How to Communicate Your Vision
October 22, 2008 by Phil Gerbyshak
Filed under guest posts, vision
Note: This is a guest post from @Stephen, editor of Business Development in Context and a co-founder of the work.life.creativity forum. You can follow him on Twitter at @hdbb_stephen.
It is very important for a manager to have a vision of where they want to lead their team. It is even more important to communicate this vision to the rest of the team. In order to successfully communicate your vision, you should be able to address the following four qualities:
1. Your vision must describe the preferred future. This works best if the language is in the present tense, as though you are there, in the future, describing what has already happened.
2. Your vision must be compelling and interesting. For a vision to be compelling, it must express the right amount of connection between the present and the future. You want the people on your team to know the goal of the vision, and to accept the belief that it will make a difference and thus feel empowered and excited to go for it.
3. Your vision must account for the real world. If a vision seems to take no attention to the real world, nor any attention to future trends as we understand them, it will not work. It should be obvious people that the vision takes into account of what is really happening, rather than ignoring both present and future reality.
4. Your vision must be expressed in enough detail to provide direction, yet be as simple as possible. Your mileage will vary as to what this means, some people want a very short vision, some prefer much more detail.
Communicating your vision means expressing not only the best ideas, but tapping into the hearts and minds of your team. A compelling vision will target the heart, the conscience, and the soul. A compelling vision aligns with your team’s shared values.
One of the best methods for creating a shared vision is to provide everyone involved an opportunity to share feedback on a vision statement that is in process. Asking this question in a sincere manner makes it possible to demonstrate how the individual vision and the company vision line up. When people feel that they are striving for something they also want personally and have the chance to comment on, commitment is much more likely.
What has been your best practice in communicating your vision?
Please share your experience in the Comments so we can all share your vision.
One thing that comes to mind and has come up often in leadership books is MLK’s “I have a dream” speech as one of vision. It relates in all senses from a personal vision (MLK) then expands to what others can relate in THEIR vision of the future. The speech uses the “mind’s eye” to discribe his vision that EVERYONE can relate.
When creating a “vision,” make sure your audiance can relate to the vision! This is also called buy-in! Without the relationship they can envision themselves OUT of the picture!
A manager cannot expect blind obedience. Thats why this post is so great! A manager’s vision is something that he can convey to his employees and then show them through his actions and his focus. It can be his greatest asset, or it can be the destruction of his reputation if he fails to keep a constant vigilance in making his vision happen.
Great comments! It is so important that the manager or leader develop a meaningful relationship with their team in order to be able to spread their vision around.
I agree, it is important for managers to know their vision and to communicate it with their team. Otherwise they risk confusing their team and impacting their ability to execute effectively.
I have to agree with Coach in regards to walking the walk. But the point he missed is that has nothing to do with vision. Instead, that has everything to do with his/her reputation of honesty.
Vision has to be constant and consistant in the messege.