Creating a Shared Vision

The idea of creating a vision for the future and visualizing a preferred future state is a long held basic tenant of effective leadership theory. Leaders use positive change models building on a clear discernment of the current state and asking themselves what they want more of thus creating that vision for the future. In the Appreciative Inquiry Model, one of the powerful models of change, this is the journey from Discovery to Dream. This vision is cocreated between the leader and the followers to be most effective follows these steps:

• Target a vision for a desired future
• Cocreate the vision
• Identify strengths
• Create an initial picture of the desired future
• Solicit feedback and create the final vision
• Share the vision consistently and persistently

Many organizations, leaderships, and followers see this preferred state as progress in what is already so the vision or dream is often an organic progression of improvement. This continuous improvement albeit important and beneficial is not the dream or vision. The dream or vision needs to be what might be rather than what can be achieved.

Khalil Gibran put it this way:

"Progress lies not in enhancing what is, it lies in advancing toward what will be."

Next time your organization talks about creating a shared vision, consider not thinking incrementally rather develop a process to view the preferred future through the eyes of possibilities rather than barriers. Create an organizational sized vision of your preferred future.