Creating a Vision

What does it mean to have a vision today? And is an organization’s vision just a bunch of buzz words strewn together to make an incoherent sentence sound intelligent?

I don’t think so.

What Are Words For?

Using words is a traditional way to kick off writing a vision statement. So is looking at other organizational vision statements. However, both of those ways take up a lot of time as people try to out thesaurusize one another, splitting hairs over words that mean roughly the same thing.

A better way to kick off vision-storming exists. That way is good old fashioned goal setting. What is it that the organization wants to accomplish, and where does that mean the organization has to go to accomplish it? This goal should be an idea that is easy to understand and share. After all, everybody needs to get behind it… not just the people who craft it.

While you’re performing this exercise, keep in mind that buzzwords kill great vision statements, because organizational visions don’t leverage anything. They don’t hyper anything. And they especially don’t synergize.

So the next time you get pulled into a room full of colleagues to draft out a vision for the future, do something totally different… Ask the room what it is that the organization wants to accomplish. And I’m not talking about making money or increasing shareholder value. That stuff is implied. What problem is the organization setting out to solve.

“To make the world’s information universally accessible and useful” – Google

Then when people spout off sound bite cliche’s, push the collective thinking in the room. Ask why? And then do it again… Really get to the bottom of the organizational goal and don’t let people off with easy expected answers. The problem that the organization is going to tackle in its vision needs to inspire everyone in the organization.

It’s important.