THE WORK OF THIS FOURTH CORE PROCESS is to engage as many organization members as possible in co-creating a shared image of a preferred future. The creation of this future image comes directly from the stories of what has given life as recounted in the interviews of the second core process and the resultant themes identified in the third core process. As the various stories are shared and illuminated, a new historical narrative emerges that gives life to the organization’s possible future. The invitation is to imagine an organization in which those special moments of exceptional vitality found in the stories become the norm rather than the exception; when all those themes are present and operating fully in the system. Thus, the fourth core process, is both practical, in that it is grounded in the history of the organization, and generative, in that this core process provides time and space to expand the potential of the organization.

The creation of a shared image of the preferred future often progresses through two stages: (1) the articulation of the dream for the organization and the creation of a visual image expressing that dream and (2) from that image compose a written expression of that most desired future for the organization as a whole.