Strategic-Planning
What is a Shared Vision?
So what makes a vision successful? Everyday companies try to create a vision that will lead them into the future but seldom does that vision ever impact the organization. The reason for this is that the vision is created by a few and never becomes a ?shared vision? of the entire organization.
Peter Senge, in his book ?The Fifth Discipline? describes a shared vision as ?? a force in people?s hearts, a force of impressive power?.At its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question, ?What do we want to create?? ? A shared vision is a picture that everyone in the company carries in their heads and hearts.
So what does a shared vision do for your company? It converts the company into ?our company?. It creates a sense of commonality and gives coherence to diverse activities. It creates excitement and makes an extraordinary company. It allows everyone to work together. It creates a common identity and a sense of purpose. It encourages new ways of thinking and acting. It gives courage and fosters risk taking and experimentation. Basically without a shared vision, that vision you spent time creating is pointless and meaningless. And without a shared vision the learning organization cannot exist.
What is a learning organization? A learning organization is one that continually learns and improves. A learning organization is one that learns faster than its competition, one that taps the knowledge of the entire organization and does not only rely on the top person. A learning organization learns from its failures and creates a new paradigm.
Imagine trying to learn from your failures if you are not part of a learning organization. Instead of learning people will pass blame, try to hide or ignore their failures and in the end the entire company suffers. In a learning organization a failure is seen as a chance to learn and then possibly shift your paradigm towards how things could be done.
With a shared vision everyone has a common destination and a common picture. They then work together as a team, supporting and encouraging each other. There is no competition between people, therefore there is no need to pass blame or hide your failures.
You may think that this all sounds wonderful but will never happen, but it actually does happen. To create this collaborative environment you need:
GRAEME NICHOL, President, Arcturus Advisors.
http://www.arcturusadvisors.com/
Graeme Nichol has worked on 4 continents and in 117 unique businesses gaining experience in manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, communications, banking, direct marketing, consumer goods and retail amongst others. He has significant management experience and consulting experience, including Business strategy, project management, change management, big six consulting, team productivity, business productivity and quality improvement, ERP implementations.
Arcturus Advisors works with businesses and teams that are struggling to formulate a strategic plan that delivers bottom line results. Using tried and tested planning systems that have achieved results internationally for 20 years we ensure that you transform your business through focus, alignment and accountability.
Graeme Nichol
Tags: Vision, behavior change, collaborationSimilar articles
Transfer Pricing
Transfer pricing is a complicated issue, but worth understanding on at least a basic level if you work at all with multinational corporations. The price at which one unit of a firm sells goods or services to another unit of the same firm. Read more →Understanding The True Cost Of Corporate Office Space
How do I assess my true office accommodation costs?We have been asked by a number of clients to help them identify the true cost of an office or location. Read more →What Is Your Business Strategy?
Unfortunately too many small businesses never think about strategic panning, just getting through today seems to be the goal. There are times when this is the right thing to do, but if you never take time out to manage where your business is going, and how you will take it forward; you will always follow the competition. Read more →When Politics Dominate Your Organization
There are many resemblances between politics and management. One of them is that they both share the development of Policies. Where should your company differ from a political institution in order to be successful? Read more →Aphorism
Things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
Albert Einstein