Summary of The Vision Driven Leader by Michael Hyatt

 The Vision Driven Leader: 10 Questions to Focus Your Efforts, Energize Your Team, and Scale Your Business by Michael Hyatt

Part 1: Vision Drives Everything

Question 1: Are You a Leader or a Manager?

• A vision is a clear, inspiring, practical, and attractive picture of your organization’s future (3-5 years out).
• Leaders passionately own a vision, articulate it well, relentlessly pursue it, and thus inspire others to follow them.
• On the other hand, managers execute the vision, control risks, and fulfill administration & maintenance tasks.

Question 2: What Difference Does Vision Make? 

• Vision-deficit leaders are: (1) unprepared for the future, (2) miss key opportunities, (3) scatter priorities, (4) waste money, time, and talent, and (5) prone to quit during tough times.

Part 2: Drafting Your Vision Script

Question 3: What Do You Want? 

• A Vision Script a clear, inspiring, practical, and attractive picture of your team, products, marketing, and impact three to five, though possibly more, years into the future. 

Question 4: Is It Clear? 

• A clear vision is concrete (not abstract), clear (not vague).
• 5 steps to gain a clear vision: (1) admit you’re unclear, (2) recognize your blinders, (3) ask for input, (4) process the feedback, (5) just start.

Question 5: Does It Inspire? 

• A Vision Script must ignites hearts, minds, passion, and creativity or else you won’t attract the talent or the buy-in from your team (and customers) necessary to reach your destination.
• An inspiring Vision Script is risky (ie. challenging, motivating, big) but not stupid (ie. likely to fail).

Question 6: Is It Practical? 

• A practical Vision Script leads to an annual plan that is broken down into quarterly goals (“Quarterly Big 3”) & further into weekly objectives (“Weekly Big 3”) that inform your daily tasks (“Daily Big 3”).

Question 7: Can You Sell It? 

• The surest test of your vision is whether you can sell it to key stakeholders, both inside (involving feedback & refinement from key employees) and outside (impossible to over-communicate to outsiders).

Part 3: The Challenge Ahead

Question 8: How Should You Face Resistance? 

• Three essential traits you can leverage when the resistance threatens to thwart your vision: tenacity in the face of rejection, integrity when tested by ethical compromise, and courage in the face of settling for less than success.
• Staying plugged into the vision will be like a personal power generator.

Question 9: Is It Too Late?

• Vision Zag is a new and inspiring direction that a vision-driver leader takes his organization.

Question 10: Are You Ready? 

• 5 key steps: (1) Schedule it in, (2) Get necessary input, (3) Trust the process, (4) Tweak as you go, (5) Go ahead and launch.