“What’s your vision?”
Silence.
“C’mon, what are you passionate about? What’s your vision for your life, your work?”
More silence; just louder this time.
These are some of the opening questions that I ask of my senior classes – the ones undertaking Strategic Management in their final year of their undergraduate degrees.
More silence.
I’ve been puzzled by the seeming inability of bright, wonderful students to be able to tell me what it is that they hope for themselves, for their world. It’s not like they are inarticulate, if we can get them talking about their favourite topic, it is often hard to keep them from taking over the class (which, sometimes is what happens- with my blessing. These can often be the best classes!) but ask them a question about what their vision is, and they seem to struggle.
Part of the problem, it seems, is the bad press that vision statements get. When quizzed, my students often tell me that their life experience with vision statements is that they are statements that are written and stuck on a wall somewhere. The other problems is that they are often written in such terrible language that they lose all meaning. There is no soul in them.
I believe that people want to have a mission. I also believe that in Australia that we often beat that willingness to dream out of them; that we convince the dreamers that it is daggy or uncool to have vision statement.
A vision statement can live within you. It doesn’t necessarily need to be written down, but it does need to be communicated. It needs to be communicated in the meetings that you have, the actions that you perform, the speeches that you give and the life that you lead. I have been looking around for some time now for good vision statements, or for people who live their vision. It takes a real leader to be able to live their life in line with their vision.
Earlier today, I stumbled across THIS TALK on TED. It is, in my humble opinion, one of the best talks that I have seen. Although recorded in 2002, the central message about vision and what you do for a ‘living’ rings loud and clear. We all need people who have vision. No, the vision does not need to be written down. Yes, amazing things can come from having a vision and acting in accordance with it.
So, what’s your vision, and how are you going to go about achieving it?
