A few months ago, we worked together to craft a simple vision for this possibility, and strategies to achieve it – but when he communicated it to the organization, it was, unfortunately, buried in complicated corporate speak. The simplicity got lost, and many of the folks in the organization saw it as a no more than a call to “collect wood and assign tasks and work.”
Then, last week, he pulled together the top 50 people in the company to review, respond to and build on the new vision – and over the course of a couple of days I saw them begin to see the possibility of it, then consider whether it might be achieved, then hope that it could be – and finally, to long to accomplish it.
And when they got to that point – when the majority of the people in the room strongly wanted to get to that future state where all the divisions of the company were working together – they started figuring out on their own how to “collect wood and assign tasks and work.”
I see this again and again: with clients, with friends and family, in my own life. Human beings are moved by the clear vision of a hoped-for future. Vision is not goals, or objectives, or financial modeling. Vision is the description of a future that fulfills deep hopes.
And the wonderful news is – we each have that visionary element in us. We tend to believe that the ability to envision the future is a rare thing; that only one person in a thousand has that ability. That visioning is the province of Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela, Joan of Arc – not for normal folks like us.
But every kid who’s ever wanted a bike for his or her birthday; everyone who’s ever been in love; everyone who’s ever looked forward to a much-anticipated event, thinking through each moment of how they’d like it to unfold: that’s vision. “Visioning” is simply the ability to see and feel the possibility of a future that doesn’t yet exist. And we can all do that.
I encourage you to explore that ability; to let yourself harness the power of visioning within you. You can discover your own version of “longing for the endless immensity of the sea.” And when you do that, as I saw with my clients last week, you will begin to build the “ships” to get you there – and it will seem like an obvious and necessary thing to do. Having a clear and compelling vision unleashes the energy and skill within you to move toward that vision.
Allow yourself to long for a future that calls out to you, and then to build toward that future. And one day soon, you’ll find yourself sailing on the open sea…
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