- Feature Article: Visioning: Facing the Future with Imagination

- Note from the Author: Are You Predicting or Prescribing the Future? It's Your Choice!

- Special Message: What's Your "Hedgehog Concept"?

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Are You Predicting or Prescribing the Future? It's Your Choice!

Whether you want to predict the future or actually prescribe an outcome of your choosing, you'll have plenty of company!

Throughout history, we humans have tried many ways to predict the future, from reading palms to stargazing. Today, we refer to these as descriptive methods when we attempt to describe objectively what the future will be or could be.

Prescriptive methods, on the other hand, focus on determining what the future should be. These techniques can help us clarify our preferences and values so we can create a vision of what we would like to see in our lives, businesses, or communities. Once we understand what we would like the future to represent, we're better able to take the actions needed to implement it. Preferably, that future will resonate with our passions, gifts, and what we (or our organizations) can really excel at doing.

Therefore, I hope you enjoy today's features, including, "Visioning: Facing the Future with Imagination." I look forward to receiving your comments!

Here's to your business prosperity,

Adele Sommers, author of the "Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance" success program

P.S. If you missed any previous issue, visit the newsletter index!

What's Your "Hedgehog Concept"?

What can you be the best in the world (or at least in your community) at doing?

This thought-provoking reflection is one of many from Jim Collins' "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't."

Collins and his team examined 1,435 companies to see which ones made substantial gains in profitability and sustained those improvements over 15 years or more. They found only 11 companies that, since the 1970s, rose from mediocrity to greatness and stayed there -- topping many other prosperous firms that lacked the same staying power.

One of the eight characteristics all had in common was an unshakable adherence to becoming the best in the world at whatever they did. They each committed to doing only those things and nothing else. That sometimes meant dropping their core businesses to pursue other things at which they could become the best in the world. Collins and his team coined the term "Hedgehog Concept" to reflect a single-minded determination and focus that, similar to that of the hedgehog animal, attempts to do only one thing really well, such as curl up and roll.

A Hedgehog Concept actually represents the intersection of three areas: 1) what you’re most passionate about, 2) an understanding of what you could be the best at doing, and 3) a metric that drives your economic engine. Until you develop your Hedgehog Concept, you won’t know your vision, mission, or purpose. Keep in mind that this concept is not a goal, strategy, or plan, but an understanding of what you can and can’t be the best at doing -- which is an excellent focal point for visioning!

Visioning: Facing the Future with Imagination
by Adele Sommers

What is visioning, and why would we want to use it in our lives and organizations? Depending on whom you ask, the term "visioning" might be considered the same as either visualization or brainstorming -- and it could certainly have elements of both. This article describes a five-step approach that can enable you to bring a group of people into greater alignment with a shared goal.

According to visioning expert Matthew C. Heim, "By learning to work from a place of intuitive knowing, we begin to make wiser decisions." In groups, organizations, or communities, visioning can enable people to conduct strategic planning, rethink or redesign organizational dynamics, resolve conflicts, and create new beginnings.

Clem Bezold, who has been developing vision methods since the early 1980s, has suggested that "scenarios are futures for the head; visions are futures for the heart." That is, scenarios are frequently used to forecast different directions of change, such as contingency planning, whereas visions have the ability to motivate and inspire people.

The visioning process requires a careful, explicit expression of long-term ideals and goals and the values that contribute to them. Especially for situations in which an imbalance exists, Bezold suggests stages that identify problems, past successes, future desires, measurable goals, and resources needed to achieve the goals.

Diverge Before Converging

Whether a shared vision emerges in one intensive session or in incremental stages, it has long-range implications. Therefore, I believe it behooves the stakeholders to think in terms of at least two distinct phases:

• A divergent, expansive phase to let ideas, values, and feelings emerge. This aspect would give participants a chance to express their individual visions for the outcome. Afterward, they can proceed to merge their individual visions into a set of shared vision themes, or into a single shared vision statement.

• A convergent, highly focused phase to shape the implementation of the vision. This aspect could entail brainstorming measurable goals and objectives, strategies, partners, and other stakeholders. The result could produce an initial version of a long-range "build-out plan."

Attempting to combine these aspects might short circuit the benefits of the visioning exercise, mainly because these aspects involve two very different types of thought processes and perspectives.

Get Ready to Start Visioning!
The visioning guidelines below derive from various sources, including ideas from the Institute for Management Excellence. Since there is no single way to conduct the process, you can adapt it as desired.

For each session, plan to be as comfortable as possible, with casual dress and no pressing time constraints or electronic distractions. Participants should aim to be completely "present." Items to have available include:

• Relaxing, soft music (optional)
• Sticky notes or note cards
• Flip charts or poster paper
• Pencils, markers, or crayons

Step 2: Agree on the goal

The first segment of the process should invite the participants to agree on the goals and purpose for the visioning exercise, if needed. Key points to clarify include:

• What are we trying to achieve through a visioning process? (Examples: A strategic plan, project plan, realigned organization, or new community center.)

• Who should be involved in participating in and facilitating the sessions? Are the key stakeholders accounted for?

• How far are we willing to carry out the process, especially if it will involve multiple sessions?

• How open are we to considering divergent possibilities?

Step 3: Conduct a relaxation exercise

To begin the visioning exercise itself, participants should close their eyes, relax, and gradually surrender control of their egos and busy conscious thought processes.

In so doing, the participants will begin to tap into a much deeper sense of awareness and interconnectedness. In this mode, new breakthroughs can emerge from everyone's hearts and stilled minds that may produce remarkable synergy with those of the other stakeholders.

Step 4: Ask key questions--one at a time

Silent reflection: As the facilitator poses each key consideration to ponder, the participants quietly reflect (perhaps with eyes closed) on their own answers. They then silently write their answers on notes or cards, or draw their ideas; no discussion occurs at this point. After each reflection feels complete, the facilitator moves on to the next. Below are some sample questions:

1. What is the highest vision for the [organization, project, or community] related to the goal? What outcome are we most passionate about producing? (Answers might emerge through a retrospective visualization of how the end result fared after five years of existence.)

2. What can we be the best in the world at doing? Where can the [organization, project, or community] truly excel?

3. What do we do now that already demonstrates what we want to achieve for ourselves and others?

4. What must we become to demonstrate more of what we want to achieve for ourselves and others?

5. What stands in the way of what we want to achieve? How can we transform or release what needs to change?

6. What values must we demonstrate related to what we want to achieve?

7. What other information do we need at this moment related to our goal?

Verbalization: In the second round, the facilitator poses the same questions--one at a time--and each person shares his or her responses aloud, without any judgment, dialog, or debate from the group. The facilitator can then place each response on poster paper.

Step 5: Compile the responses

Many ways exist to compile responses, immediately or afterward. One approach is to have the participants, at the same session or later, silently move responses around on the poster paper until the responses are arranged into themes.

Afterward, participants can discuss names for the themes, and give each a label. If and when a single vision statement emerges, it may signal the conclusion of the visioning exercise.

In conclusion, a visioning process offers a profound and transformative sharing experience that can tap deeply into a subconscious interconnectedness among the participants. Once completed, it sets the stage for a convergent exercise to identify the implementation goals, actions, partners, and resources.

Copyright 2007 Adele Sommers

"The Attention Economy"

Your visioning process can serve to capture and focus your colleagues' or constituents' attention toward identifying important shared goals. This is especially critical at a time when our attention and focus are in such short supply. Thomas Davenport and John Beck, authors of "The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business," have this to say:

"The universe is available twenty-four hours a day at the click of a mouse, and there's more distracting information than we can ever absorb. Now, more than ever, leaders have to find innovative ways of capturing and directing attention. With greater efficiency and creativity, leaders will need to secure the four elements of attention leadership:

• Focusing their own attention
• Attracting the right kind of attention to themselves
• Directing the attention of those who follow them
• Maintaining the attention of their customers and clients"

Use your visioning process wisely to focus attention!

Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the author of "Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance" -- an award-winning Special Report and Workbook program.

If you liked today's issue, you'll love this down-to-earth overview of how 12 potent business-boosting strategies can reenergize the morale and productivity of your enterprise, tame unruly projects, and attract loyal, satisfied customers. It's accompanied by a step-by-step workbook designed to help you easily create your own success action plan. Browse the table of contents and reader reviews on the description page.

Adele also offers no-cost articles and resources to help small businesses and large organizations accelerate productivity and increase profitability. Learn more at LearnShareProsper.com.

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