3

Vision

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.

— CARL JUNG

The value of a compelling insight to anyone other than the person who receives it is only apparent when that person begins to act and attracts the commitment of others. Then leadership can begin, and a vision can serve as the magnet that attracts commitment. Bill Strickland said about creating a vision, “The only reason I would even bother to do it is to get the support that I need to act on the insight. It isn’t good enough to sit and have it. I am in this world and we have to do something with these insights that applies to people living out their lives. I have to get it down to a level where they can get hold of it even though they do not have the benefit of the insight.”

A vision is a mental picture of a desirable future. It may be stated as abstractly as Martin Luther King’s “dream” or as concretely as the construction of a new corporate headquarters. It may describe a definitive outcome or product, or it may depict an ideal ongoing process. Its seeds lie within the vital question a leader asks and the compelling insight the question produces. A vision begins to answer the many additional questions and issues raised by a provocative insight.

The value of a well-articulated vision was not always as obvious as it is today, when such diverse thinkers such as Howard Gardner, focusing on mind, Daniel Goleman, focusing on emotion, and Deepak Chopra, focusing on spirit, agree about the centrality of vision to leadership. During the mid-1980s one executive asked, with more than a trace of arrogance in his voice, “Why should I tell anyone else what my vision is?” Such a question would not be asked today by any executive who attends to the literature of leadership or to how others lead. Vision became popular in the 1980s when leaders discovered that a worthwhile vision can provide purpose and focus to an organization’s activities. Suddenly it seemed that every organization had to have a “vision statement” and leaders, either singly or in leadership teams, rushed off to retreat centers to craft them. That inclination continues as leaders develop statements that, sadly, more often than not are soon forgotten by those who are expected to transform them into reality.

There are many reasons for these failures. At or near the top of the list of reasons is that many visions fail to win the kind of long-term commitment that they need; their inspiration lasting only for a few days, a few weeks, or a few months.

Self or Others

Visions can be placed on a continuum from those that are self-referent at one end to those that are noble at the other. Self-referent visions are about what the organization and its people wish to become. Noble visions are about the contribution the organization’s leaders wish to make to some group of people. The continuum is shown in Figure 3-1.

SELF-REFERENT VISION	NOBLE VISION
About self and/or organization	About contributing to the needs and aspirations of a group of people

Figure 3-1. Self-referent and noble vision.

Many visions, especially those crafted by corporate leaders, are self-referent. They are about the organization’s business and about the leader’s aspirations to dominate that business, rather than about the contribution the leaders intend to make to a group of people. A conventional corporate vision is something like this: “To be the best in the eyes of our customers, employees, and the public.” This does not tell us why the organization’s product or service is valuable to anyone, or how it contributes to any group of people. The vision refers only to the leader’s desire to be at the helm of the best and to have everybody know it.

There is nothing wrong with being the best or having a good reputation, but such statements reflect egoistic appetites for achievement rather than contributions to the human community. Being the best can be seen as a very good idea, therefore forming the basis for intellectual commitment. It can also inspire strong emotions such as satisfaction and pride. But neither of these commitments alone is sustainable over time. Two conclusions are intuitively and experientially obvious.

1.Fundamental and sustainable great achievements, those requiring a high level of energy over a long period of time, as well as perhaps some sacrifice and pain, necessitate higher commitment than political or intellectual commitment.

2.People will offer intellectual and emotional commitment to many causes, but they will commit spiritual energy only to those visions that address the elemental needs of a group of people.

In other words, as a leader, no matter how great you wish yourself or your organization to become, if your vision only focuses on this goal, a call for a high level of commitment from others is likely to fall flat. Self-referent visions do not focus on an insight into the needs and aspirations of a group of people. Life Teen was grounded in Monsignor Fushek’s insight about love. The Spiritual Eldering Institute was grounded in Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi’s vision of “elderhood” as a time of contributing to society. Without a seminal insight about the needs and aspirations of a group of people, visions can easily become degraded into mere personal goals or marketing slogans. Because self-referent visions are not grounded in such insights, they fail to sustain intellectual and emotional commitment for long, and they never inspire spiritual commitment.

It is also intuitively and experientially accurate to say that the leader of an organization whose products or services do not contribute substantially to a group of people entertains false hopes when he expects high levels of commitment from employees. Self-referent visions are the last—perhaps the only—resort of leaders in such organizations.

A vision that is self-referent also casts doubt on an organization’s other commitments. For example, if an organization’s leaders state that they are committed to customer service, yet their vision is entirely self-referent, an onlooker might legitimately conclude that the commitment to customer service is merely political. In other words, customer service is not valued in and of itself, but as a means to another end—the organization’s own achievement. This political commitment to service is the likely source of contradictory messages to customers, such as, “Your call is important to us. All of our representatives are currently busy helping other customers. Your call will be answered in twenty-two minutes.” If the call truly was important, if the organization’s commitment truly was to customer service rather than to its own achievement, then the call would be answered immediately.

Noble Visions

Visions that do describe a contribution to a group of people are motivated more by concern for that group rather than by personal achievement, and are most often created by leaders in social service and educational institutions. For example, Jim Wold’s vision is about student performance, a hot topic and educational buzzword today, but not so well understood when he first became a school superintendent. “I didn’t understand how important creating and articulating a vision was until I was a school superintendent,” Jim said. He went to workshops, spoke with other superintendents, listened to tapes, read books, then asked himself, “What is the most important thing in education?” His answer was, “Improving teaching and learning so all students achieve high standards of performance.” That phrase became his vision.

Today Wold says, “It really resonated with people. It was just amazing to me the focus that it helped people have; it creates a culture against which you can test everything you are doing. If it isn’t about teaching and learning, and it isn’t going to benefit students, than why are we doing it? I wasn’t sure up to that point. I didn’t know how important it was. That was a breakthrough for me. You really have to put a phrase around it to focus it.”

Another example is the vision of Bloorview MacMillan Children’s Centre of Ontario, Canada. Bloorview MacMillan enables children with disabilities and special needs to achieve their best. The vision is a heart stopper, “Defy Disability.”¹ That’s all of it: two words. It suggests a world in which disability is met head on and challenged with resolve and dignity. More importantly, it suggests that the leaders at Bloorview MacMillan care about something other than themselves. And it implies that the rest of us ought to do the same. The leadership of Bloorview MacMillan has crafted a declaration that is both a vision and a call to action.

Another noble vision comes from the leadership of Fielding Graduate Institute, which offers doctoral and master’s degree programs in psychology and education. Fielding is world-renowned for innovation in higher education. It envisions, “a collaborative family of scholar-practitioners, empowered by a global perspective, enabling and promoting harmony and social justice.”²

Noble visions such as those of Wold, Bloorview MacMillan, and Fielding Graduate Institute address the reasons that leaders do what they do (and why followers ought to do the same) beyond their own self-interest. Heather Roseveare, director of family and community relations at Bloorview MacMillan, said, “Our vision captures the heart of what we do—defy disability—but also how we do it, and why we do it.”³

Some business leaders do pay attention to their contribution to the human community and say so when they talk about their vision. Whirlpool’s leaders, for example, promote this vision: “Every Home . . . Everywhere. With Pride, Passion and Performance. We create the world’s best home appliances, which make life easier and more enjoyable for all people.”⁴

Yes, much of the statement is self-referent, about Whirlpool itself: about its aspiration to be everywhere, and about its values—pride, passion, and performance. But Whirlpool’s leaders have also stated that making life easier and more enjoyable is their underlying reason for doing what they do. Unlike any “we want to be the best” vision, Whirlpool’s leaders say that they want to be the best for a larger reason.

“We want to be the best” statements lay at the far left of the self-referent-to-noble continuum, while Whirlpool’s lies in the middle, and Jim Wold’s, Bloorview MacMillan’s and Fielding’s rest at the far right.

Two other examples of noble vision—both business examples—come from the Japanese giant NEC Corporation, where leaders have twice created visions that promise a contribution to the human community. In 1986, then Chairman Koji Kobayashi envisioned that NEC was creating “a situation that would make it possible for any person in the world to communicate with any other person at any place and any time.” Then in 2001 NEC’s leadership envisioned an “iSociety” in which the networks around people “promote an exchange of information and knowledge for the achievement of a new creativity in society.”⁵

While noble visions such as the ones espoused by the leadership of NEC are not the corporate norm, NEC’s leaders are not alone in creating such visions. The leadership of Fujita, a ninety-year-old company, which primarily does construction, planning, and design, says, “Today Fujita is rewriting history, so we can all work together to create a world that combines a rich natural environment and vibrant societies with caring communities.” Fujita also states, “Our foremost aim is to enhance human happiness through achieving harmony between ecology, society, and the urban environment.”⁶

“What Does the World Need?”

A story that beautifully illustrates the difference between self-referent and noble visions comes from Hewlett-Packard, which charged Barbara Waugh, a change manager, with the task of making its industrial research laboratory the best in the world. Waugh felt that somehow the vision of being the best in the world was not enough. She told the magazine Fast Company, “One day I’m talking about these feelings with my friend Laurie [Mitlestadt], an engineer at the lab, and she says, ‘You know what I would get up for in the morning? Not to be the best in the world, but to be the best for the world.’ ”⁷ Waugh says, “For the world automatically forces you to look out, not just in. It makes you ask, ‘What does the world need?’ ”⁸

Bill Strickland understands what Waugh is getting at. He said, “A lot of the business guys say, ‘My only job is to make sure that the stockholders are cool.’ I say no, that is part of your job. The other part of your job is to improve the planet, make a contribution, raise some decent kids, support your fellow man, help struggling social institutions in your community. You have many jobs, one of which happens to be making money.”

Strickland says of a vision such as the one Waugh describes, “It opens up the conversation and introduces a much broader agenda of items that are considered as part of our life work. We are going to lose our planet if leadership doesn’t start opening up this conversation to consider more than ‘me first’.”

No vision, by itself, is a guarantee of success. However, noble visions such as those described above are more likely to win emotional and spiritual commitment. Most people welcome the opportunity to contribute to a group of people, a country, or the planet; to be part of some larger endeavor than “being the best.”

It’s Just Human Nature

Common sense suggests that self-referent visions are likely to appear when organizations really do care only for themselves, or when people in leadership positions lack either imagination or a compelling insight, or when the products and services that an organization provides truly do not make a significant contribution to any group of people (who really needs non-nutritional foods, for example). However, scholar and author Alfie Kohn suggests a more subtle and pervasive cause for self-referent visions. In his book The Brighter Side of Human Nature, Kohn argues persuasively that the prevailing view of human nature emphasizes its darker side at the expense of its brighter side. He wrote, “We raise our children, manage our companies, and design our governments on the assumption that people are naturally and primarily selfish and will act otherwise only if they are coerced to do so and carefully monitored.”⁹ This assumption provides impetus for those who hold leadership positions to settle for self-referent visions and political commitment. If people are primarily selfish, self-referent visions make sense as a way of gaining their commitment. And if they are primarily selfish, then their commitment can only be bought rather than won.

Kohn’s survey of studies about people helping other people shows that the assumption is erroneous. He wrote, “People of all ages usually do go out of their way to help, particularly when the need is clear and when they believe that no one else is in a position to get involved.”¹⁰ Human beings, Kohn concludes, want to do things that benefit other people.

Bonnie Wright says it this way, “Fundamentally, people need to help other people. Look at September 11; the first reaction was not ‘let’s go get the guys that did this.’ The first reaction was ‘How can I help?’ ” And Pat Croce, perhaps best known as the former president of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team, and someone we will meet in more detail in Chapter 8 said, “Too many times in our society we think that doing well has nothing to do with doing good. When you know you have done good, you will do well.”

Even when groups of people or organizations care for something other than themselves, have imagination and a compelling insight, and offer products and services that do make a significant contribution to a group of people, their leaders still must guard against the assumption that human nature is inherently and primarily selfish. Those who hold leadership positions but settle for self-referent visions or political commitment may be vastly underestimating the capacity or desire of their people to commit to something noble. Bonnie Wright says this in a positive way: “Leaders help people help.” In that statement she captures the essence of a leader’s role in bringing a noble vision to fruition.

Vision and Identity

Visions also invite, and perhaps challenge, followers to consider both who they are now and who they aspire to become. A noble vision forces us to ask provocative questions about ourselves; about who we have been, who we are, and who we want to become. The best of these visions—those that draw the highest levels of commitment—dare us to become proud of ourselves by accomplishing something for other people.

An example of how a vision can challenge a follower’s sense of who they are is found in the leadership experience of Ralph Pries. In the early 1980s, Pries became the CEO of Mediq, a six-year-old company that started by renting ventilators to hospitals and for home care. When Pries came on the scene, the company’s employees variously viewed themselves as members of functional teams; they were maintenance technicians, delivery drivers, salespeople, and so forth. Pries changed that by promoting the understanding that all of their work was about “sustaining life.” This new perception of their identity infused employees with a higher sense of purpose: “My work is not just about maintaining ventilators, it is about sustaining life.”

Jim Wold’s teachers were improving student performance. Whirlpool’s technicians and sales force are making life easier and more enjoyable. The staff of Bloorview MacMillan is defying disability. Fielding Graduate Institute’s faculty and administration are creating ethical global change. NEC’s people are creating the iSociety.

A manager in a company that went through a transformation similar to Mediq’s said, “It is amazing how all the ridiculous things we usually do—all the turf wars, petty arguments, silly fights over resources—they all go away when everyone realizes that our work is not just about us but has some greater purpose attached to it.” The primary function of vision is to enunciate and draw attention to that greater purpose.

Development Strategies for Vision

When moving from insight to vision, the danger is that the original compelling insight will suffer, becoming less compelling and less an instrument for attracting commitment. Because of this danger, leaders must pay careful attention to the process of crafting a vision, and must carefully consider the choices they make about this process and about their own roles within it. Leaders typically take one of four roles in relation to a vision; they may articulate the vision themselves, or steer a vision-making process that involves other people, or allow a vision to emerge naturally, or adopt someone else’s vision. Each of these roles places different demands on a leader.

Articulating a Vision Yourself

When leaders articulate a vision themselves, their work then becomes communicating it in such a way that it draws commitment from others. This is the model that we most often think of as the true expression of leadership. The strength of this model is that, the leader will invariably stand as the primary spokesperson and symbol for the vision, whether she likes it or not, and so it is imperative that she take full ownership for it. The weakness of this model is that leaders must eventually be inclusive, and involving people to create what will become their vision is one way to begin winning their commitment.

Steering a Group Process

When a leader chooses to participate in a vision-making process with other people, he opens up the possibility for those others to also take ownership of the vision. Lieutenant General Jim Ellis, talking about his earliest lessons in leadership, discovered the value of such an approach. Ellis entered West Point from the ranks of the enlisted, graduated, and later taught there as an Assistant Professor of International Relations and Economics. During his career he commanded The Third Army (Patton’s Own) and served as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Central Command. After a thirty-nine year career, Ellis retired in 1994 with over forty awards, including three Distinguished Service Medals. He then became executive director and CEO of The Boggy Creek Gang Camp, one of many such camps sponsored by Paul Newman, which each year serves thousands of children suffering from chronic and life threatening illnesses. Ellis is also a senior vice president of Endur, Inc.

Very early in his military career, Ellis was called upon do be the aide-de-camp of the new commanding general of the 82^nd Airborne Division. Ellis said, “He came in at a time when the division had been in flux. We had had some organizational changes with some pretty demanding things from on high that had kept us in an uproar. When the old commander went out there was a lot of confusion.” The new commanding general insisted on asking, “What are we all about? What are the vision and mission, goals and objectives of this organization,” said Ellis. “He made everybody stop and think instead of running around. He made us focus on the purpose of the organization. That settled things down and gave people a definition of where to go.”

Ellis continued, “He gave us a chance to reflect in a collective atmosphere with all of his chief subordinates. He accepted input from many, many people, including the higher headquarters. He gave us an azimuth and a path. It was incredibly successful and it shaped the future of the division for quite a long time.”

When leaders choose to steer a vision-making process that involves others in creating the vision, as Ellis’ commanding general did, their work becomes facilitating that process while at the same time holding onto their own insight and making certain that the final vision expresses it. The strength of this model is that it is more inclusive from the beginning, drawing higher commitment earlier from people whose commitment will eventually be needed. The weakness of this model is that in the attempt to be inclusive, the vision becomes subject to whatever dynamics pervade the group charged with articulating it. Groups creating visions often try to reach a synthesis of ideas and end up with something that satisfies everybody but excites nobody.

Kathy Covert says of such efforts, “They lose the juice.” Covert is Secretary of the GeoData Alliance, an organization she founded to bring together individuals and institutions committed to using geographic information to improve human communities. She also serves on several nonprofit boards and, most notably for a discussion of leadership, she is on the Council of Trustees of the Chaordic Commons. This organization seeks to develop and share new concepts about human organizations. In tune with her interest in improving human communities and organizations, she is very thoughtful about her own leadership role.

Covert has been through enough unsatisfying experiences with groups trying to create a vision statement that she is wary of the process. “People don’t realize when a vision doesn’t resonate,” she said. In her experience, the process of synthesizing the varied ideas of a group of people in order to create a vision statement that eventually satisfies everybody but excites nobody leads to the adoption of a vision because of the, “Horror of opening it up again.”

A group that insists everyone be fully satisfied will create a catch-all vision; a group that cannot reach the deepest levels of their humanity will produce a watered-down vision; a group that has competitive desires raging among its members will produce a self-referent vision. Also, a group that thrives on intellect will produce a vision that is likely to attract intellectual commitment, one that thrives on emotion is likely to produce a vision that will attract emotional commitment, and one that thrives on spirit is likely to produce a vision that will attract spiritual commitment. Any leader who proposes to have a group create a vision is well advised to ensure that the group has developed a constructive way of working together, and that its members have competence to win high levels of commitment, before being given this most important task.

Jim Ellis also offers a word of caution to leaders who walk into leadership positions where the organization and people are already in place and the work is ongoing, as was the case when he was aide-de-camp to the commanding general of the 82^nd Airborne Division. In these situations steering a process that results in a vision takes courage. “It is awfully easy to roll with the tide,” Ellis said, “Instead of taking the hard course of stepping back and taking a look and asking, ‘Are we really doing the right things? Are we achieving to the best of our abilities what it is this organization is supposed to achieve?’ ”

Another word of caution was expressed by Mary Ellen Hennen, who we will meet in more detail in Chapter 8. Hennen said that her own visions of the future have been with her for so long and are so much a part of who she is that, “I don’t see it anymore.” She knows the principles that drive her own leadership so well—they come so naturally to her—that working through a vision-making process with a group of people can become tedious, and she can easily tune out.

As Jim Ellis learned from the commanding general of the 82^nd Airborne Division, an inclusive vision-making process can have great benefit. It is also fraught with peril.

Allowing a Vision to Emerge

Leaders choosing to allow a vision to emerge naturally must be attentive to opportunities that will enable them to continue to act on their original insight and respond to these opportunities. This is what Monsignor Fushek did after Life Teen was successful in his own parish. He responded to calls from other parishes, helping them to replicate his success. He guided the fledgling organization to develop a training package for other parishes and to present training conferences nationwide. He did not articulate a vision.

Fushek’s approach makes sense to Michael Jones, who said, “I have had a real struggle trying to figure out how vision fits in. Vision seems to me to include a path of certainty that cuts you off from the very process of creation that helps accomplish great things.”

The advantage of allowing a vision to emerge naturally and to remain a fluid thing is that the potential for creative responses to threats and opportunities is higher. The disadvantage is that the process may leave those who seek certainty and who are uncomfortable with ambiguity feeling adrift and rudderless. Many leaders articulate a vision only because they are expected to, or because it has utility as a bridge between their insight and the commitment of others.

Adopting a Vision

When leaders take on someone else’s vision, their work becomes making it their own, and expressing it in ways that are both faithful to the original and to their own insights. This was the course taken by Dawn Gutierrez, who is executive director of New Way Learning Academy, a school whose mission is to serve children with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders, as well as children who are underachievers. New Way had been operating for twenty-five years when Gutierrez took over in 1993. With her leadership, New Way has doubled its enrollment, nearly tripled its staff, increased the depth of the programs it offers, greatly developed its teacher training, added technology, purchased its own building, and significantly improved its business operations.

Gutierrez had been a teacher at New Way for five years. Its founders were near retirement when she asked them what her future might be at the school. They recognized Gutierrez’ leadership potential, saw her as someone who could carry on their work, offered her the executive director’s job, and agreed to mentor her as she grew as a leader. She says, “First of all I had to believe in their mission. I bought into it right away. I think I was able to do that because I already had an experience in the public setting and saw what could be done through a private nonprofit school. I already had it. When I found New Way I didn’t have any problem continuing with the founders’ mission.”

No matter which of these four courses a leader chooses, his vision must be worthy of the commitment of other people; it must attract that commitment. And no matter which of these courses a leader chooses, he must be prepared to be its primary spokesperson and primary symbol.

Summary

A vision serves as a statement about how a leader intends to create concrete reality out of her insight. Visions that have a noble rather than a self-referent quality are far more likely to win the commitment of others and to provide followers with a noble sense of who they are and who they are becoming. A leader can take a variety of roles in articulating a vision.

Questions About Yourself to Contemplate or Discuss with Others

Who, in your life experience, was practiced at vision?

To what degree are you practiced at vision?

What is it about vision that rings true for your current leadership role?

How important is vision to your further development as a leader?

Notes

1.Bloorview-Macmillan Children’s Center, “Our Vision, Values, and Mission,” <http://www.bloorviewmacmillan.on.ca/webpdfs/visvalmis.pdf> (January, 2002).

2.Fielding Graduate Institute, <http://www.fielding.edu> (January, 2002).

3.Dick Richards, Worthy Visions Pass One Simple Test (Louisville, Ky.: BrownHerron Publishing, 2002). <www.amazon.com/brownherron>.

4.Whirlpool Corp, “Every Home . . . Everywhere,” <http://www.whirlpoolcorp.com/whr/corporate/vision.html> (January, 2003).

5.NEC Corporation, “Report on NEC’s Third Environmental Forum 2001,” <http://www.nec.co.jp/eco/en/forum2001/future/> (January, 2003).

6.Fujita, “About Fujita Corporation,” <http://www.fujita.com/index2.html> (January, 2003).

7.Polly LaBarre, “Attitude Adjustment,” Fast Company (October, 2001): 46.

8.Mark Albion, “Take the Brand Challenge,” <http://www.fastcompany.com/career/albion/0100.html> (January, 2003).

9.Alfie Kohn, The Brighter Side of Human Nature, (N.Y.: Basic Books, 1990): 4.

10.Ibid, 64.