A WELL-FORMED VISION

You’ve heard about a well-formed outcome, what about a well-formed vision? When it comes to a vision, there are real visions and there are false visions. There are useful visions and unuseful visions. There are ego-centric and narcissistic visions and there are collaborative visions that excite a community. All visions are not the same. Some work and are actionable, many do not and therefore cannot be put into action. And pseudo-visions tend to reinforce the narcissistic goals of the top management rather than inspire all of the stakeholders. Benjamin Zander described the problem when he wrote: “By and large, mission statements are expressions of competition and scarcity.” It has some version of “we are number one in our industry!”

Think about it for a moment and you’ll realize, that is not a visionary statement. Zander’s solution? Identify the criteria that makes for a good vision. I have taken some of his suggestions and added some more to create a pattern for developing a well-formed vision.