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At one level, vision is based on insight into what the market will demand in the future. At another level, vision can connect your product/service focus to the needs of society and enable your organization to imagine its contribution to and place within the local and global communities.
Initially, "vision" may be a blurry concept. As you work your way through the Nautilus, keep your organization’s unique resources and place within the larger community in mind. As you explore concepts of organic systems, enlightened self-interest, learning networks, contribution, and value, scattered elements of your desired future will begin to emerge and take shape. Essentially, vision is about the heart, not the head. Don’t worry about the details of precisely who or how as you craft your vision. Instead, focus on the what and the why. Finally, remember that vision is necessarily an evolving concept. Eventually you will get to where you wanted to go, or external influences will force you to re-imagine your future. |
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The Interest Approach (flashing) Vision statements and other efforts to implement a desired future may fail if the organization has not collaborated on vision. The interest approach provides organizations with tools and techniques that enable group imagining. Non-participative, top-down visions tend to fail. |
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Edward de Bono, Serious Creativity, JOURNAL FOR QUALITY AND PARTICIPATION (Sept. 1995) at 12. How to brainstorm successfully through serious creativity: the six hat thinking system. Edward M. Marshall, TRANSFORMING THE WAY WE WORK: THE POWER OF THE COLLABORATIVE WORKPLACE, AMACOM American Management Association (1995). Marshall’s Strategic Alignment Method will help keep your organization focused on the vision it has crafted for itself. |
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Personal Vision Organizational vision cannot be divorced from the personal vision of each member of the organization. Individuals have the freedom to choose which paradigm will inform their decisions. What are your basic assumptions about people? How do you read the social contract? What is the role of work in your life? Of your job within society? What are your values? Obviously, the only person who can compile ideas on personal vision is you. I have listed some works which encourage new perspectives, embracing connections and out-of-the-box thinking and behavior. Charles Handy, THE AGE OF PARADOX, Harvard Business School Press (1994). Handy suggests that embracing paradox can help us make sense out of life. Includes separate section on applying Handy’s lessons to the business world. President Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic, The need for transcendence in the post-modern world, JOURNAL FOR QUALITY AND PARTICIPATION (Sept. 1995) at 26. Speech by playwright turned Czech President focuses on the value of rising above the paradoxes of the contemporary world and surface human differences in order to find meaning in life. Suggestions for starting along the path to peaceful coexistence through transcendent principles such as anthropic cosmology and gaia. Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger FIRST THINGS FIRST: TO LIVE, TO LOVE, TO LEARN, AND TO LEAVE A LEGACY, Simon & Schuster (1994). Covey’s writings address what it means to be human. Inspiring, thought-provoking, challenging ideas for anyone who believes in the examined life. See also PRINCIPLE-CENTERED LEADERSHIP and SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE. Buckminster Fuller, OPERATING MANUAL FOR SPACESHIP EARTH, Southern Illinois University Press (1969). Buckminster Fuller observes that because an "instruction manual" was missing from the beginning, "we are learning how we can safely anticipate the consequences of an increasing number of alternative ways of extending our satisfactory survival and growth -- both physical and metaphysical." (review quoted from CPER article) Organizational Vision James Liebing, MERCHANTS OF VISION not available for review Peter Senge, A. Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill, THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE, Bantam Doubleday Currency, 1990, at 205-232. Senge emphasizes shared vision as one of five core organizational disciplines. Defined simply as the answer to the question "what do we want to create?", shared vision provides a sense of commonality and serves to focus and energize learning. Peter Senge, The Leader’s New Work, EXECUTIVE EXCELLENCE (Nov. 1994) at 9. In THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE, Senge defined creative tension as a force that brings together vision (what we want) and current reality (where we are relative to what we want). In this article, Senge explores leadership skills necessary for building creative tension and shared vision. Tom Peters, THRIVING ON CHAOS: A HANDBOOK FOR A MANAGEMENT REVOLUTION, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1987 at p. 482. Words from the master on developing an inspiring vision. Robert Theobald, 21st-Century Strategy, EXECUTIVE EXCELLENCE (August 1994) at 20. Creating vision requires taking time out to understand the external environment. Theobald suggests we spend half a day each week broadening our horizon. Ken Blanchard, Managing Energy, EXECUTIVE EXCELLENCE (Sept. 1994) at 9. Blanchard tells us how to align organizational energy to promote vision Richard Peregoy, Constancy of purpose and vision, JOURNAL FOR QUALITY & PARTICIPATION (Dec. 1994) at 46. Peregoy muses about how TQM’s directive of constancy of purpose is related to vision; the difference between vision and mission; the connection between values and vision James S. Payne, J.M. Blackbourn, L.E. Hamilton, and David W. Cox, Make a vision statement work for you, JOURNAL FOR QUALITY & PARTICIPATION (Dec., 1994) at 52. Authors explain how to write a vision statement. Dick Richards, A perspective for visionaries, JOURNAL FOR QUALITY AND PARTICIPATION (Sept. 1995) at 20. Richards encourages us to break away from Newtonian thinking and discusses four principles for visionaries. Deanna H. Berg and Steven A. Schmitz, I can see clearly now, how about you? JOURNAL FOR QUALITY AND PARTICIPATION ( Sept. 1994) at 54. Surviving roadblocks and integrating personal vision - more tips for creating shared vision. |