Defining Vision

Start with Vision.  

Simon Sinek’s wildly popular TED talk was expanded into a book in 2011. If you have never read Start With Why, I would strongly encourage you to read it or, at a minimum, listen to the TED talk. At the risk of an oversimplification, Simon Sinek argues that great leaders always start by answering the question, “Why?”. Which is why we always start with Vision. 

A vision is your answer to the question, “Why?”.

Why are we doing this? Why should anyone care?

A vision is a potential future. 

But a good vision is a potential future that motivates people enough to make it a reality.

Anything can have a vision, and I would argue that everything should. Organizational vision. Department vision. Project vision. Family vision. Personal life vision. But today we’ll focus primarily on Organizational vision. 

In the last post we discussed the organizational obstacles that block growth. Misalignment across an organization’s Vision, Journey, Culture and Results are obstacles that will prevent the organization from growing. To address obstacles in your organization, you must always start with your vision. If your vision is unclear or not compelling, it will create problems across your organization.

Customers not happy? Go back to your vision.

Culture not healthy? Go back to your vision.

Results disappointing? Go back to your vision. 

Go back to your vision statement any time you encounter an issue because your vision sets the foundation, the context and the purpose for everything that happens in your organization. 

In the next post we’ll look at some common vision issues. But here is one helpful rule of thumb: If your Vision statement has any numbers in it ($X in revenue, #Y customers, #Z people) then you have a Results metric not a Vision statement. Use that statement in the Results section. Your Vision statement should be about purpose. Why are you doing what you are doing? Why should anyone (employees, customers, etc) care? How is your company/project/team going to make the world a better place? 

Don’t move to the next steps until you have a vision that you and other people can get excited about.