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Image source: Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons

Producing the Vision

In previous posts, we’ve been looking at how vision and values intersect to produce trusting and successful teams.
Abraham Lincoln united his followers with the vision of preserving the Union and abolishing slavery. Lincoln successfully gathered people to his vision, based on a strong set of personal values, and he accomplished an incredible feat. How was Lincoln able to do this? How is any leader able to set vision into reality? Consider the following suggestions:

1. Establish a clear direction.

Have you ever taught someone to drive a car? Both of us have been the “driver’s ed” teachers in our respective families. We have seen that as teens learn to drive, their first instinct is to watch the road directly in front of the car. This results in constant course correction—the front wheels turn sharply as the car swerves from roadside shoulder to the center divider, back and forth. When you approach a curve, the swerving worsens! But when young motorists learn to look as far down the road as possible while they drive, the car’s path straightens out. They are then able to negotiate corners, obstacles, and other dangers much more smoothly. A distant reference point makes the path straighter.

2. Focus your attention.

We often focus on too many methods and alternatives. Building vision means focusing our attention on that vision. Focus is necessary so that lower priorities do not steal time from the central vision. If the vision is deeply planted in your heart and mind, you can proactively, rather than reactively, respond to outside forces and issues.

3. Articulate values.

Leaders need to clearly express their inner values. On what values is a vision based? Team members need to know—and leaders need to share—this basic insight. People knew that Abraham Lincoln was a man of integrity, honesty, hard work, and fairness. These basic values supported his vision of a unified country.

4. Enlist others to help with implementation.

In his book Leading Change, John Kotter writes:

No one individual, even a monarch-like CEO, is ever able to develop the right vision, communicate it to large numbers of people, eliminate all the key obstacles, generate short-term wins, lead and manage dozens of change projects, and anchor new approaches deep in the organization’s culture. Weak committees are even worse. A strong guiding coalition is always needed—one with the right composition, level of trust, and shared objective. Building such a team is always an essential part of the early stages of any effort to restructure, reengineer, or retool a set of strategies [or, we may add, move a vision to reality].

5. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Leaders who want to create and implement a vision need to start a fire in the belly of the people they lead. They need to use all available forms of communication to get the word out. It is akin to brand management. A company that wants to launch a new brand will use every form of communication available to get people to try the new products. The same is true with implementing a vision. Leaders cannot over-communicate what they see in the future.

6. Empower followers.

In order to implement a vision, leaders need to encourage clear buy-in from the people. This requires moving beyond communication to collaboration. The goal is to develop a supportive environment and bring along other people with differing talents and abilities. It also means that when the followers truly understand the vision, the leader needs to step aside and let them do the work to “produce” the vision. The leader needs to give them the authority and responsibility to do the work necessary in order to bring his or her vision to fruition.

I witnessed a meeting recently in which the leader brought together a cross-functional group to brainstorm some marketing campaign ideas for the company. People from different departments assembled and were led through a planned exercise on corporate marketing focus for the following year. The best idea came from a person far removed from the marketing department. She quite innocently blurted out just the right direction and even suggested a great theme for the entire campaign.

If the leaders of this organization had simply called together the “marketing types,” they would have missed a tremendous idea. Or if the leader had done the work alone and not opened it up to input from others, he might not have secured the necessary buy-in from the staff to implement the project. Studies show that when people understand the values and are part of the vision and decision-making process, they can better handle conflicting demands of work and higher levels of stress.

The leadership would also have missed the energy these employees gained from simply being included in a “vision” meeting. After the session several employees came to the leadership and thanked them for the opportunity to help. Those leaders have obviously climbed above the fog and know what they are committed to.

Your values are your platform. They continually communicate who you are and how you work and lead. Your vision sets the agenda. Whether you are part of a small department, a large organization, or a global giant, your vision will set the direction and purpose of the enterprise. You will need a strong sense of commitment and trust to set your vision in motion and deliver it.