Lydia Johnson Consulting

Vision or Hallucination ??

 Vision or Hallucination?

 So many companies don’t put a lot of work into building a strong vision of where they want to go. They have some idea and some companies get to where they want to go on the “any road will do” trip. On the other hand, lots of great companies spend a great deal of time getting their vision clear. This is time well spent and takes a lot of effort and most often, several if not many people’s time and effort. Getting everyone on the same page to see the same future vision is not easy work. But it is very worthwhile and pays off big time down the road.

 The trick is….is it a Vision with a Plan? Or is it just a vision? Someone was quoted in saying “A Vision without a plan is just a hallucination”. That makes a ton of sense.  It’s great to have a clear destination in mind and even what it will be like when the company gets there, but the how in getting there is often left to figure out by hit and miss. This makes the vision less real and in the end a much stronger likelihood of not being reached. The same holds true for any personal goals we have. Doesn’t matter what the goal is, it needs to have a clear vision of what is being sought after. The getting to the goal part is a plan and needs to be part of the whole process. Otherwise, it may be just a hallucination.

So why do so many companies and individuals not make plans to getting to their destination or vision? Well, for one thing, it’s hard work! It takes discipline and in some cases a certain amount of courage to do what needs doing. It’s about challenging the team, or individual, and even challenging the norm to getting on track with an effective process. Regardless of what needs doing, there has to be a plan to move forward. Action is what makes things happen and action gets the process moving. One action at a time gets things moving closer to the vision that sometimes seems to be miles away.

 To avoid the hallucination syndrome, a process of actionable steps is critical. Who is doing what by when…..kind of thinking. If you have a list of what needs doing, who is doing it and when they need to have it done by, you can measure your success towards the goal, or vision. Execution is what most often fails. All the hours or even days in some cases, spent in meetings, planning sessions and much discussion will all be for not, unless a vision has legs. Legs start with Action. In fact, I like to say massive action!

 Consider your last strategic plan, or your last most successful plan towards a vision…..was it the vision and the great meetings that gave you your success? Or was it the action you took in getting to it? The action of course. Now consider, a time when things didn’t go so well….was the goal wrong, or the vision the wrong one, or was the list of actions vague, not measured, with no idea of who was doing what by when. Hhmmm, a good reflection piece.

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