Vision
My topic is vision.
• First of all, I’d like to clarify what vision means through a little story o I took a trip to Sea World in San Antonio with my family over the weekend and in preparing for this speech I tried a little experiment with Ariel, my 9-year old daughter.
“Ariel”, I said, “we are go to drive 3.5 hours on I-10 East, stay in a Fairfield Suites overnight, spend 8 hours in Sea World, drive 30 minutes to another hotel, spend 6 hours in San Antonio and then 3 hours on I-10 West back. We’ve allocated $600 for the trip. Let’s have fun!”
How do you think she reacted? Not that well, because I did not establish a vision, I gave her a roadmap.
In contrast, I said to her 4-year old sister Ursula, “we are going on a trip to SeaWorld to see whales and dolphins and fish!” She reacted much better, at least until Shamu splashed her, but that’s another story.
• The point is that a vision is simply “a compelling image of an achievable future”. I believe in establishing a vision because I think it is the best way to instill excitement and clarity for a team. o A vision provides a longer term collective objective that inspires and guides people. o Using the trip analogy, it is the “why we are going” on a trip. If you encounter a detour it serves as a guide post helping you get back in the right direction. o For example, Microsoft’s vision statement is “There will be a personal computer on every desk running Microsoft software”. Short, powerful and clear.
• A compelling future is very important, but I believe there are two other essential elements required to have a complete vision. These are strategy and tactics
• If vision is why we are going on a trip, strategy is where we are going on the trip. o Even if you have a great vision, strategy is very important, because if you don’t have one, you don’t know where you are going. o To continue the trip analogy, if I didn’t specify “we are going on a trip to SeaWorld in San Antonio” it could have been
• First of all, I’d like to clarify what vision means through a little story o I took a trip to Sea World in San Antonio with my family over the weekend and in preparing for this speech I tried a little experiment with Ariel, my 9-year old daughter.
“Ariel”, I said, “we are go to drive 3.5 hours on I-10 East, stay in a Fairfield Suites overnight, spend 8 hours in Sea World, drive 30 minutes to another hotel, spend 6 hours in San Antonio and then 3 hours on I-10 West back. We’ve allocated $600 for the trip. Let’s have fun!”
How do you think she reacted? Not that well, because I did not establish a vision, I gave her a roadmap.
In contrast, I said to her 4-year old sister Ursula, “we are going on a trip to SeaWorld to see whales and dolphins and fish!” She reacted much better, at least until Shamu splashed her, but that’s another story.
• The point is that a vision is simply “a compelling image of an achievable future”. I believe in establishing a vision because I think it is the best way to instill excitement and clarity for a team. o A vision provides a longer term collective objective that inspires and guides people. o Using the trip analogy, it is the “why we are going” on a trip. If you encounter a detour it serves as a guide post helping you get back in the right direction. o For example, Microsoft’s vision statement is “There will be a personal computer on every desk running Microsoft software”. Short, powerful and clear.
• A compelling future is very important, but I believe there are two other essential elements required to have a complete vision. These are strategy and tactics
• If vision is why we are going on a trip, strategy is where we are going on the trip. o Even if you have a great vision, strategy is very important, because if you don’t have one, you don’t know where you are going. o To continue the trip analogy, if I didn’t specify “we are going on a trip to SeaWorld in San Antonio” it could have been