Please, Please Stop Talking About Vision

What is the problem with vision? Consider these words of wisdom from two famous kings: 
 

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” – King Solomon (Proverbs 29:18)

“A little less conversation, a little more action please — All this aggravation ain't satisfactioning me.”   – The King of Rock & Roll, Elvis Presley

If you’ve ever been a part of an organization that is floundering or stagnating from a lack of vision, then Solomon’s wisdom will ring true for you.   We understand the timeless challenge for leaders to articulate a vision or face painful consequences. Vision is vital – essential to life. 

Elvis is obviously not singing to executives about organizational leadership. But he does make a good case that vision by itself is not enough. At some point, you have to stop talking about it and actually do something.  
 

One of my clients, an entrepreneur, is going to California this weekend to compete in a triathlon. The triathlon is a grueling test of endurance – a 1500 meter swim, followed by a 40 kilometer bicycle ride, and then a 10 kilometer run. His personal vision to complete this event is extremely powerful – he sees it as a memorial to a friend of his who died tragically in a motorcycle accident about a year ago. 
 

I remember talking to my client about the upcoming triathlon back in January, when the event was four months away. He realized that he had been talking about it for awhile, but had not yet begun serious training. He put together a schedule and started immediately to train for the event. Just yesterday, he shared how he had completed his final workout and planned a few days rest before the big event. He is ready. 
 

Realizing a personal vision like completing a triathlon requires the sustained and focused action of one person. He created the vision, linked it to a very powerful personal desire, determined what it would take to achieve it, made the decision, and then took action to get there. 
 

For an organization, however, realizing a vision is much more difficult. Why? It requires the aligned action of many people. Creating and sustaining the aligned action required to realize a vision is one of the greatest challenges of the leader. 
 

What makes it so hard? While there are many factors, in my experience the biggest one is the ability and will of the leader to continually create a connection between vision and three related components: You must desire, require, and decide.   
 

To realize a vision, we must desire, require, and decide.   For each step, I offer thoughts and some perhaps counter intuitive recommendations:
 

Desire – Do not underestimate the importance of desire. Desire is critical for both the leader and the organization overall. Do you and your organization really want what you say you want? Is your desire to realize your vision strong enough to move you off of the status quo, which is known, to the promise of something better, which is still unknown? 

We often underestimate the power of personal and organizational inertia. The leader must force and facilitate a candid conversation about the true nature of our desire. If it doesn’t get heated and impassioned, then you aren’t pushing enough. I have seen too many polite and pleasant conversations about vision that may result in nice meetings and fancy reports, but do not lead to any real action. 
 

My recommendation on desire: give yourself and your organization permission at the outset to say no. Too often, the vision and strategy discussion starts with an assumption that growth and change are both desirable and essential. But it may not be. You and/or the organization may be quite comfortable at your current level. As long as you are profitable, things are working smoothly, and you don’t face an imminent competitive threat, it is completely acceptable to stay where you are. (I call this the “myth of growth” – stay tuned for an upcoming article on this topic.) 

When the vision conversation starts by assuming growth, it sometimes conveys a subliminal message to you and your organization that you are deficient in some way. This view often creates denial and defensiveness about addressing future possibilities.   By openly stating the permission to say no, you relieve this artificial pressure and people are more likely to view the future vision as a choice.    If you start from this point of view, you can then have a real assessment of the gap between where you are now and where you might want to be. Unless that gap is extremely compelling, your efforts to move forward are unlikely to succeed.
 

Require – Once we have a discussion about vision and desire, do we really know what is required to get there? Unfortunately, many leaders stop short of forcing this crucial question. The vision conversation centers on growth and opportunity: Wow, wouldn’t it be great if we could grow our organization significantly? Launch dazzling new products or services? Create some big initiatives? Enter new markets? Heads nod. Yes, that would be awesome! Unfortunately, that’s where we often stop. The temptation is to focus on the desirability of the vision, but ignore the reality of getting there. Like completing a triathlon, any vision worth achieving is going to require some really hard work. Have we been completely honest with ourselves about what it will take? 
 

My recommendations on require:   Make sure your focus is on future requirements and does not place any blame about where you are today. Frequently, the processes and systems that worked for your organization in the past are not suitable for the future. But this is not an issue of fault or blame – most likely, these previous decisions reflected reasonable decisions at the time about allocation of resources. (For example, one client I’ve worked with was stuck at a certain revenue level because its accounting system did not support the complexity required to secure bigger contracts. They needed a new system if they were going to grow. Who is to blame for this reality? No one. It is a pointless discussion. When the company was small, a smaller, simpler system made sense.)   Yet often the discussion of requirements can degenerate into a backwards looking exercise where people defend previous decisions. Make sure you frame this conversation in a positive and forward-looking tone.  
 

When you do address requirements as part of your vision discussion, give people some time to sleep on it. Give them some time to contemplate the commitment they are about to make. Not more time to do analysis-paralysis about the decision, but to get committed to the action itself. By putting the requirements on the table up front, it will help you sustain action and accountability down the road. Hey, we all agreed that we wanted this vision and we acknowledged what it would take, so let’s keep going.   Make sure that these required actions are reflected in a solid, written strategic plan with clear accountabilities and milestones. Creating a good plan will increase the confidence and commitment of everyone involved.
 

Decide – Assuming we have a desirable vision and we’ve been really honest about what it requires, then the ability and will to decide comes into play.   This step is a big problem for many leaders and organizations, because it involves candid assessment and judgment about the capability of your people.   Do we have the right people on the team in the right roles? If not, are we willing to make the tough choices to move forward? Many leaders and organizations avoid these decisions like the plague, and then the implementation flounders because the team is simply incapable of getting there. If you have a vision of moving into the major leagues, you are not going to get there with minor league talent.   Sometimes it is very difficult to ask these questions with the existing team in the room – since they are naturally concerned with their own futures. They may be incapable of seeing or advocating a future vision which may not involve them as part of the organization.
 

My recommendations on decide – cultivate a culture that encourages people to be prepared for the inevitable change that faces every organization. Help them to understand their own gifts, talents, skills, and to take responsibility as CEO of their own lives. No organization can guarantee lifetime employment anymore, but they can commit to treating people openly and fairly. As organizations evolve, different skills are required to move from one stage to the next. As the leader, you have a big job to match your evolving organizational needs with the capabilities of your people.   Learning how to make these judgments and decisions will determine your ultimate success.
 

The problem with vision is that articulating a vision is not enough. You must connect that vision to desire, determine what is required to achieve it, and then make the decisions that will move you forward.   How about you?
 

If, after contemplating these questions, you determine that you are comfortable where you are, or that you would really rather avoid the decisions necessary to move forward towards your vision, then that is perfectly fine. But I do have one request. Please, please stop talking about vision. No more meetings, retreats, or task forces where you gather people to blather about vision. How about a “little less conversation, a little more action?”