Creating a Legacy | Accelerate Success with Lorraine Moore

Closely aligned with your direction, your legacy statement helps define your intentions for your career and overall life. I always envision this quasi-vision as a lighthouse on the edge of a craggy shore. Its light shines in the distance so that the entire structure becomes visible as you approach the shore. The best legacy plans are emotional and aspirational. They define the essence of a fulfilled career for a period of time and they generate anticipation and excitement within you.

When artfully creating one’s life vision, my most successful clients consider the full spectrum of their personal and professional lives and as such, we begin by imagining a bright future, with all aspects aligned in harmony.

This is the cornerstone of a successful career. The many successful leaders I work with revisit the following exercise every few years, particularly when making a change or course correction. As you complete this, let your imagination flow.

Exercise 1 – Project five years out

How would you feel if you were in the same job? Sitting in the same office?
Would you like to be working at the same company?
Why or why not?
What about location? If you work for a global or national organization, is mobility an important factor for promotion?
If so, have you worked in other locations? If not, have you talked to your boss about how soon you should move to demonstrate your willingness to do so?
Have you talked to him or her regarding options and locations?
What other jobs are appealing to you?
What aspects of those jobs interest you?

Now we turn to the nearer term and hold a mirror to your future self. In your imagination, place yourself two and three years out. As you complete the exercise below, consider these questions:

If someone observed you for a day at each of these times, what would they see? If that person were to speak to your colleagues, direct reports, leader, or others, what words would they hear being used to describe you?

What will success look like when you review the metrics for your operation, department, or sales team at each of these points?

Exercise 2 – Draft your legacy statement

Identify three to five words that each of the following stakeholders will ideally use to describe you in two to three years:

Customers
Employees
Colleagues in the organization
Suppliers
Your board

Identify two to five quantitative measures of success.

Referencing examples below, draft your legacy statement.

Sample legacy statements:

“By spring 2025, our customers will herald our sales team as the most responsive and client-focused professionals they have ever worked with. The Operations Team will recognize our team as being highly collaborative and respectful.”

“Within three years, we will deliver this $10B project on time, on budget, and with no reportable safety incidents. The project team will consider this the most exciting project they have worked on in their careers. We will be interviewed and featured in Fortune Magazine.”

“We will have dramatically improved the relationships between our suppliers and my division. We will have reduced operating costs by ten percent. We will hold a joint celebration with our suppliers in Orlando.”

“By 2026 we will have been selected as one of Canada’s best-managed companies. Employee engagement will be at an all-time high. Customer satisfaction will exceed ninety percent and we will have no serious safety incidents.”

A legacy statement can also be particularly useful when you are experiencing an internal turning point—when you are feeling dissatisfied and are seeking a new challenge. Crafting the legacy statement can bring clarity to your thoughts and help formulate appropriate actions so that you can then move forward. To be adaptable in our personal and professional lives, we benefit from an overarching direction and life trajectory.

For more tips on successfully navigating turning point moments in your career or times when you may be in new circumstances or have critical decisions to make, pick up a copy of Feet to the Fire: How to Exemplify and Create the Accountability that Creates Great Companies.