Create a Vision That Inspires

Create a Vision That Inspires

In the past twelve months as I have presented to leaders from over 300 organizations I have discovered a huge gap in most organizations. The younger workers aged 25 years to 40 are asking their leaders "What is the future vision of the organization?" This is a surprise for me. Formulating a company's vision used to be just an abstract exercise. Now contributors want to know what future the organization is striving to achieve. Below are some tips for how you can create a vision that inspires your team or organization.

Envision the ultimate. If you begin your direction setting by aiming for less than the best, it will only be luck if you achieve an outstanding result.

In 1994 working inside an old warehouse Steve Case, the president of America On Line, told Kara Swisher, then of the Wall Street Journal, his vision to make AOL the biggest communication company in the world. Swisher related that she told Case, "I think you are crazy." AOL later grew large enough to buy Time Warner.

A vision is a compelling, idealistic, and positive description of an organization's long-range future. It describes the organization's potential achievements at the highest level, which on one hand are major stretches, yet still attainable.

Characteristics of a Vision Statement:
1. A vision statement is a specific communication tool.
2. A successful vision achieves at least one or two of the high priority values of each of these three areas:
customers, employees, and shareholders/parent company.
3. A vision is attainable at some point in the foreseeable future.
4. A vision motivates, excites, and compels people towards the future. The best case: people respond in visible and exciting ways.
5. Development of a vision requires a process that uses creativity.
6. The organization's mission is aligned to the vision.

In the widely discussed book, The Age Of Unreason, Charles Handy states that all of the studies on leadership agree on only one thing, " … but what they do agree on is probably the heart of things … A leader shapes and shares a vision which gives point to the work of others."

Vision is best drafted by the leaders with the inclusion of a cross-section of the organization's most creative individuals. The draft of the vision is then communicated with employees, major customers, and major investors, and modified as needed to promote alignment. During this process, communicate the internal and external forces for attaining breakthrough, including trends that are not even visible. Seeing what is not visible to everyone is vision. Use artwork and metaphors as needed to capture the spirit or motivation of the vision.

Organizational leaders with vision are a requirement for breakthrough at the organizational level. Leaders with vision are the ones who founded the organizations such as Microsoft (Bill Gates) and Ford (Henry Ford). Or they are the ones such as Alfred P. Sloan, who took over failing companies and turned them around.

If a leader's "vision" seems disconnected from the organization, the reason may be that (drum roll …) it is not a vision. It may be a few words or even the outline of a vision, but usually it is not a fulfilled, clear image in motion picture color. Most vision statements resemble the constellations in the sky like Orion, the hunter, where at best they are only dots with imaginary lines between the dots. Full-blown visions require clear, descriptive wording.

Vision is not a company's mission. Vision is the long-term direction and the target towards which the organizational mission aims. Mission, by contrast, is purpose: it proclaims what an organization does today.