What's your strategy for creating a compelling vision?

A great question to ask is 'What is the story in the world you are seeking to change?'* For me, I'm seeking to...disrupt the story of leadership, from one where managers rule through fear to one where they lead with love...and it's starts with learning to lead themselves through what they allow into their calendar. * This question is credited to Rachel Savage from Brand New Story.

Creating a strategic vision involves thinking through the multiple dimensions of the steps of the change implementation process towards a new direction. John Kotter, author of Leading Change, identifies an 8-step process to effectively launch change beginning with creating a sense of urgency, identifying what it is that will inspire your team and stakeholders to become invested. Step two encourages building a guiding coalition to form a team of champions who will encourage and promote the change process. It’s critical in step two to pause and look to see whose voice may be missing and work towards including those that may be absent. In step three, the strategic vision is clarified and formed based on input from those it impacts.

Creating a compelling vision begins by outlining the desired end result and working backwards. Then work to establish a clear connection between the team and the predefined goalposts, ensuring each person understands the "why" behind their tasks. The significance of the vision is also paramount, and it's vital that those striving to bring it to life genuinely care about the cause. Align the vision with the values and aspirations of the team, fostering a sense of ownership. Encourage feedback from diverse perspectives, ensuring the vision resonates with everyone involved. Lead by example to demonstrate dedication and inspire others to enthusiastically embrace the pursuit of this shared vision.

I would also suggest during this step to collocate all the relevant data used while drafting your vision and choosing your purposed course of action. Being able to bring your audience to follow along and agree with your thought process will help with obtaining buy-in from your stakeholders. If you can supply data to support your reasoning future success will not be as abstract.

Do you know how to help your team, and help yourself to reach your full potential? Part of a highly effective leader’s purpose is to help their people reach their full potential, and achieve amazing results because of it. A highly effective leader’s passion is to continuously learn new leadership principles, apply these principles and act on them, and then teach these principles to their people so that they can do the same. By doing this they are increasing their influence and building trust.

Don't fool yourself into believing that all the good ideas have to come from you and your team is there to review them. They probably have better ideas than you, and it's the fact that you brought them together that makes you a great leader!

In my experience, it is important to tap your team with their feedback, input and wisdom. As a visionary, the cornerstone needs to be powered by passion. Beginning with a focused passion, understanding of your value and visualizing the finish line. As you obtain feedback, input and wisdom from your team will assist you in closing the gap in your understanding the starting point and visualizing the finish line.

From my experience it all starts with humbleness and seeing that team members may have a clearer idea about the company's vision than you do as the CEO - because they have more contact to the customers, because they joined more recently and see differences between what used to work and what is needed now, or simply because they happen to be good at doing these sort of things... ;) The key is therefore to not just ask for feedback on YOUR vision, but to invite every member of the organization to share what they see as a compelling vision. Synthezising all this then still leaves enough room for you to "make your mark"... ;)

Passion is what comes across when you set your vision. If you don’t show passion when you are casting your vision to your people, they won’t believe you. If you show them that the vision you are describing is your dream, then they will believe you and follow you. The best leaders in the world (highly effective leaders) know that leadership is about helping others reach their full potential. They also know that is about them reaching their own potential too.

When soliciting input from team members and stakeholders, keep these two things in mind: 1.) Be willing to receive opinions and ideas that are different to yours. Don't just involve them to 'fulfill all righteousness'. Involve them because you genuinely want their input and you intend to use it where possible. 2.) When having conversations with your team, ensure your conversations are open and transparent. Having these kind of conversations will increase their interest in the process. It will also make it easier for them to commit to implementing and sustaining the change.

You should also consider using the principal of ensuring a 4th grader can understand. Is your vision understandable to a 4th grader in one sentence? This creates an accountability for you to have a complete understanding of your vision. If a 4th grader does not understand your vision in one sentence without asking why or I don't understand, you may not understand your vision yourself.

It requires an approach that captures the imagination and motivates individuals towards a common goal. It is crucial to clearly define the purpose and values of the organization, as they serve as the foundation for the vision. Next, a deep understanding of the external environment and trends is necessary to anticipate future challenges and opportunities. This knowledge can be leveraged to develop a vision that is both aspirational and realistic. Involving key stakeholders in the process ensures buy-in and commitment, as their insights contribute to a more comprehensive and inclusive vision. The vision should be communicated effectively through storytelling, using language that resonates with the target audience and evokes emotion.

When you set your vision for the team, and what you want to achieve by teaching them how to be leaders, and apply leadership principles to their lives, they will be inspired to do everything they can to strive towards your vision. It may be a vision that you may not ever achieve, but if you do this right, then your team will work their hardest to try to achieve it. That’s why having a vision is very powerful. It brings people together, and is something that is common between the whole team. Your vision eventually becomes their vision.

When doing vision crafting with teams, I find it helpful to consider additional factors and capture characteristics that differentiate the Brand from others. For example, listing all the factors that "makes us unique" or "makes us stand out" and why might these be important in the future. Elements that often come up center around customer loyalty, quality and differentiations in product or service, or thinking about experiences they want to expand upon. Another way jolt the thinking process is to consider the radically "anti-vision" and list all the things that are "not true" or that we "never want to be true". This can help unpack deepest fears and then tackle them with the most inspirational and boldest of visions.

Make your vision big. Make it real big. The energy of your team or in any given meeting is typically proportionate to the size of the task at hand. If you choose a small mountain or vision to tackle, you will typically find that your team won’t have that much excitement or energy about the vision. If you choose to tackle a large mountain or vision, you will typically find your team to have a lot of excitement and energy to tackle it. Make your vision big. Make it real big.

Know what your vision is. A lot of leaders talk about their vision like it’s a normal every day thing. They put their vision statements on posters around the organisation. But, they never talk about it with passion and they don’t think about it all day, every day. To gain your team’s buy in for your vision, you need to have passion and you need to convince them that this is the way to go. Highly effective leaders SHOW their team their vision first. They can see it, and they help their team to be able to see it too. How are you going to show your team your vision and how are you going to help them to see it like you can?

Certainly Vision needs to be clear, compelling and aspirational. All this can be made effective by; 1) Individual goals should aligned to vision so that team understands the importance and purpose of the vision 2) Vision should be the guiding star in process of decision making during critical moments 3) Apart from displaying vision on posters, leaders should set example of putting in action, this will inspire team to develop their actions in desired manner

When setting your vision, what does it look like? Can you see it? Do you believe in it? If you cannot, then your vision is fake. It is just words. You have to be able to see your vision. That is why it is called VISION. You must be passionate about it, think about it all the time, and show your team the vision and the dream before they buy-in.

Communicating that vision throughout the organization and among all of the stakeholders is one of the most essential elements for it to become a reality. The secret to success is to have a narrative that everybody understands, is straightforward, and it’s easy to remember. The shorter, the better.

Create a Dialogue, Not a Monologue. When you communicate your vision, ensure it's a two-way street. Encourage questions, feedback, and suggestions. This not only ensures everyone feels heard and valued, but it also allows you to refine and strengthen your vision with collective wisdom. Nothing sparks ownership quite like co-creation, and this collaborative spirit can make your vision more robust and widely embraced.

Apply what you are learning, and then teach it to your team, your friends and your family. Part of a highly effective leader’s vision and passion is continuously learn and to help others learn too. They do that by teaching what they are learning and applying. It’s so important that you apply what you are learning before you start teaching it, otherwise your people will not believe you. You will not be leading by example.

The highly effective leadership why and purpose is to help aspiring and current leaders develop into highly effective leaders, so that they can help aspiring and current leaders develop into highly effective leaders. Be part of that snowball effect of creating and developing highly effective leaders. Imagine what kind of world we would have if our leaders thought and behaved like highly effective leaders. Basically, if they thought like you and I did.

A compelling vision ignites inspiration and unity among teams, stakeholders, and customers. Unfortunately, many leaders craft great vision statements - but then let them gather dust. Don't waste your time! Once you create your vision, actively communicate and reinforce it. Share stories that illustrate the vision's impact, integrating it into meetings, emails, and internal communications. Encourage employees to share how their roles contribute to it. Embrace visual aids like infographics, pictures and videos to make it memorable. Regularly revisit your vision and give examples of how team members are operationalizing it. By weaving your vision into the fabric of your organization, you will catalyze engagement and increase your results.

Creating the vision is common but keeping it alive is what organizations struggle for. It's important for employees to create ways to “voice the vision”. It can be in the visual communication of the space they work, their communication while representing the organization etc. It should come out of the paper and be palpable in people's communication and conduct.

When coaching a new leader or assessing a leader’s potential for growth, I will ask - “what’s your vision for your team?” And “what’s your vision for your function or business?” — this is a great way to get a pulse on how well-developed their vision is (sometimes, they don’t have one), as well as how compelling and easy-to-digest it might be. I use this pulse check as a launching point to coach them through developing a vision that they can recite quickly, passionately, and concisely. Make it about the headlines & ensure its repeatable because after all, the best visions spread fast and are carried by the team too.

"The Moonshot Test" is a useful tool to assess a Vision statement. It compares your vision to the speech US President John F. Kennedy used to announce the goal of landing a man on the moon. That Kennedy speech is often cited as prime example of a vision statement done right.

Thinking up a vision and Communicating that vision are two pillars of 'Leading' (also know as #GreenBehaviour in the Diary Detox method. But these are just thoughts and words. The final piece in the puzzle is 'Improving'; actually doing something with those thoughts and words. Too often, vision work is left on a page or written on a wall. You have to LIVE IT TOO!

In the final analysis, developing an organizational vision without wholistic implementation is like trying to live successfully without the use of the sense of proprioception, which is why many organizational vision processes fade away without achieving their full potential. Proprioception is the body’s ability to perceive its location and movements in relation to the world around it. This sense enables us to interact with, receive inputs from, and impact our environment subconsciously. Speaking organizationally, proprioception captures the entity’s inputs and value add in all areas of its operating environment. Thus, an effective vision maximizes the organization’s ability to instinctively move about its operating environment.