Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business

by Gino Wickman

Vision without traction is merely hallucination.

If you’re not growing, be it internally or externally, you’re dying. Most companies strive for external growth, but internal growth also leads to future greatness.

“No further progress and growth is possible for an organization until a new state of simplicity is created.”

Your ability to break through the ceiling also depends on your ability to delegate. Be prepared to “delegate and elevate” to your true god-given skill set. You’ll have to delegate some of your responsibilities and elevate yourself to operate at your highest and best use. It’s not practical for you to remain chef, head waiter, and dishwasher as your company grows. By hanging on to all the tiny details, you’re actually constricting the company’s growth. When you experience that personal growth, the company will grow under you. This is exactly what is meant by letting go of the vine.

There is a direct correlation between organizational adherence to core processes and your own ability to let go.

In summary, once you understand that hitting the ceiling is inevitable, you and your leadership team must employ these five leadership abilities to reach the next level: (1) simplify the organization, (2) delegate and elevate, (3) predict both long-term and short-term, (4) systemize, and (5) structure your company the right way. The tools you’re about to learn are all designed specifically to help you acquire those abilities.

The late Dr. David Viscott, author of Risking, wrote, “If you cannot risk, you cannot grow. If you cannot grow, you cannot become your best. If you cannot become your best, you cannot be happy. If you cannot be happy, what else matters?”

What is vision? It’s clearly defining who and what your organization is, where it’s going and how it’s going to get there.

The combination of your talents and passions combined with your leadership creates something unique that no other company has, and that something is your core focus.

“It is crucial to have a crystal clear picture of what you want to accomplish … Rivet your attention on that spot where you are to land at the end of your quantum leap … Once you do that, it’s almost as if you magnetize yourself to the ways and means involved in the methodology for getting there. Solutions begin to appear. Answers come to you.”