Imagine for a moment a purple elephant. Now picture it with a saddle. What did you just see? Unless you suffer from aphantasia, you created a mental image in what we like to call your “mind’s eye.” Congrats, you’re now a visionary! I’m not going Doctor Strange or metaphysical on you. No, it’s much more epic than that. This is your Tuesday Tidbit…
Vision
The topic of “vision” is certainly a charged one. Some people relish discussing while others avoid it like The Grinch and a thirty-nine-and-half-foot pole. I’m in the relish camp. Without vision, people perish.
Today I wanted to make vision really simple for everyone, while also uncovering why people may despise discussing the taboo topic. Vision is, simply stated, something you see or have seen, whether it’s real or just in your mind. Why do we hate it? Maybe because for the totality of man’s existence we’ve been awful at conveying what we’ve seen. But don’t worry, people still don’t understand Picasso’s visions.
Three Reasons Vision is Difficult…
I have found at least three reasons why vision is difficult. The first is that we simply don’t have it. That’s right, we were given a task to go do or a solution to go build, and we just followed orders. Good luck.
A distant second reason for vision angst is that vision is often being formulated after action has already been taken. Great products are born out of clear, regularly articulated visions. Most of the times we resist vision are because we already started acting or building, things aren’t going well, and someone says “maybe we need a vision.” It’s not great, but it’s probably better than nothing.
The third, slightly better scenario is we have a vision but simply don’t know how to convey it. The people that succeed at gathering other people together to storm some castle or build some company are just those that exceeded at casting a really good vision. Sometimes it’s visions of a different world, other times it’s visions of wealth, or even visions of punishment for not taking action. In any case, you are just using words or pictures to try and convey a thing that, at that moment, isn’t real.
If you don’t actually have a vision, all is not yet lost. Just know whatever you’re trying to inspire others to do is gonna suck. Or, it won’t be as great as it could be. Why? Because you don’t even know what it is or how great it could be, much less how to describe it. The answer is not acting as though vision is “squishy” or, worse, unnecessary. Vision is so important God decided to remind us eternally that without it people die. I’ve found that posing one simple thought, out loud, really helps form great vision. “Imagine a purple elephant…with a saddle…”
One thing I do every year around this time is contemplate the past year and the one on the way. I sit in my comfy chair with a hot cup of coffee, turn on some Spotify Christmas tunes, and open a blank note on my Mac. I don’t sit down intending to write a vision or anything, but I do answer a common set of questions I have collected over the years. One of these questions is “what kind of dad have I been this year?” It organically leads to what kind of dad I want to be next year and, before I know it, I have created a vision for what I could become. That’s all there is to it. Just write it out, and make it plain. Maybe this can help you get started on your path to setting clear vision for yourself, your family, and your team.