THE DISCIPLINE OF BUILDING
SHARED VISION
ENCOURAGING PERSONAL
VISION
Shared
visions emerge from personal visions. This is how they derive their
energy and how they foster commitment. As Bill O’Brien of
Hanover Insurance observes, “My vision is not what’s
important to you. The only vision that motivates you is your
vision.” It is not that people care only about their personal
self-interest – in fact, people’s personal visions
usually include dimensions that concern family, organisation,
community, and even the world. Rather O’Brien is stressing
that caring is personal. It is rooted in an
individual’s own set of values, concerns, and aspirations.
This is why genuine caring about a shared vision is rooted in
personal visions. This simple truth is lost on many leaders, who
decide that their organisation must develop a vision by
tomorrow!
Organisations intent on building shared visions
continually encourage members to develop their personal visions. If
people don’t have their own vision, all they can do is
“sign up” for someone else’s. The result is
compliance, never commitment. On the other hand, people with a
strong sense of personal direction can join together to create a
powerful synergy toward what I/we truly want.
Personal mastery is the bedrock for developing
shared visions. This means not only personal vision, but commitment
to the truth and creative vision – the hallmarks of personal
mastery. Shared vision can generate levels of creative tension that
go far beyond individuals’ “comfort levels”.
Those who will contribute the most towards realising a lofty vision
will be those who can “hold” this creative tension:
remain clear on the vision and continue to inquire into current
reality. They will be the ones who believe deeply in their ability
to create their future, because that is what they experience
personally.
In
encouraging personal vision, organisations must be careful not to
infringe on individual freedoms. As was discussed in chapter 9,
“Personal Mastery”, no one can give another “his
vision” nor even force him to develop a vision. However,
there are positive actions that can be taken to create a climate
that encourages personal vision. The most direct is for leaders who
have a sense of vision to communicate that in such a way that
others are encouraged to share their visions. This is the art of
visionary leadership – how shared visions are built from
personal visions.
FROM
PERSONAL VISIONS TO SHARED VISIONS
How do
individual visions join to create shared visions? A useful metaphor
is the hologram, the three-dimensional image created by interacting
light sources.
If you
cut a photograph in half, each part shows only part of the whole
image. But if you divide a hologram, each part shows the whole
image intact. Similarly, as you continue to divide up the hologram,
no matter how small the divisions, each piece still shows the whole
image. Likewise, when a group of people come to share a vision for
an organisation, each person sees his own picture of the
organisation at its best. Each shares responsibility for the whole,
not just for his piece. But the component “pieces” of
the hologram are not identical. Each represents the whole image
from a different point of view. It’s as if you were to look
through holes poked in a window shade; each hole would offer a
unique angle for viewing the whole image. So, too, is each
individual’s vision of the whole unique. We each have our own
way of seeing the larger vision.
When
you add up the pieces of a hologram, the image of the whole does
not change fundamentally. After all, it was there in each piece.
Rather the image becomes more intense, more lifelike. When more
people come to share a common vision, the vision may not change
fundamentally. But it becomes more alive, more real in the sense of
a mental reality that people can truly imaging achieving. They now
have partners, “co-creators”; the vision no longer
rests on their shoulders alone. Early on, when they are nurturing
an individual vision, people may say it is “my vision”.
But as the shared vision develops, it becomes both “my
vision” and “our vision”.
The
first step in mastering the discipline of building shared visions
is to give up traditional notions that visions are always announced
from “on high” or come from an organisation’s
institutionalised planning processes.
In the
traditional hierarchical organisation, no one questioned that the
vision emanated from the top. Often, the big picture guiding the
firm wasn’t even shared – all people needed to know
were their “marching orders”, so that they could carry
out their tasks in support of the larger vision. Ed Simon of Herman
Miller says, “If I was the president of a traditional
authoritarian organisation and I had a new vision, the task would
be much simpler than we face today. Most people in the organisation
wouldn’t need to understand the vision. People would simply
need to know what was expected of them.”
That
traditional “top down” vision is not much different
from a process that has become popular in recent years. Top
management goes off to write its “vision statement”,
often with the help of consultants. This may be done to solve the
problem of low morale or lack of strategic direction. Sometimes the
process is primarily reflective. Sometimes it incorporates
extensive analysis of a firm’s competitors, market setting,
and organisational strengths and weaknesses. Regardless, the
results are often disappointing for several reasons.
First,
such a vision is often a “one-shot” vision, a single
effort at providing overarching direction and meaning to the
firm’s strategy. Once it’s written, management assumes
that they have now discharged their visionary duties. Recently, one
of my Innovation Associates colleagues was explaining to two
managers how our group works with vision. Before he could get far,
one of the managers interrupted. “We’ve done
that,” he said. “We’ve already written our vision
statement.” “That’s very interesting,” my
colleague responded. “What did you come up with?” The
one manager turned to the other and asked, “Joe, where is
that vision statement anyhow?” Writing a vision statement can
be a first step in building shared vision but, alone, it rarely
makes a vision “come alive” within an
organisation.
The
second problem with top management going off to write their vision
statement is that the resulting vision does not build on
people’s personal visions. Often, personal visions are
ignored altogether in search for a “strategic vision”.
Or the “official vision” reflects only the personal
vision of one or two people. There is little opportunity for
inquiry and testing at every level so that people feel they
understand and own the vision. As a result, the new official also
fails to foster energy and commitment. It simply does not inspire
people. In fact, sometimes, it even generates little passion among
the top management team who created it.
Lastly, vision is not a “solution to a
problem”. If it is seen in that light, when the
“problem” of low morale or unclear strategic direction
goes away, the energy behind the vision will go away also. Building
shared vision must be seen as a central element of the daily work
of leaders. It is ongoing and never-ending. It is actually part of
a larger leadership activity: designing and nurturing what
Hanover’s Bill O’Brien calls the “governing
ideas” of the enterprise – not only its vision per se,
but its purpose and core values as well. As O’Brien says,
“The governing ideas are far more important and enduring than
the reporting chart and the divisional structure that so often
preoccupy CEOs.”
Sometimes, managers expect shared visions to
emerge from a firm’s strategic planning process. But for all
the same reasons that most “top-down” visioning
processes fail, most strategic planning also fails to nurture
genuine vision. According to Hamel and Prahalad:
Creative strategies seldom emerge from the annual
planning ritual. The starting point for next year’s strategy
is almost this year’s strategy. Improvements are incremental.
The company sticks to the segments and territories it knows, even
though the real opportunities may be elsewhere. The impetus for
Canon’s pioneering entry into the personal computer business
came from an overseas sales subsidiary – not from planners in
Japan.
This
is not to say that visions cannot emanate from the top. Often, they
do. But sometimes they emanate from personal visions of individuals
who are not in positions of authority. Sometimes they just
“bubble up” from people interacting at many levels. The
origin of the vision is much less important than the process
whereby it comes to be shared. It is not truly a “shared
vision” until it connects with the personal visions of people
throughout the organisation.
For
those in leadership positions, what is most important is to
remember that their visions are still personal visions. Just
because they occupy a position of leadership does not mean that
their personal visions are automatically “the
organisation’s vision.” When I hear leaders say
“our vision” and I know they are really describing
“my vision” I recall Mark Twain’s words that the
official “we” should be reserved for “kings and
people with tapeworm”.
Ultimately leaders intent on building shared
visions must be willing to continually share their personal
visions. They must also be prepared to ask, “Will you follow
me?” This can be difficult. For a person who has been setting
goals all though his career and simply announcing them, asking for
support can make him feel very vulnerable. | 
