Jeanne partnered with John Carroll University to provide some insights on how to establish, implement, and maintain a strong corporate culture that supports your strategic vision.
Creating a Blueprint for Growth: It All Starts With a Clear Vision
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The saying, “begin with the end in mind” is never more appropriate then when creating a blueprint for growth for your organization. Terminology in planning exercises can be confusing, but in order to arrive at your vision, all you need to do is answer the question, “what are we building?”
If you think about describing what that picture looks like in your mind as you look out over the horizon at your business three years from now, what do you see? How would you describe it?
A good framework for the vision statement is to identify the geographic scope of the organization, size in terms of revenue and/or people, and a description of what the organization will provide.
Having a concrete, succinct vision statement is a critical step in the planning process. It identifies that future point in space and time to which everyone in the organization is moving towards. If the vision isn’t clearly defined, or everyone has a different idea of the vision, than decision making will reflect that confusion.
Vision Without Systems Leads to Chaos
Photo by Daniil Kuželev on Unsplash
We’ve probably all been in that situation at one time or another. We have a clear vision of where we’re headed in a particular situation whether it’s the direction we want to take our business or a vision for a new product or service. In that flash of inspiration the outcome is so clear to us that it seems impossible not to accomplish.
Fast forward 60 days and how often is it the case that the initial vision and clarity around outcomes is looking blurry and feeling chaotic? According to Peter Senge, “Vision without ‘systems thinking’ ends up painting lovely pictures of the future with no deep understanding of the forces that must be mastered to move from here to there.”
The key to fulfilling any vision is being able to distill it into an actionable and measurable plan. The challenge of course is that creating the vision is often the easy part—it’s creative, fun and intellectually stimulating. Taking the next step though is where the rubber hits the road. It’s what separates good ideas from viable and sustainable successes.
