I want to talk to you about something we call Rule #3. The Integrator is the tiebreaker.
If you look in your dog-eared copy of Rocket Fuel and the Five Rules, it’s right there. What does it mean for the Integrator to be the tiebreaker?
One of the common situations we’ll find in an organization is that one of the functional leaders wants to go a certain direction, while another leader wants to go in another. Guess what? They can’t sort it out. They don’t agree. So they just get stuck.
What we can’t allow to happen is that we can’t allow them to stay stuck. If they can’t work it out, we want them to take the decision to the Integrator. Let the Integrator hear it all for the greater good, and ultimately decide. With the decision made, we get unstuck and start to move forward.
Hearing that, all the Visionaries out there are freaking out. They’re getting afraid about letting that authority go to their Integrator. What I want you to recognize is that this is just another example of a new habit that we need to learn and bring into the organization.
The value here, for the Visionary, is to create freedom. It’s going to create freedom for you to spend more of your time doing what we need you doing as Visionary. It lets you get out of the day-to-day. And while this may be surprising, statistically you’ll find that the Integrator will actually make better decisions. Their ear is closer to the ground. They’re really going to do a good job for you – if you’ve got the right Integrator.
As the Visionary, you have the ultimate authority. If an Integrator makes bad decisions, we want you to work that out in your Same Page Meeting™. If they continue to make bad decisions, then you may need to fire that Integrator. You want an Integrator in there that’s going to make consistently good decisions – in complete alignment with you.
My big “aha” as we got into this work was that it’s really not about control. Visionaries hang on to things not because they want to control but because they don’t trust enough to let things go. At some point in their past, they’ve handed off one of their “things” to somebody else to let them take care of it. They watched as that person dropped their thing and it broke. The Visionary was sitting there watching, and thought, “Wow, that was my thing you broke.” They get discouraged about being able to let other people handle their stuff. The heart of it is about trusting your Integrator to make good decisions.
Conduct great, consistent Same Page Meetings™ with your Integrator. Let them be the tiebreaker. Let the organization go to them and look to them as the tiebreaker. It will free you up to spend more of your time being a good Visionary. That’s going to be fun for you, and great for the organization.
Three key points to wrap this one up:
- I want you to recognize that fear is a normal thing, Visionaries. You’re not alone in feeling that.
- On average, know that the Integrator is going to make better decisions. Their ear is just closer to the ground in the organization. They’re going to do a good job for you if you’re on the same page.
- Letting go will free you to be the Visionary the organization needs you to be.
Come see us on RocketFuelNow.com. Take the Visionary and Integrator assessments. See where you’re great. See where you could use some help. We’ve been having some great discussions with other Visionaries & Integrators over on LinkedIn and Facebook. Regardless of where you are in your process, I encourage you to join the conversation! And finally, read Rocket Fuel. If you’ve already read Rocket Fuel, and you liked it, we’d love to see a review from you on Amazon. We’d really love to hear what you think.
Until next time, Go ROCKET!
Cheers,
Mark
