Tactics for Communicating Vision

The purpose of a compelling vision statement is to inspire and guide in a cohesive way the actions of a group. Once a vision statement has been decided (an intentional, intensive process), it is paramount that it be communicated in a consistent and effective manner. The goal is for the vision to take root and take hold within the organization, and to be known and confirmed by your users' experiences as they experience your organization. Additional happy users can become your best marketers and must be able to communicate your vision consistently and effectively.

This blog entry from The Practice of Leadership blog lists communication tactics that leaders can use to communicate their vision. It would be hard to improve upon their list:

• Stories. When you tell a good story, you give life to a vision. The telling of stories creates trust, captures hearts and minds, and serves as a reminder of the vision.
  
• The elevator speech. Every leader needs to be able to communicate the vision in a clear, brief way. What compelling vision can you describe in the amount of time you have during a typical elevator ride?
• Multiple media. The more channels of communication you use, the better your chance of creating an organization that "gets" the vision. Use the newest communication technologies, but don’t forget the tangibles: coffee mugs, t-shirts, luggage tags and whatever else you can think of that will keep the message in circulation.
• Talk to me. Individualize the vision by engaging others in one-on-one conversations. Personal connections give leaders opportunities to transmit information, receive feedback, build support and create energy around the vision.
• Draw a crowd. Identify key players, communicators, stakeholders and supporters throughout the organization who will motivate others to reflect on and be engaged with the vision.
• Go outside. Communicate to external customers, partners and vendors with advertising and public relations campaigns, catalogs, announcements and other statements.
• Make memories. Create metaphors, figures of speech and slogans — and find creative ways to use them. Write a theme song or a memorable motto.
• Guide the expedition. Use visual aids and updates to keep everyone aware of the progress you are making toward your vision.
  
• Back it up. If you’re talking it up, be sure to back it up with actions and behaviors. If people see one thing and hear another, your credibility is shot and your vision is dead.
  

The Purpose of Vision

I ran across this description of vision from The Practice of Leadership blog:

"A vision describes some achievement or future state that the organization will accomplish or realize. A vision has to be shared in order to do what it is meant to do: inspire, clarify and focus the work."

Here are some vision statements that accomplish everything this quote describes.

The Google guys, Sergey Brin and Larry Page:

Google provides access to the world's information in one click.

Chief Executive Officer of Cisco, John Chambers:

Cisco changes the way we live, work, play and learn.

Bill Gates, for the first 17 years of Microsoft:

We're going to put a computer on every desk in every home.

These statement are visions, not strategies or tactics. Everything these companies say, do, decide, plan, design, research, invest in, acquire, divest, hire, cultivate, and express in any way is related, guided by, determined by the vision. I commonly hear here is our mission statement, shouldn't that cover it? Mission statements are often too long, too inclusive, too proper, so much so that most employees can't recite them and don't use them as a decision-making tool. A vision statement is precise, concise, and forward thinking. A common mistake that many organizations make is not taking the time and energy to craft a solid, clear, guiding vision. Many people confuse the difference between vision, strategies, tactics, and goals. Each is different. Each is necessary, and they all flow from the vision. If the vision is weak, opaque, off-target, under-developed, outdated, or flat, the effects will be similar in your organization. The vision infuses. The whole organization will mirror the vision and the level of inspiration, enthusiasm, and commitment with which it is communicated and the level at which it is modeled, lived, from the top.

An Inspirational Vision

Be the change you want to see in the world.
-Mahatma Gandhi

My life is my message.
-Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi lived his life by these visions, both equally and individually powerful. To exemplify in our daily life, and to dedicate the whole of our life to what we believe is good for the world is noble. Taking the time to determine the change we want to see in the world and believe it enough to work toward it incessantly is a long process, in and of itself. But, who could argue that each of us making our lives as purposeful and focused as possible would make the world a better, more meaningful place for everyone.

David Chang on Charlie Rose

I take in information in a variety of ways, including watching Charlie Rose religiously. Last week Charlie had an exceptional interview with Chef David Chang that is worth watching, regardless of what business your are in, and regardless of your passion for food. Why? Because David Chang is a man living a vision. He is consciously working toward a big picture. He understands, accepts, and embraces the need to innovate all the time, to change in order to stay the same, which, as he says is his goal over and over again: to be the best. Midway through the interview when the conversation turns to his pricing strategy, Chang easily and comfortably states the guiding vision of his work: let's make delicious food of value. Chang had already repeated this vision many times over throughout the interview: we try to serve the best food we can; our goal is to make the best food in New York City; good food is not just for fine dining; we try to do something good and do it the right way. Without anxiety, Chang states that he is not sure where he and his restaurants will be in three years, but he knows the goal will be the same: to be the best. Chang exemplifies the importance of knowing the vision and the importance of not letting allegiance to specific strategies and tactics rule the vision. He strives to be dynamic, ever-changing in response to the environment, in order to remain relevant.

Chang is a refreshing mix of humility and ambition. He possesses a clear vision and an acceptance of the ambivalence of the specifics of the future. For a young man, he is full of sage and visionary advice:
Work hard. Stay humble. Try to do it right. Have integrity. Delight in what you do.

Wow!

More about Chef David Chang
The I Chang by Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld
Chef on the Edge by Larissa MacFarquhar
The Year of the Pig by Alan Richman

Recommended Reads

I finished two books this weekend that were well worth the time spent. When first sitting down to write about them, I was thinking they were quite different books, but in this moment I see they are about the same thing, from different vantage points. Both books are about building community, which is one of my primary interests. I am interested in building community infrastructure/relationships, and then developing collective vision and skills within that community.

Personal Village: How to Have People in Your Life by Choice, Not Chance by Marvin Thomas was published in 2004, so it is not new. Nonetheless, I found it timely in its themes. I appreciated that this book is not heavy into or dependent on technology to build community. Thomas focuses on the old-fashioned putting yourself out there in a real and courageous way in strategic places to attract people who compliment and inspire you. Thomas suggests finding communal hangouts where people share your values and your interests. This might be a third place like a coffee shop or yoga studio or gym, or it might be a more formal group specifically formed around interests. Whatever the group, Thomas gives forgotten advice about being engaged and engaging in order to become attached and rooted. The best part of this book is the collection of resources after each chapter. I think studying successful community building strategies would go a long way to making the organizations we work in, the second places, more fulfilling and thereby more effective.

Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing The Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel is also about building community around a business's interests through technology, specifically blogging. This book is a survey of businesses that blog and the context in which they blog - some successful and effective, others, not so much. Scoble and Israel in effect have collected stories of how and why companies are building community around the common element of being a product-user. In fact, the Naked Conversations blog that they used to collect write about much of their research has been renamed Global Neightbourhoods.

I am fascinated, and was not let down in reading this book, by the movement toward cultures that are more open, more transparent, and more authentic. I find it amazing that CEOs of huge, multi-layered, well-insulated corporations blog. Here is an interesting wiki that is following this phenom. There are, however, corporations that blog which is more like their PR department getting tech savvy instead of real authentic blogging. Dave Winer, creator of RSS among many other things, sums that up nicely in the book with this quote, " The act of creativity -- only a person can do it, a company cannot."

I recommend reading Naked Conversations with your computer very near so that you can check out the blogs they are talking about as you read about them. Then, highlight the structural questions as they critique them Who should blog? What are the policies and parameters, What does open mean and are we comfortable with that? Are we going to try to monitor the blogging by employees are just trust? -- there are many considerations. But, their bottom line, and I agree, is that blogging is an incredible opportunity to build community, create trust, earn respect, and engage in passionate, reciprocal relationships. And, blogging done poorly or for the wrong reasons does more harm than good.

The logical book to read in conjunction with Naked Conversations is The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Read both and realize there is developing a very new usual in business. Only those who get it will be relevant.

Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial's Vision

While in Oklahoma City with ACDA in early July, I had an opportunity to visit the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial and hear designer Hans Butzer discuss its symbolism. His design team, Butzer Design Partnership, which includes his wife Torrey and associate Sven F. Berg, was chosen from over 600 entries to design the memorial based on their vision for the space.

Butzer started his talk by recalling the mission of the memorial site:

We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.

Butzer explained how from the beginning they were moved by this tremendous opportunity to leave a legacy, to make an impact that was the final statement on the incredulous, impersonal, violent act of others. They viewed their challenge as an incredible paradox: to create a place of serenity and peace from something that was created from evil and violence. They understood that part of the challenge was to create a sense of presence from absence, an enduring absence that caused random lives to be taken by an intentional act.

The site is incredibly moving. The two gates that stand sentinel over the bombing site gracefully and powerfully mark the intellectual threshold for the space. One gate is engraved "9:01" and the companion gate is engraved "9:03". The bombing took place at 9:02 a.m. Butzer's point is that things can only be understood in context. That placing this intentional act and its ramifications in context of the past, in the context of our culture, in the context of Oklahoma City, in context of the individual lives it touched, and in context of the future is the only way to make meaning. Similarly, choosing to make the street where the Murrah Building fronted as part of the memorial, commemorating it with a shallow black marble reflecting pool, changed the traffic flow of the downtown grid, forcing people trying to get from points downtown to encounter the reality of what happened perpetually. The reflecting pool is mystical. With every breeze, the waters distort their reflection of the memorial, inviting the viewer to understand that we work to understand, but that true understanding is not available to us because it has no ending point. Once we think we have a clear picture, a clear understanding of the motivations and ramifications, the wind blows, events in our life change and offer new awareness, and the picture changes.

Butzer team's vision was powerful and palpable as they designed this memorial. They created a sense of space, a sense of scale, a sense of story - individual stories, community stories, societal stories, a sense of history, a sense of absence and longing, and strangely a sense of presence and hope. The chairs that honor the 169 men, women and children who were killed are at once headstones and chairs at the table in the discussions of why?, and how not again?. All, from the power of a vision. This memorial is a great of example of vision as the details and the experience of the mission incarnate.

Kashi's Vision Statement

I couldn't find a formal vision statement but I think Kashi's founding principle is visionary. It is simple, easy to remember and motivates all that they do.

Kashi's founding principle:

Wellness isn’t a race—it’s a journey.
And, every day is an opportunity to live life a little healthier than the day before.
We truly believe when we eat well, we feel well.

To organize your thoughts and actions, discussions and decisions around what you truly believe is a vision. I truly believe that understanding creates community. Understanding, in some form, would be part of the vision that guides me.

Clif Bar Lives Its Vision

I find Clif Bar to be an inspiring company that derives its business strategies from its vision. They call it "their soul". We need our corporations to have souls, and we need places to work that inspire and desire soulful people. Clif's aspirations are noble, people-oriented, visionary in their aim. Their videos don't come through here but you can see them on their website.

5 Aspirations:

Sustaining our Planet -- keep our impact on the environment small even as we grow.

Sustaining our Community -- be good neighbors. Give back to the community.

Sustaining our People -- create a workplace where people can live life to its fullest, even 9 to 5.

Sustaining our Business -- grow slower, grow better, stick around longer.

Sustaining our Brands -- make what people actually need. Never compromise quality.

Sustaining is a good visionary word.

Creating A Vision

Vision as a noun is the power of sensing with our eyes, our sight. To vision is the ability to imagine or conceptualize in vivid detail something to come. The vision, with its detail and specificity, becomes a motivating goal for the future. A vision creates a magnetic force or pull towards realizing the vision. A vision also creates an organizing energy, a sense of direction so that goals can be set and reached, which allows the vision to be created. I am a firm believer that we can only do, as individuals and as organizations, that which we can envision. The first step, then, in planning for the future is crafting the vision. Everything else flows from there.

A vision statement is not a mission statement. In his BusinessWeek article, The Napkin Test, Carmine Gallo tells us, "A vision is a vivid image of a brighter future that can be articulated in 10 words or less. It is repeatable and consistent. A vision can fit on the back of a napkin." So easy to say and yet so hard to develop. His advice, "Lose the mission statement. That's right. Throw it out and throw out all of the meetings and e-mails that go along with it." Can you do it?

I do not have a formal vision statement. I have a rather unclear vision sentiment that motivates me and guides my thinking. I am undertaking a research project for a client regarding vision crafting and have decided I need a vision statement, lest I preach what I am not practicing. I need to crystallize my vision sentiment into a series of carefully chosen, coded, guiding words. I think it will take me a while to develop one right for me, and I know not to decide the outcome before researching the possibilities.

Here is my first, great, inspiring possibility. I love the vision statement of Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacies headquartered in Boulder, Colorado:

seek knowledge
embrace change
practice wellness
celebrate life

I could adopt that whole! But, that would be too easy. I shall keep looking, and let you know what I discover.

Activating A World in Us

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
- Anais Nin

Anais Nin is best known for publishing her journals which span more than 60 years. Nin's journals intimately chronicle her emotional life, her physical life, her spiritual life, and her intellectual life from age 11 until her death at age 77. The journals are fascinating because you can trace on the page the development of Anais Nin as a multi-dimensional being. Born of artistic, worldly parents, Nin's perspective from the beginning was non-traditional, open, rather unencumbered, thus it seems natural that she delves deeply into the world of psychoanalysis and erotica, what a wonderful combination!

The inspiration Anais Nin offers any one of us is this: the power of an open perspective and the power of questioning the conventional. Page after page of her journals is full of these two aims. Her whole life was full of these two aims, and this worldview led her to some interesting places, interesting situations, and interesting people. To remember that she was writing so openly and graphically about her relationships, as unconventional as they were, back in the society of the 1950s and 1960s is incredible.

We could jokingly say Anais Nin got around. But, I would say it non-jokingly - Anais Nin got around, met and worked at getting to know deeply interesting and interested people. I love her quote above that speaks to how we can activate the innate worlds of intelligence, motivation, and passion in one another. To connect our internal bodies of knowledge and intuition is the power and purpose of collaboration, and I love being able to think of Anais Nin, radical that she was, as a collaborator, one who melded what she had with others in hopes of creating something bigger, better, more.

Lackadaisical Risks

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of
knowledge."
- Daniel J. Boorstin

Daniel J. Boorstin was a very learned man who did a lot of things in his ninety years. To me this is what is intriguing about him, or anyone - doing a lot of things that have common threads running throughout. Boorstin was a learner and did not shy away from things he had not done before. He was an American historian, professor, attorney, and prolific writer. Boorstin wrote more than 20 books, including a trilogy on the American experience and one on world intellectual history. In 1974 he won a Pulitzer prize in history. Boorstin also served as director of the National Museum of History and Technology of the Smithsonian and as Librarian of Congress.

There is a lot to be inspired by Boorstin and his life of perpetual learning but this bit is my favorite. When President Gerald Ford nominated Boorstin to be Librarian of Congress in 1974, the nomination was supported by the Authors League of America but opposed by the American Library Association because Boorstin "was not a library administrator". I love that because I get that all the time. Basically, the ALA said "we can't trust him because he is not one of us". One of us myopia - it's a disease. Of course, the nomination was approved by the Senate without debate.

The ALA back in 1974 when faced with a new leader from outside their ranks suffered from the illusion of knowledge. They assumed that to administrate a library you have to have risen from the ranks. Their illusion of knowledge created a trust barrier. The alternative analytical approach in this situation would have been to look at Boorstin's success in other areas and have deduced that the temperament, qualities, and skills that made him successful in those arenas were transferable to their playing field.

I think the illusion of knowledge occurs because we become complacent and comfortable with the status quo. We stop learning. We become lackadaisical in our work. Lackadaisical means we are without interest, vigor, or determination. We become listless and lethargic. Ignorance develops because literally knowledge passes us by when we stop reaching. Our knowledge becomes irrelevant, a mere illusion of knowledge. And, the result is that we analyze situations and make decisions with old knowledge such that new discovery is off limits to us. A leader who is lackadaisical risks steering his organization severely off course.

Think In New Ways

During the summer I spend a lot of time traveling, meeting new people in new places. Inevitably one of the first topics of conversation is the proverbial what do you do? I usually ease my way into the conversation by saying I am a consultant. As expected, the comeback is what do you consult about? Sometimes I have trouble explaining what I consult about because working to improve the effectiveness of a group of people that work together is different at each place, with each group, within each different industry. I don't really have my two minute elevator speech down. The other day I came across this poem by Robert Bly, and I think I shall adapt his first line to create my answer from now on because it is really the key to doing differently, to doing new things, and to doing same things with a renewed spirit.

I teach people that work together to think in new ways -- simple, to the point, under two minutes, authentically descriptive. I like it!

Things To Think by Robert Bly

Think in new ways you've never thought before.
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you've ever hear,
vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you've never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he's about
to give you something large: tell you you're forgiven,
Or that it's not necessary to work all the time, or that it's
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

Great Work or a Job?

Commitment is passion. Commitment says I dedicate my whole being to this. Commitment should be deep, root, a source of energy. Work that you are committed to creates this paradoxical cycle: the more you work the more energy you have. Commitment should be that place where intellect and gut intertwine, where values are transformed into actions. We use the word commitment lightly, or numbly, because many of us are not reflective about daily life and how we spend our time. We hold a job, not engage in great work.

We think of work all too often as a job, not as a commitment, a passion, a chance to show daily what we believe in. To use an ancient term that Carl Jung recast, we should see our work as our mandala. Our work should be that sacred place and sacred endeavor that allows us to give our gifts to the world. Our work should feed our sense of self and our sense of purpose. We spend way too many hours at work, physically and emotionally, for it not to. If work is not a great source of creativity and pride for us, then we are doing the wrong work. And, the wrong work has no chance of being great work.

Steve Jobs, in his commencement address to Stanford Class of 2005, says it well:

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. I’m convinced that the
only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. Your work is
going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly
satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do
great work is to love what you do. Don’t settle [for less]. As with all
matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

Work is about the heart as much as it is the head. We must find work we can be committed to and passionate about in order to create greatness for others, and for ourselves. We must help others find work they can be committed to instead of just holding jobs in our organizations.