While at Stanford, I took a One Act playwriting class taught by Obie-winning writer Adrienne Kennedy. For our final presentation, we had to have a classmate read a portion of our play.
When Doug started reading my script I was utterly astonished. I couldn’t believe that what he was reading were my words. They were the same words but the way he read them gave them a totally different meaning. I wasn’t able to meet with Doug before class to review the characters, plot, and the sentiments I was going for.
Leadership is like that. As a leader you will create strategies and plans but if you don’t get others to understand and share the vision, you can expect their actions to be different than what you expect. And it will be your fault…unless you’re running a mind-reading company.