“Your vision is very important. You should know whom you’re selling to, what your marketing and advertising says about you, and whom it’s speaking to. Me personally, I don’t try to please everyone. I understand who I am selling to and I work towards that vision all the time.” Ralph Lauren
‘Business Vision’ and ‘Strategic Planning’ are often completely misunderstood terms, when many businesses think of a business vision they immediately think of a Vision Statement. These ubiquitous statements are often a part of a marketing strategy and often have nothing to do with where the business is going or what the owners and management of that business have as their goals in the future planning of their business. Rather this statement is meant to grab public attention and encapsulate what the marketers believe the market wants to hear.
The term ‘Strategic Planning’ would seem to be a more straight forward term, yet it too is often misunderstood and lacking in definition. In the corporate world, strategic planning usually refers to the future planning of the organisation and its goals, this can encompass a wide range of planning models and systems.
Oren Harari says: “Vision should describe a set of ideals and priorities, a picture of the future, a sense of what makes the company special and unique, a core set of principles that the company stands for, and a broad set of compelling criteria that will help define organizational success.” I would add that a well crafted vision is compelling, easily visualised and easily articulated by all stakeholders.
A great vision is imbued with total clarity around the purpose, relevancy, core values, and future of the business and clearly articulates that in meaningful ways, including:
- Tangible: A great vision is one that can be experienced in your imagination, tasted, heard, and seen by all stakeholders in ways that are compelling enough to keep everyone motivated at all times. It is a mental model of a future state, it shows a path to identifying goals and plans and how to achieve them.
- Idealistic: A vision must be realistic, yet idealistic enough to set a standard of excellence that stretches and empowers all stakeholders and is compelling enough to draw tension between the present and future states. This idealism is attractive and charismatic to the company’s management, employees and to your clients /customers.
- Reality: In order to have meaning for all stakeholders a great vision is based in reality, yet compelling enough to motivate everyone involved and to provide a clear roadmap to the future.
- Unique: A great vision is unique to the company, personalising a distinctive competence, set of values, culture and what sets the business apart from it’s competition. It is focussed on areas where it can be an industry leader, and offer a core customised approach to the business and the future of the business by reflecting the core beliefs, values and culture of the company’s core stakeholders.
- Futuristic: A great vision is not a vision of the present, nor of the near future, a great vision is based on a long-term imagined future, a place you know you want to be one day when your goals and plans have come to fruition. It also allows for changes and new directions along the way, so a great vision is one that is based on the experience of success at some time in the future, like a carrot in front of a donkey as a promise of a brighter tomorrow.
“Management has a lot to do with answers. Leadership is a function of questions. And the first question for a leader always is: ‘Who do we intend to be?’ Not ‘What are we going to do?’ but ‘Who do we intend to be?” – Max DePree
Developing a vision in this way is like setting a foundation out of which your business can grow and is developed from these critical factors:
- Knowing EXACTLY where your business stands at the moment using a process to obtain total clarity about the company as it stands right now.
- Conducting a VISION AUDIT to examine the current direction and momentum of the organisation.
- Keeping an OPEN MIND as we explore options, opportunities and ideas that are not constrained by the current status and thinking about the company’s current direction.
- Setting the Vision context and crafting an imagined prediction of the future of the company that ignites and motivates all stakeholders.
- Developing future scenario’s and alternative visions to allow for possibilities, changes and new opportunities.
- Choosing and articulating a final Vision Statement and strategic plan that allows for growth, new opportunities and consistent long term success.
- Implementation of the vision and strategic plan and demonstrable changes in the organisations planning and growth as a result via measurement.
A great vision statement is not just a marketing statement, it is a clearly articulated statement of your company’s commitment to a core set of values, a pervasive culture and a realistic, credible future. Once you have clarity around your business in the present and a clear vision for the future, strategic planning is the next step as we begin to define how your business will get there from here.
