Month, Year

“V” Is for Vision

No doubt you have heard the term “vision” used many times and in many different ways. Other than its obvious definition of the faculty of sight, “vision” is used to mean all of the following:

1. Something that is or has been seen.
2. Unusual competence in discernment or perception; intelligent foresight: a leader of vision.
3. The manner in which one sees or conceives of something.
4. A mental image produced by the imagination.
5. The mystical experience of seeing as if with the eyes the supernatural or a supernatural being.
6. A person or thing of extraordinary beauty.

Let’s look at 2 and 3 in the list.

First, “unusual competence in discernment or perception; intelligent foresight.” We might refer to a person possessing such vision as a “visionary.”

Are you a visionary? I believe that we all are, or at least that we have the capacity to be. In your daily life, where can you apply your vision? Whether you are a boss, an employee, or both, you can breathe life into the workplace by sharing your vision. If you are a parent, you can inspire your family at home.

Let’s talk about that for a moment. It helps if you’re not terribly shy about sharing of yourself. If you are a manager, your employees will be inspired by your goals and dreams for them and for your department. As an employee, you will similarly inspire your co-workers and very possibly your boss. And as a parent, well, don’t we all strive to inspire our children?

Let me give you an example about workplace visionaries, so you know what I mean. My friend, Carol, had a boss, Janet, who was in a completely different field from Carol. Carol managed a large office building and boss Janet was the corporate attorney.

Janet was a remarkable woman, incredibly smart and well-educated. In addition to her corporate counsel duties, she had been given the task of overseeing the building’s management and the corporation’s administrative services. She hired Carol to supervise both the building and the staff, because of Carol’s experience in property management and her own obvious intelligence.

Janet’s vision was to create a Facilities Management Department within the company, which Carol would manage. She shared her vision with Carol—and then Carol was off and running!

Carol polled her staff, had them measure their duties for two weeks, re-wrote all of their job descriptions, and developed a thorough “Growth Plan” for the department, complete with salary studies, budget, and recommendations.

Janet was certainly impressed with Carol’s results. Do you see how Janet shared her vision with Carol? And she shared it so well that Carol became the visionary! Janet passed the torch to her!

I would love to apply Janet’s method to inspiring my children to do housework. However, they simply do not get terribly excited about vacuuming, dusting, and mowing. Maybe that’s because my wife and I are similarly unexcited about those tasks. This is an area where we can apply the use of vision to inspire at will!

And now, on to definition #3 above: “The manner in which one sees or conceives of something.” This applies so well to “vision statements,” which most companies have these days that I want to talk about them for a bit. What is a vision statement?

A vision statement paints a picture of the organization in its ideal state in the future. It gives everyone in the company something to shoot for, to plan toward, and to imagine.

According to Ron Robinson of ABARIS Consulting, there are five steps to creating a vision statement:

1. Go back to the basics: Corporate culture, values, goals.
2. Understand the current state of affairs: How is everything being done now?
3. Look at the mission statement: Review and confirm it.
4. Define your core competencies: Make those make sense.
5. Start writing: Put it all together in one basket. And make sure it’s what you want!

If you are in business for yourself, you definitely need a vision statement to go along with your mission statement. (I’ll save mission statements for another time.) If you are employed by someone else, pay attention to the vision statement of your employer—it should tell you where you are headed!

And if you are a parent, well, what a great idea to have a vision statement for your family! I like this one for my own family: “The List family are a loving, supportive group, who keep a clean house and a tidy yard, whose children perform well in school and sports, and who share with each other a great deal of laughter!”

In conclusion, I offer this quote I found in searching for “vision”:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish…” Proverbs, 24:18.

Keep that in mind when you’re working on your vision statement! Until next time…

Wishing you health, wealth, and happiness,

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Steven works with entrepreneurs, executives, and professionals who want to clarify their communications and concepts so that they can dramatically increase their business profitability.

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