The concept of vision is wider and elusive, and there are many definitions and concepts emerged for the same. However, a vision is something which helps to direct & lead towards a future desired state.
After the wider acceptance of new age business practices and policies, many businesses, organisations, governments and even political parties started to think about the vision. Whether they are known or unknown about the importance of vision and how a real vision will look like and why it’s necessary for a long time success.
The concept of vision is wider and elusive, and there are many definitions and concepts emerged for the same. However, a vision is something which helps to direct & lead towards a future desired state. Moreover, the vision is essential for the organisations to keep up with the turbulence changes and getting ready for the future.
Even though many of the businesses keep their vision as fancy statements to showcase in their boardrooms or in their websites, the main reason behind this is the lack of clear understanding about the importance of a vision and how it has to be developed.
What Makes up a vision?
Vision, purpose, mission & values aren’t the same. When the vision describes the long-term desired state/dream of the firm, purpose stands for how the vision is going to impact its stakeholders, mission communicates about the business goals in mid and short-term and the values are the culture and the principle of the business. But a vision must be consistent with the purpose, mission and values. A vision is shorter in the sentence but wider in its scope.
A vision should always motivate the people, give them a scope to rethink, and should be a reason to work hard. It’s like a sweeper in the organisation clean well every day and an employee works more hours than his time and all of this to achieve a bigger vision which leads them.
The vision has to allow the businesses to explore new terrains, new industries and new people and make their dreams come true. The vision has to extend the life of the organisation and touch millions of people. The vision is the mirror of the organisation and the chairman of the board has to report to the vision.
When the US President John F. Kennedy visited NASA in 1962 he noticed a sweeper carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to him and said, “Hi, I’m John F. Kennedy, what are you doing?”
“Well, Mr President,” the sweeper responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
To most people, this sweeper was just cleaning the building. But in a larger context, he was working for a vision to send the man to the moon and was helping to make history.
This is how the vision has to work on, despite the role an employee does, they have to contribute their role to achieve a bigger vision and be successful.
Characteristics of a good vision
When the team in the organisation has a vision in their mind that has to be made into a statement. It is a universal fact that something we make as a document will last for a long time. Here the problem comes; what all has to be included in a vision statement? How long it has to be? The answer to this question is, there is no universal theory for the items/points which you have to add to a vision statement but it’s all about the priorities and purpose of your organisation.
You can include your customer/product/service/industry/people/skill/changes/dream/competencies/excellence and many into the vision statement. But it’s about the priority of the business that the organisation is in. Include only the key stakeholders who require the best attention and has a role in the growth of the organisation.
Regarding the sentence structure, there are few more to consider
- Easy to understand
- Communicating
- Motivating & exciting
- Challenging
- Stable but flexible
- And also be realistic
Vision roadmap
Unlike the vision and product roadmap, the vision roadmap is a pathway to reach into the vision in a period of time. The vision roadmap is essential to take the feedback and evaluate the performance & direction of the vision.
A vision roadmap, shows the milestones to be achieved as part of realising the vision, something like vision 2025 or 2030. This helps the firm to attract the right talent, good investors and will give a future insight.
Slogan
It is right to have a vision and a slogan for the same organisation. Slogans are the drivers to keep and remind the organisation of its vision and purpose. But developing a successful slogan is essential, otherwise, there will be a strategic drift from the vision. Slogans have to act as the connecting dots of the vision.
The organisation needs a vision statement to make the feel of their people and other stakeholders that, they are the part of something larger than their career or family. The person has to be aligned and inspire or motivate him in each course of his work. The vision has to create a tension between the current status and the desired future state.
‘Start dreaming! Start Visioning!’
