Groan…it’s that time of the year again. Two dreary days in an air-conditioned hotel room with sleep-inducing fluorescent lighting, bowls of high-fructose corn syrup mints and that ever-so-slightly painful facilitator armed with his Koosh balls and “creativity stimulators”. Hold your cynical tongue, it’s VISION time. After all, we’re paying a lot of money for the privilege to map out a future that promises to provide our business with the focus it so desperately needs and the elusive motivation required to align our staff and transform them into passionate believers and consistent customer-expectation-exceeders.

Same as last year then? Tell you what, wake me up when its over and I’ll sign-off on the platitudes so the HR department can tick off their KPIs and the marketing department can update the website with our sure-to-impress, bold new future. Meanwhile I’ll get back to worrying about my quarterly targets and thinking about that elusive beach house I’ll never be able to afford.

Oh Lord if you do exist, save me from this misery and I will give you 30% of my bonus. Just tell my boss we need cash not fluff. Perhaps he will listen to you, he certainly won’t listen to me. When I tried to persuade him that a vision is not something you brainstorm on printable whiteboards, he scoffed at my obvious naivety and told me that it would be wise to keep my cynicism in check before it infects the more engaged members of the vision-crafting team. I was warned not to come with the same disappointing attitude I brought with me last year.

I confess, I am a little cynical but I wasn’t always this way. I used to be a believer. There was a time when I thought that a vision was grounded in reality and that it was better to remain in the abstract than to artificially force clarity. That was back when that wise Frenchman said to me “The more you try to change things, the more they stay the same.”

But that was all before I received a Koosh ball flogging from the rest of the vision-crafting team and that condescending correction from our evangelist facilitator Dr Dream-It-And-You-Will-Become-It.

“How can you create a vision if you’re stuck in the present?” Dr Dream-It chuckled as the rest of the disciples swapped their six thinking hats and shuffled their vision-prompting 4×6 postcards.

When I tentatively proposed that a more sensible place to start might be at the beginning rather than inventing an end point to work backwards from, the rest of the crafting team scowled at me and followed the great Dr to the fried food section of the tin-can buffet.

As I took my place at the big round table and banged my knees into the big round table legs hidden by the big round Velcro table skirt, Dr Dream-It graciously took it upon himself to school me in front of my already-enlightened colleagues in the ways of The Vision.

“Listen” the Dr purred soothingly, “We understand that you’re struggling with these concepts. Let’s see if we can help you. Anyone, what do you know about visions?”

The disciples were eager to respond with such concise and confident answers that I thought I’d been beamed up to a Wikipedia page.

“A vision is about eliminating ambiguity.” Offered Big Bill Stevens Jnr.

“A vision is a vivid description of what an organization wants to be. It concentrates on the future.” Exclaimed Mary-Kay Jones so passionately that she spat pieces of breaded shrimp directly into my half-open eye.

“AND because it focuses on the future it generates a source of inspiration and direction AND it provides clear decision-making criteria AND it describes why it’s important to achieve the MISSION…” Beamed Simon “The Stack” Stackpole, glancing eagerly at the great Dr as he nodded his approval.

“So what have you learned?” I was asked by Dr Dream-It while my colleagues from the vision-crafting team glanced at me sideways with faraway gazes that managed to blend pity with incredulousness.

I paused, squirmed and considered my response. Nothing. I drew a blank so I leaned forward to grab the green thinking hat. Perhaps with some inspiration I could conjure up something visionary to contribute.

And what came forth was: “So what happens if we come up with something delusional rather than something visionary?”

The gazes transformed into bewilderment. Awkward silence ensued, punctuated only by nervous coughs. Clearly it was my job to say something positive, something useful.

And what came forth was: “Look I understand there’s all this theory about visions and how to create them, but where do things like intuition and your own personal sources of motivation fit in all this? Shouldn’t we be talking about this rather than trying to come up with a bunch of impressive sounding words? Einstein, Edison, Henry Ford – all these people claimed their inspiration came from within. I just don’t get why we don’t start with this rather than trying to come up with something we all agree to agree on and then claim it’s shared. I don’t find that very inspirational and it doesn’t help me in my job.”

The gazes became wide-eyed gapes punctuated by slow blinks in Mexican wave formation. The awkwardness was fortunately shattered by the adept Dr as he reached for his napkin and a plastic pen bearing the fine hotel’s clever tagline: “We do so you don’t have to”. On the napkin he wrote two words: ‘personal’ and ‘business’. And then he ripped the napkin in half. Unfortunately the tear went right through the middle of the word ‘personal’ rather than between the two words.

The gazes went to the half-eaten club sandwiches and amazingly perfect looking grapes, probably left over from the Monsanto visioning conference earlier in the week. ‘”Where to from here?” was on everyone’s pursed lips as I shrugged my shoulders and admitted that I really didn’t get this vision stuff but was pleased to be surrounded by such supportive colleagues who could help me figure it out.

The mood instantly improved and we returned to the conference room with the fluorescent lighting and the printable whiteboard and we spent a thrilling afternoon debating and crafting our future into a concise and mighty statement that read:

“Our vision is to become the preeminent supplier of low-cost, high-value solutions; delivering excellence in customer service first time, every time; and providing our employees with career opportunities and rewards that are second to none.”

Articulate, vivid, inspiring. Powerful stuff. There was little doubt about our future now. We all knew that we must stay in the crouch position; it was time to attack those visionless competitors of ours. Nothing could stop us now. Not even my cynicism or a ripped napkin. Dr Dream-It congratulated us for our insights and wished us luck on our exciting journey as he checked his bank account from his Blackberry.

Prologue

It doesn’t need to be this way.

A vision is a way of thinking not a destination. Often this way of thinking is painful, filled with barriers, disappointments and broken commitments. It requires deep and meaningful enquiry. Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” He believed that the purpose of human life was personal and spiritual growth. How can you possibly separate your personal needs and aspirations from your business life and expect this to be sustainable? How can an organization grow toward a greater understanding of its true capabilities without taking the time to reflect upon its current reality, employees and all?

Another great philosopher, Santayana, claimed, “He who does not remember the past is condemned to repeat it.” A vision for the future cannot be untethered from the patterns that have shaped an organization’s current reality. It’s too big of a leap and why is this even necessary? A compelling vision has meaning and meaning is built from history, reality and foresight.

Don’t allow cynicism to destroy a good visioning process. Try doing it differently.

Vision to Action is a management consulting business that focuses on the quality of thinking as the first step in the journey to achieving breakthrough results. We believe that how you think about your business (or don’t) will shape what you actually do. Our services are designed to help business leaders to think, plan and get organized so they can act with purpose and maximize the use of their resources to achieve their goals.

For more information, please browse our website at www.vision-action.com