Creating your vision

A strong vision for your company fosters independent action, wisdom, empowerment, and willingness to take risks to do the right things. In our experience, virtually all employees embrace a clear vision as a guide in managing their own actions in a manner consistent with the company’s vision. And we know that when people understand their goals, their performance and the performance of the organization improve.

Oftentimes, however, the company vision is dead on arrival because we balk at the process of creating and communicating it. Many managers and owners believe that creating a vision often seems to involve a whole lot of work. And you’re awfully busy here, and you pretty much know what to do, and you’ve been doing it just fine for 11 years, so what’s the point of taking time to do this?

We’ve also learned from business owners and managers that many of them believe that crafting a vision is highly time-consuming and may require special outside expertise. Additionally, they conclude that the finished product will be framed, hung in the hallway, and be forever forgotten.

This self-directed conversation bludgeons them into inaction. This is curious, because virtually every manager we’ve known has remarked on the need for better communication, and virtually every business owner we’ve known has admitted that the business would improve if everyone knew where the company was going and could help push it in that direction.

How can we overcome this inertia? How can we begin to craft something like a vision, when we are faced with the perception of an energy wall that stops us in our tracks?

To overcome this perceived barrier, we can simplify the process. We like the vision to be a straightforward and heartfelt expression of the owner. Sure, you can hire someone to craft some elegant prose for you, but much will be lost if it doesn’t express your true thoughts.

So, go back to that piece of guidance we gave you earlier about what a vision is:

[Vision is] a vivid picture of an ambitious, desirable future state that is connected to the customer and better in some important way than the current state.

With this as basic guidance, you can create words or phrases that represent your vision. It’s not necessary to craft elegant prose. Simply expressing the ideas in “bullet form” or as separate words or phrases is powerful and immediate, and can carry the flavor you want to convey to everyone. In fact, the more the vision sounds like your words, the better. Just make a start, even if that’s just a few words, and you’ll likely find that you can add to those words as time progresses.

The next step is to take all this to heart. And that requires frequent use and consistency of message. In your conversations with others, you must use the words in your vision as guidelines to your actions and the actions of everyone in the company.