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Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg, voice and host of Inside Personal Growth and honest to goodness right in San Diego is Simon Vetter. And I'm pleased to have him back. He's a good friend and I'm thrilled to have him back on. And he's actually going through a bit of a transformation, which is why we're having him back on the show.

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And he is doing so much. And it is he's beginning to be known as the vision architect. Good day to you, Simon. How are you doing? Doing great. Great to be here with you, Greg. Well, it's good to have you. Thank you so much. I'm going to let the listeners know a little bit about you. He is the CEO of Stand Out International, which is going to become the vision architect.

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But you'll find him out there under stand out internationally, he's spent over two decades helping fortune 500 executives from Microsoft and Dell to Qualcomm and the NFL create a transformational change. And really, what makes Simon so special? Just is an impressive client roster. It's his unique approach to visionary. And that's what we're going to get across this morning.

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Through his proprietary process, Simon has, helped leaders craft compelling visions that don't just hang on the conference walls, but actually ignite passion and drive real behavioral change through the organizations. He coauthored a book called leading with vision, which you can check that out on Amazon. We'll have links below in the show notes to the book so that you can get the book.

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And to all of his websites. Simon vitter.com, groundbreaking book that was based on research across 400 companies that shows leaders how to connect with today's workforce at a more emotional level, just not a cognitive one. It's, as we said, it's kind of particularly critical in today's workplace, where traditional motivational approaches are kind of fallen short. Today's employees need more than financial incentives.

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They need purpose. And especially the Gen Xers and Gen Xers, and they want more purpose and they want more stake in the game. So, Simon, welcome to the show. Thank you. Great pleasure to have you. Well, let's let's dig right in. And we'll use kind of your book as a foundation for all this, but there's more going on in your life than just the book.

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So it's been over seven years since you were last on our show, when you first published the book. And when you look back at the research that sparked the book that created a compelling vision, it was, number one, leadership needs to be ranked number five in development priorities. How has this gap basically evolved since you guys last wrote this book?

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There were three of you authors on the book. Yes. So initially we do this trend survey where we ask over 400 companies, what are some of the most critical topics in leadership development and what came out 7 or 8 years ago is like leading with vision and creating the emotional connection with the employees. Is is the most needed skill for leaders.

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It's also one of the most underdeveloped. So it's that huge gap. And since then, I think the gap hasn't been, reduced. In fact, the gap has widened. What I'm and, people have a need for having clarity. I think there is a crisis in clarity when you talk to companies and employees, ask him, what's the vision for your company?

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What are you going sometimes they don't know how to answer it. And if they know what they are not able to articulate in a way that creates excitement. Yeah, it's almost like storytelling. It isn't. It isn't. The CEO needs to get up in front of a group of his, employees. Let's say he has to be a good storyteller.

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Right? I like to saying stories sell, facts tell. In fact, our goals or numbers and processes, they're important. They tell. But if you want to engage, you want to persuade, you want to bring people along. You're going to create a story. You need to create a vision that people can see in their minds. I totally and I use this, I can, I maybe use a little example here.

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Yeah, yeah. I'm going to invite everybody up to my favorite beach in San Diego. So I'll give you two invitations. And then at the end, you tell me which one is more compelling for you to join. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right, so we're going to go to Pacific Beach. And it's a beautiful sunny day, 85 degree.

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It's around noontime and you have shorts, a t shirt, barefoot. And together we are stepping on the sand. It's nice white sand in Pacific Beach and we're walking towards the ocean as you touch the sand. You can feel the warm sand between your toes. As you look to the ocean. You see the sprinkles on top of the waves and you can hear the ocean and have a little breeze in your face.

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As you look up in the blue sky, you see 25 pelicans flying in V format over the ocean. And we're walking through the sand and looking backwards. You can see your footprints and you feel alive. That's version number one. I invite you now using version number two, I invite you to Pacific Beach, my favorite beach. We get to meet at the end of Garnet by the pier.

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And then from there, we walk along the beach for 1.3 miles at the end. Mission Bay. We return and walk back 1.3 miles total of 2.6 miles. We have zero elevation and it takes us one hour and 45 minutes. I gave you two different versions for the same walk. Which one is more inviting and compelling? Well, obviously number one, it it it gets you to visualize.

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In other words, I could feel the sand beneath my toes. I could see the pelicans. I could hear the ocean spray. I mean, I you know, it's it. And that's what you're seeing is to get to the emotional level. You need to create a word picture in somebody's mind. The first one great gave me a great word picture.

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No, no. The second one was was mechanical like, hey, we're going to meet. We're going to walk 1.6 miles is going to take us an hour and a half. Boom. Done. Right. So I get it. Translating that to business and leadership. I work with a lot of big companies. I work with leaders, VP's, directors, sea level. And how do they lead?

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They lead mechanical with Excel sheets and PowerPoints. They have numbers, they have processes, they have maps. It's like mechanical. It makes sense for cognitive, for the brain, but they are missing the heart piece. And how do you engage the employees heart commitment, engagement motivation is you create a picture that they can see and say, yeah, I want to be part of that journey that we have going over the next two, three years.

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Yes, it's going to be sweaty and steep and challenging and unexpected and ambiguous, and I want to be part of that. Yeah, know the story and make it sensory rich. Make it visual is what visionary leaders are able to capture. Well, I think your tagline is making the invisible visible, right? And let's dive into this lift six model.

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You say the first step is to imagine the invisible. Can you give us a concrete example of a leader who successfully saw something that others couldn't see? And I'm going to make a note here. You know, Sarah MacArthur was for the longest time and still well connected with Marshall Goldsmith. And she told a story to me once, which I think is very compelling here about Peter Drucker and Peter Drucker used to speak to, miss Hazel blank, who is the head of the Girl Scouts.

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And they we became very good friends. And one day Peter Drucker was being interviewed and the reporter asked him a question and he said, look out the window. What do you see that I don't see that you can do something about. And I thought for a minute that was such a compelling answer, you know. And Drucker said it was just the throwaway that he just came up with.

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But the reality is it's become quite famous is like, look out the window. You all have a vision. What is it that you see that you can bring to the table that could help us, right? That could change something. Talk about your lift model and how you successfully have helped others see this. I like your analogy of looking out the window when I do workshop with the managers.

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I said, let's all stand at the window and looking outside and imagine two years down the road, three years down the road, what are you seeing? And do we have a shared vision? Do we all see the same? Are we able to articulate the same picture in our own words? And we see it as a management team, and what happens if they don't see that it's not?

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A quick example. I was working with a manufacturing company and one of the the VP of operations. He was very frustrated and said, you know, our management team is not aligned. And he said, it feels like we all want to go and climb the mountains and everybody wants to climb a different peak. Imagine what does that do.

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And everybody has their own equipment, their own path or map. And they are instead of saying hey we all want to kind mountain and we all agree to climb the same peak. Yes. As a team, I have one example I worked with, her name is Mary. She was a partner for a marketing agency here in San Diego, and when I met her, I got introduced her.

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She said, you know, I work long hours coming early, work late, work on the weekends. I don't have a life. And she said, I wish I could take two weeks off and spend two weeks with my family in Italy. Just unplug. No computer, nothing, just to relax and be present with my family. So she had this picture in her mind, but it was so far.

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And you know, it's not going to happen because I need to be here. I need I cannot leave this company without for two weeks. And then so I said, let's make this invisible visible. What if you believe this is possible? And I help to create a picture in her mind's eye that's said. Now, what would it look like if I were able to go away for two weeks?

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The team has a clear plan. They know what to do. They have clear all day work and support each other. So she created a two and a half page document outlining the ideal marketing agency. The type of clients they work with, what the team interacts, how they are motivated and helping each other. The processes define even the office.

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It's light and bright and colorful. So you wrote a guy in two and a half pages, communicated to the team, and the team said, wow, this is great. Now we know we are going. I want to be part of that. I want to support that. And he created engagement on the team level. Yeah. Years later in Neri, took two weeks off, went to Italy with her family unblocked, and her team was able to.

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Run the business without her being there. So it's that invisible that she had an idea she had to make it believe. She had to make it crystal clear. She had to be able to communicate to that and bring the people along so they can see it and support the path. It's. So the story is very compelling, because I think when a leader understands how to create a compelling vision, they can bring so many more people along and create greater alignment and achieve so much more.

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So all the KPIs is not throwing them out the window, but they're easier to achieve. And you talk about four key leadership approaches courage, clarity, connective ity and culture. If you had to pick just one that leaders struggle with mostly today, which one would it be and why? I would say it's either clarity or courage. Probably courage.

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You got to have courage. And why? Courage? Why do you think they lack the courage? Are they afraid to actually do this? Yeah. There are three major reasons. Mostly, leaders struggle with vision setting. And that can explains why courage choose and so important. Number one, a lot of managers leaders, they have tremendous pressure for short term results and performance.

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And they focus on KPIs and targets and monthly goals and quarterly targets. And they are getting overwhelmed on short term transactional tasks and projects. It's easy, it's manageable, and it's actual, but it prevents them of really focusing what their role is, creating a strategic picture where they want to go and bring people along so they don't dedicate enough time because they are focused on the short term.

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The second one is many leaders are not very comfortable with ambiguity. When you talk about visioning, it takes intuition, creativity. And so it's something that most leaders we don't learn that in business school we learn right financials and processes and operations, but we don't learn how to creatively create a story that fails and engages people, so that creativity requires reflection, deep thinking is the ability to slow down, and so many are afraid to make that time again because they're focused on the short term.

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And the last one is many leaders confuse goals with vision. They underestimate the power of a vision, I think. Yeah, it's fluffy, it's soft. It because it's not actionable. But when they are able to create that picture and that people can see and share and get connected to it creates this. This unleashes this energy and motivation. And imagine you as a leader are able to create that compelling picture.

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People aligned and believe in that. What would that do to your organization and what it would align the energy resources towards that there is alignment. There's less infighting. So I think what they do when they get to this point is they can unlock their intuition. Some of the biggest business leaders around, and including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs, all used to say that the the biggest factor and then compelling was their ability to touch into their intuition and to listen to that intuition.

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And so some people would say, you know, oh, well, I don't really know where it comes from. Well, call it spiritual if you want, call it whatever. But the point is, is we all have it. We just have to fine tune and listen. Listen inside there are you're either being shown something or you're hearing voices or you know, someone's talking to you.

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You need to do that. And I wanted you to distinguish between you talked about courage, them not being courageous. And then, you know, the other factor is being vulnerable. Okay. And tell us about a leader you worked with who demonstrated both courage and vulnerability, as Brené Brown says, and what the impact was. Was working with a a management team.

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Yeah. And here in the US, in the consumer grit industry. And the guy, the CEO, his name was, Mike. And when I work with, Mike, I, I collect his feedback and Michael Sharp, ambitious, goal oriented, very intelligent and also very driven. And when I got collective feedback, everyone said, Mike is sharp, but I don't trust Mike.

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And so I collect the feedback. And what happened is everybody said, you know, it happened last year twice. Mike was in a hallway and talking about a project with an engineer that lost a lot of money. Mike lost it. He got frustrated even almost angry. Red face, inappropriate language, yelling at this project engineer. Everybody heard it. And those who were not there, they heard it at the water cooler.

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And so Mike created this culture of fear because nobody want to be yelled at by the CEO. So I confronted Mike and says, hey, this is what people say about you. They don't trust you. Mike didn't like it. And he acknowledged statements that, yeah, I remember those two situations. I'm surprised how much those situations impact the culture and the trust.

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And he said, you know what? I'm going to change. He showed vulnerability. He went back to his team and said, hey, I'm sorry, I know I lost it twice. I want to do better. I want to, be more calm and composed. And he called it his whole personal anger management program in there instead of letting it out on his colleagues.

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Yeah, he went start running again. Find a way to channel his energy in a positive way. A year later, he started to engage and build trust and people started to trust him. So he showed vulnerability and said, you know, I'm sorry I made a mistake. And a year later he steam started to gel, paid more cohesion, and it started to the foundation to create a very compelling strategy that actually helped the company win in the marketplace.

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Well, there's a great story because he was bold. He had to be bold to do that, and he had to be vulnerable. And originally he didn't want to be vulnerable. He wanted to basically let people know that he was in control. And so really, none of us is in control all the time. We have to be, as you said in these times of ambiguity and uncertainty, sometimes we have to learn how to go with the flow.

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And, you know, you identified five major obstacles to leading with vision. This is all about leading with vision. Which of these obstacles has become more pronounced in today's business environment? Meaning hey, 2025 versus seven years ago when you guys wrote the book originally. So one is definitely the lack of trust. And then how do you continue to build trust and in a safe environment?

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That's one. But even more importantly is going back to what you said about intuition. We get to turn up our intuitive skills. Yeah, I have this belief that many answers are in us, so we have to dig deeper and allow them to surface. And now neuroscience has a lot of new insights about how the brain works. You can understand our human operating system, which is a lot with the brain.

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And when we talk about vision and imagine ation and also thinking about new possibilities, what happens in the brain. And when we think about the future and new opportunities. The brain accesses the domain, the default mode network. And that's interesting when when we are resting, that brain is activated. Parts of the brain were connected to the communication, the future and the emotions are activated.

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That means we have to rest. We have to slow down. We have to find stillness so we can access the parts of the brain that help us create a vision and look at new opportunities and imagine what could be. And that is positively connected to emotions. So if I'm focusing on task and a list of projects and I got to do this, this, this and this part of the brain are not accessible.

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So it's very counterintuitive. It's important to make time for intuition, reflection, stillness. And then we are able to access parts of the brain that will help us get the answers. So true. I remember this story that was told by Stephen Covey Jr. He said his father used to give people signs for their doors, for their offices, because their offices used to be like revolving doors for people come in with problems.

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And he said, just take two hours a day and put the sign on that says, I'm thinking, meaning don't bother me. Or if my phone is off, I'm not looking at my, internet or my emails. I'm thinking I'm spending time thinking. And that's reflection time. That's time to reflect. That's time to sit with yourself. It's time to look out the window and see what others don't see.

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That you think you could help to bring, solutions to. Right. And, you know, you've worked with leaders across many cultures and countries. You were born in Switzerland, and there are universal truths about visionary leadership. I would assume. And or does it vary significantly as you see it, Simon, from culture to culture. So let's just talk Switzerland versus the United States.

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What differences do you see? And if you don't see any, why do you think you don't see any? When it comes to visioning, I don't see differences in terms of how to apply it. There might be some cultural differences that we have to be aware of. But here's the other thing is like who is best at visioning which professions, which professionals have mastered the skill of visioning best and their architects.

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Of course. So I'm, I grew up in Switzerland. I was four years old when I stood on skis. I love skiing when you look at the, the, the the ski link, the best skiers. Today's Marco Odermatt, he won downhill and super-G and giant slalom and did the last four seasons. And so when you look at downhill skiers, what do they do an hour before the race?

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Visualize they're in this standing in the snow. And then they go through the race in their mind's eye, the jumps and everything. They go two minutes through the race in their mind's eye, and they're coming down with 80, 90 miles and take a sharp turn. The brain doesn't have time to think if they visualize that over and over again, that mental rehearsal, that mental simulation, the body doesn't.

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The system doesn't differentiate if it's real or imagined. Yeah. And studies show that we can imagine and visualize the body when we use it sensory based. The body learns from that. And so athletes are really, really good in determining specific performance. Specific. When a stroke I see tennis players, I see tennis players, basketball players. They're visualizing a stroke, but they're also visualizing a specific game, a visualizing a hard time visualizing a whole game.

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And the longer you visualize it, the harder it gets. But they visualize a whole season. They visualize a whole career. So taking that concept to business, a lot of the business leaders talk about vision three, five, ten years. That's probably the hardest thing. And I say use shorter term framing time frames. Visualize for upcoming presentation. You have an offsite strategy session.

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Use visualization for that. How you can come together. How do you change each other? Pretty picture where people access their collective intelligence. They listen to each other. They challenge each other with questions we can apply visualizing for those events. You can visualize a sales quarter, say, okay, let's assume at the end of the quarter, we all salespeople have successful.

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What would that look like? What would we have achieved? What would be the attitude we have shown during those three months? You can visualize an IT project. Imagine seven months from now, the project has successfully be implemented. Let's create that picture. Let's start with the end in mind. As Stephen Covey said, it's one of the seven habits of Highly effective People.

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UTC defined the end in mind. You crystallize it. You make it so clear, maybe already seize it and say, okay, good, let's do backward engineering. What do we need to do today? So the chances happen in seven months that it is going to be a successful implementation so we can use it. Was interesting. I think what you're saying and reflecting on a story and I just played the podcast back, JD Tremblay, a guy out of Canada who did the the Deca, you know, so imagine this, if you would.

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It's, five triathlons in a row on every island in the Pacific, out and. Oh, wow. Five in a row. So we're talking the bike ride, five triathlons back to back to back to back to back. No time in between just doing it. So he said, you know, only three people finished. He was one. Okay. Very few people have a finish this something deca the point he said is as an athlete, you have to have at some point during this grueling process, faith a and he said, Faith plays such a big role in you being able to complete something.

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Right? Meaning I had to get to my spiritual side. He said, I don't care if you're Christian or you're Muslim or you're this or that or whatever, but I could have never made it through the grueling, intense pain, and challenges that I had. Right. So I look at athletes like that, and it's just always amazes me as where they can find that energy, where they can find that stored up energy to just get them to not quit.

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Right. And that's one of the things you don't want people to quit. So if you were working, if you were writing this book today, what would you add or change based on what you've learned since 2017? And what would you say to the listeners?

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One of the most important things is what we decided, discussed. Slow down, reflect, make time for deep thinking. If you want to create a compelling vision, make space for it and running around and hitting the next project completion. Focusing on the task doesn't do it, and we need to carve out plan time for that. Relax and create an environment where we can really focus on deep thinking.

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That's number one. Number two, do it with others. Create an open, safe, trusting dialog where people challenge you with each other. Look at all the successful start ups. They had, discussions. They have arguments. They talk about what could be. And it's usually not a one person's accomplishment. It's a team behind. So we need to engage the team to really great foster imagination and tap into collective intelligence.

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And it's that human aspect that will make a difference. Especially with AI. Knowledge becomes commodity. We cannot even compete with I am knowledge but we can compete with imagination. We creating new possibilities, new way of thinking. And that's a mental game. Just what you said about this triathlon. We did five in a row. It was a mental game.

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The faith, the belief that helping kids through we have to do this as a mental game. We have to sharpen our mental game. And I want to add and we have to listen to our intuition. Absolutely. When you do that, the combination of listening to intuition, sharpening your, as you were saying, your, faith or having some faith and then using your intellect, applying the intellect to this actually a challenge to to achieve these goals.

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Now we got a lot of listeners that are leaders that listen to this show, whether they're mid-line meters or top end leaders, who want to create that, taking the stairs two at a time, to the top. The energy for their organization is you're saying, hey, we're going to run up these stairs two at a time, right?

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What is the very first step they should take tomorrow morning to get their team to take the stairs? Two at a time.

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I would suggest start with small projects. Short term projects. Say, okay, you have an upcoming open day. You have an upcoming client event. It's a good challenge. Your teams have a good we have this important negotiation with the client. Imagine this is going to be the best case scenario. Everything is going smooth and everything's great. Imagine what would be if we all are satisfied if we win over the client.

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If the client is happy, we get the agreement. So people think more in best case scenarios, we tend to think about worst case scenarios. We look at the media, its focus on worst case scenarios. We think about I oh, it's going to take jobs, it's going to do this. It's part of that. But also what are the opportunities now?

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Can we apply that. So balance best case scenario thinking and reduce the worst case scenario thinking. That's great. You know. And one of the things I've been practicing and I learned that from a friend called Bruce Doyle. He wrote the book Think before another thought. We have hundreds of thoughts per minute. We got to be more aware of our thinking.

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And I challenge myself in my thinking about is it an uplifting thought, something, a thought that brings me further towards where I want to go with my vision in my life? Or is it a limiting involved takes me down or reduces the chance to get where I want to go? And so I think, is it uplifting or is it limiting?

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And if it's limiting, we have a choice. We can stop nurturing that thought. The choice we have is probably the biggest power we have as human beings. You can choose every moment what we think and how we think. So ask yourself whatever you think right now. Is it uplifting or is it limiting? Whatever you say, but your colleagues, your company, does it bring us further or does it take us back?

00:36:30:03 - 00:36:59:03

It's a very simple tool that I practice in my own thinking, and it makes me stop things that's unproductive and makes me be more focused on what I want and what I want to. It's it's great advice. And I and I remember doing a talk this recently about growth mindset. I think that Carol Dweck s book is a wonderful book for everybody to read, but absolutely what you just said is so valuable.

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And I want my listeners to know, look, in the show notes below, go to Simon Vitter, dot com CMO and v ttr.com. Also look for his podcast. You'll see it on that website and the podcast is called The Vision Architect. And he's going to have a lot more guests and people on this show. But we want you to go there.

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And there also be a link to the book. The book will will have it on Amazon again down below. In the show notes, you'll see all of these things, the link to the website, the link to the podcast and the link to the book. Simon, it's been an honor having you back on the show after seven years since writing this book, giving us an update.

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And for all my listeners, it's always Simon Vetter. Simon, thanks so much. Namaste to you and to, to basically all those listeners out that right now that have just listened, for the last 35, 40 minutes to Simon, I talking about creating a compelling vision. Go out and get his book and listen to the Vision Architect podcast.

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Thanks so much. Thank you Greg, great pleasure to be here with you.