Why have a vision?

We all possess the ability to create pictures in our minds, some of us more so than others, but generally we all talk about what we see in our minds.

Vision is a powerful tool that has shaped great civilizations, built industrial leviathans and produced awe-inspiring art. Often these accomplishments come as part of a paradigm shift where a leader has looked at an everyday situation differently.

Business innovations that we recognise and revere have come from a shift in how the someone saw the problem and perceived how new value could be created.

Why do this?

Building a well-constructed vision creates a structure that you can use to prioritise goals and action plans.

A vision also helps you to establish alignment with other departments and other companies in your value chain.

When other managers and suppliers have a clearer understanding of what you want to achieve, they can be inspired to do a better job, providing you what you need.

Having a vision gives your managers a guide to use for selecting partners, employees, tools, and other resources needed to deliver the plan.

A vision provides inspiration as well as clarity, it opens up a new possibilities and ideas, stretches the imagination and motivates people to rethink what is possible.

Shape your own future; because if you don’t someone else will!

The future is the work of leaders, they are the pathfinders who are concerned with creating new value within the work they lead.

“You can and should shape your own future; because if you don’t someone else surely will.”, Barker warns, reminding us “No one will thank you for taking care of the present, if you have neglected the future.”

Managing belongs to the present while leading is about minding the future so that the change that inevitably must occur is positive and produces more value, making your business stronger and more competitive.

In essence, minding the future means making sure that the business you are in charge of is capable of sustainable value generation.

A vision will help you put short- term differences into perspective facilitating how people see their contributions while guiding them through the process of negotiating around seemly conflicting priorities.

The vanity on small differences can derail business plans and produce silo mentality, creating turf wars and other such behaviour that weakens an organisation.

Build a compelling story with your team

Execution is the key to running a successful business.

Success in business comes from a blend of vision, planning, action, tenacity and responsiveness to feedback. Truly great leaders develop a deep understanding of the future they are trying to create. It may look effortless, is some cases, but in reality, leaders spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how to succeed.

Working for positive change

Everyone knows change is a constant natural force that affects all aspects of our lives. For change to be determined ‘positive’ it must be change that was planned specifically, something we aimed for, something we wanted to create.
Positive change improves results, delivers more value and changes our lives for the better.

Developing a compelling story that will help you and your team align and re- align requires a narrative that linked together all of the building blocks that make up the Strategic Execution model.

When your team can tell a story that links vision, to values, and values to strategy, the story feels more believable. When they can then make the links between strategy, resources and capabilities others will understand why they are being asked to change.