Chapter 10

November 9, 2022 7:18 PM

Shared Vision
A COMMON CARING
• A shared vision is not an idea
• What do we want to create?
• When people truly share vision they are connected, bound together by a common aspiration
• A share vision is a vision that many people are truly committed to, because it reflects their own personal vision

Why Shared Vision Matters?

- Visionaries like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Theodore Vail, Kennedy were able to articulate their visions in ways that
impacted people to join them
- Many shared visions are extrinsic - that is, they focus on achieving something relative on outsider, such as competitor.
Defensive Posture
- A shared vision, especially one that is intrinsic, uplift peoples aspiration.
- Visions are exhilarating . They create the spark, the excitement that lifts an organization out of the mundane

The Discipline of Building A Shared Vision

• "Organizations intent on building shared visions continually encourage members to develop their personal visions. If
people don't have their own vision, all they can do is sign up for someone else's" - Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline
○ Encouraging personal vision

Shared Vision Equals a Shared Sense of Purpose

- From personal vision to shared vision
- Shared vision as "hologram"
- As the shared vision develops it becomes both "my vision" and "our vision"

From Personal to Shared Vision

- Visions are not always announce from "on high" or come from an organization's institutionalized planning process
- In Top Down Vision, the results are often disappointing for several reasons
- Vision is not a solution to a problem
- It is not truly a "shared vision" until it connects with the personal vision of people throughout the organization
- You! Remember if you are in a leadership position, what is important to you is the "visions" are still your personal
vision
- Visions that are truly shared take time to emerge. They grow as a by -product of interactions of individual visions
- We must allow multiple visions to coexist

Spreading Vision
• Commitment
○ Wants it. Will make it happen. Create whatever "laws" (structure) are needed
• Enrolment
○ Wants it. Will do whatever can be done within the "spirit of law"
• Genuine Compliance
○ Sees the benefit of vision. Does everything expected and more. Follows the "letters of the law" 'Good Soldier'
• Grudging Compliance
○ Does not see the benefits of the vision. But also, does not want to lose job. Does enough of what's expected
because he has to, but also lets it be known that he is not really on board
• Noncompliance
○ Does not see the benefits of the vision and will not do what's expected. "I won't do it, You can't make me"
• Apathy
○ Neither for nor against vision. No interest. No energy. "is it five o'clock yet?"

Anchoring Visions in a Set of Governing Ideas

• A vision not consistent with values that people live day by day will not only fail to inspire genuine enthusiasm, it will
often foster outright cynicism
• Vision is the "What?" - picture of the future we seek to create
• Purpose of the "mission" is the "Why?" "Why do we exist"
• Core values answer to the question "How do we want to act, consistent with our mission, along the path toward

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 • Core values answer to the question "How do we want to act, consistent with our mission, along the path toward
achieving our vision?"

Positive VS Negative Vision

• "What do we want?" is different from "What do we need to avoid?"
• Negative visions are probably more common than positive vission
• The power of fear underlies the negative vision. The power of aspiration drives the positive visions. Fear can produce
extraordinary changes in short periods, but aspiration endures as a continuing source of learning and growth

Creative Tension and Commitment to the Truth

• The key is "creative tension" the tension between vision and reality
• The most effective people are those who can hold their vision while remaining committed to seeing current reality
clearly
• IBM's Stretch Computer
• "Daring Vision" to build the fastest super-computer the world had ever seen
• Be ambitious yet realistic
• Look at failures and try to learn from them

Why Vision Die Prematurely?

• Many visions never take root and spread - despite having intrinsic merit
• Vision spread because of reinforcing process
• Limits to growth structure, where the reinforcing process of growing enthusiasm for the vision interacts with a
balancing process that limits the spread of vision, due to increasing diversity and polarization

• Visions can also die because of people becoming discourage by the apparent difficulty in bringing the vision into
reality. The limits to growth structure for "organizational discouragement"
• Emerging vision can also die because people get overwhelmed by the demands of the current reality and lose their
focus on the vision
• Lastly, a vision can die if people forget their connections to one another
• The limiting factor when people begin proselytizing and lose their sense of can be time and relationship

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