I came across Tom Peters' call for "every person a business person" in the late 90s when I founded a Center of Excellence (COE) at my former employer. In my 2-page Vision for the COE, I included a section called We are a BUSINESS Unit in which I said ...
"I’ve taken the every-employee-a-business-person approach by sharing business responsibilities with team members."Did I walk the talk? Take sales presentations, for example. In a company where only group heads or other senior folks made presentations to prospects and customers, my COE was the first to "experiment" with junior team members. A lot of co-presenting senior folks were a bit uncomfortable sitting with a "junior" person, who made claims about productivity and IT payoff.
But that was in the initial years. Later, I saw junior team members from other groups increasingly representing their groups! A Change for the better? I'd say so. Even the junior presenter was thrilled that he/she has been entrusted with the important task of helping the company win business.
Perhaps some take-aways from this experience:
1. Willingness to think differently
2. Boldness to act differently
3. Celebration of the fact that your thinking and boldness inspired a positive Change companywide.
What have been your experiences with Vision statements, thinking/acting differently, and making a positive Change happen?