If that’s the case, your task is to start turning the vision statement into strategy to drive and align activities consistent with it.
Here are five ideas The Brainzooming Group uses to help clients when turning a vision statement into strategy.
Strategic dimensions are areas where an organization has the opportunity to make major decisions or where industry players are creating competitive advantage. Examples include:
After identifying a handful of strategic dimensions, create a list of possible options the organization could choose on each one. Management team members rate where the organization is now, and where it should be at a future date. From these answers, we create a description of the future that is more specific and goes deeper than the vision statement to provide strategic direction.
To create greater specificity, highlight important words and phrases in your vision statement. Afterward, create specific descriptions for what each one means. The key is describing them in understandable words so employees can better grasp and act on them. If the descriptions are full of confusing jargon, this approach does not work effectively.
Incorporate the output of the first two approaches into prioritizing potential strategies. If proposed initiatives receive support based on how well they move toward the vision, you wind up with more vision-oriented strategies. In the future, the organization will move toward developing potential initiatives that work harder to move toward the vision.
Return to the better-defined version of the vision statement (number 2) as a point of departure for coming with up with innovative ideas. The specific elements in the vision statement are ideal for providing the structure you need to generate strategically-smart, innovative ideas that lead the organization forward with greater alignment to the vision statement.
Words are one thing. Pictures and video are quite another for communicating what a vision means for an organization. Create scenarios for what your organization will look like when you attain the vision. Visualize those scenarios and depict them so everyone in the organization has a common source from which to imagine the future strategically.
We cannot share client-specific examples here on the blog. We can, however, provide ideas more customized to your situation in a brief call. Contact us here (or at info@brainzooming.com or 816-509-5320). Let's set a time to see what the possibilities are for turning vision into strategy at your organization. - Mike Brown
