Vision. What a great theme to start this blog with for a brand new year!
When you’re putting together a proposal or presentation it’s always important to include an outline… to review the roadmap and explain the plan to reach an end goal. Well, the same thing is true when it comes to planning for your business. This could actually be the most important presentation of the year because you are presenting to the biggest boss out there… yourself! Think about the effort we put into developing slideshows and handouts and bullet points for other projects. Your business deserves the same attention and commitment.
“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion” -Jack Welch
On page 80 we define vision, of course, this is different from visuals… which we will talk more about in April.
Vision:
state of being able to see
ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom
Both definitions are kind of the same, but being able to think about the future with imagination is key! A vision provides us with a picture in our minds of what we want our future to look like. Visions give people and organizations direction so that they can formulate action plans and goals to realize their vision.
On page 78 of The 110 Philosophy we talk about business vision vs. personal vision. Your vision needs to be simple! My business vision is to be the model of office culture for the country. My personal vision is to live to be 110 years young. See, nothing too complex or over worded explanation of every step I will take to get there… just the vision itself. Check out page 76 for more on creating vision. Since my business vision is to help you with building better business culture, this year the 110 Philosophy Blog is focusing on the tools we use to accomplish this.
Lead in your own life and lead in your organization.
Personal visions, goals, and action plans are also critical and the same methods of defining and establishing them apply. If you are passionate in your personal life, are happy with your vision, and can bring this passion and positivity over to your organization, you are going to be a better leader, your team will be happier and more productive.
When I was just starting out with an organization and had to get employees engaged, it was my passion that I believe helped to drive the team's motivation to be the best because passion, positivity, and enthusiasm are contagious. I have no doubt that because I felt passionate about our vision, I was a better leader. When the workload was tough we could remind ourselves that we had a vision of being the best and that we were going to make it and be GREAT!
In our 110 Philosophy Field Guide workbook, we ask you questions that prompt you to think about things that help create your vision and can be applied to your personal or professional life. One of my favorite questions: How aligned are your personal and business visions?
Organizations create visions to describe what they want to achieve and accomplish in the future. As a leader, you need to build a vision using your own insight - your own wisdom - tap into the passion and fun of the imagination part! Remember if you don’t feel passionate about your organization's vision, there's no way your team will be pumped.