VISIONING
Creating your future
By imagining the future you want and then translating those ideas into practical and actionable plans, you will make it happen.
Orienting thinking towards the future is particularly important for middle and senior managers and leaders because it provides focus, determines the company’s culture, builds resilience and adaptability and engages employees.
The need
A powerful vision motivates and guides everyone at all levels in a company. People manage what is in front of them, as daily and short-term tasks understandably dominate our routine and thinking. This certainly keeps things running smoothly in the stable present but is ill suited to coping with change or taking advantage of (or creating) opportunities. Visioning liberates us from simply managing the present, achieving more of the same or being unprepared for new developments, and thus enables us to build a more successful future.
The process
Visioning involves assessing and challenging current thinking and methods, developing new ideas and deciding on the future you would like. It is also necessary to look outside your company – noticing and understanding trends, identifying threats and opportunities.
It can be helpful to involve others in a visioning Communication Exercise by asking their views on various issues. These questions will prompt thinking and encourage each person to consider and challenge the company’s aims and activities and to suggest new options (giving reasons for their choices).
Using these answers, you identify the most common issues and ideas, reduce these options to the ones that are most significant and then draft a provisional vision statement – this can be done by a smaller group of people, with the final vision being reviewed and approved by everyone involved. As well as generating ideas and opening up discussions, a major advantage of involving others in the visioning process is that you will gain their commitment to the final vision.
Once you have developed your vision, determine how it can be achieved:
• Deal with any barriers that may stand in the way and consider how future events may affect it.
• Develop a practical plan and communicate the vision and plan to every-one – show people why it is important, what it will achieve and how it will work and gain their commitment.
• To bring others with you, your vision needs to be clear, convincing, credible, easy to grasp, actionable, inspiring and focused – but not overly prescriptive, to provide flexibility and adaptability.
What’s next?
A vision is for nothing if it is not acted upon. You should ensure that all strategy and decisions are guided by the vision and that everyone remains committed to the vision. A vision also needs to be reviewed and adapted to changing circumstances to ensure that it remains relevant and useful.