Integrators obsess about organizational clarity and getting everyone moving in the same direction. Integrators love to ensure all processes are followed consistently; that is, ensure the company’s weekly metrics are achieved. They are the voice of reason.
Simply put, the integrator role is a critical role in order to run a successful business, especially through any major growth phases.
What These Roles Mean For Your Business
Is your current primary focus vision or integration? Depending on the primary roles you have, it may mean change is needed to move the needle forward for your business.
If you’re an integrator who is frustrated with the business’s direction, then you’ll need a strong visionary. Visionaries can help clarify roles, responsibilities and the trajectory of the business. They can help paint the bigger picture so you can plan the best route to reach or exceed the strategic goals and objectives.
And if you’re a visionary that is frustrated and has hit a ceiling, you’ll need an integrator. A great integrator can transform your business by creating the organizational clarity it needs. Integrators love operational effectiveness. This is done through systems optimization, building processes, programs, and technologies along with other useful tools. You can expect clear outcomes, great results, high prioritization, team unity, quick resolutions, discipline and focus with a great integrator on your team. And did we mention overcoming pitfalls, roadblocks and barriers?
So, which are you? Are you primarily an integrator or a visionary?
Whichever your current role may be, reaching out to an expert to help you sort through the puzzle pieces can eliminate frustrations, increase profits, enhance leadership and make a world of a difference for your business.
Get ready to have your business running smoothly in all departments. Get in touch with our team today. Grab a free 30-minute consultation to discover what an integrator can do for you, your team and your business!