The primary purpose of a Vision Statement is to communicate a consistent future view of the organization to everyone involved with that future’s creation – everyone! Whether senior executive or computer programmer, the performance of each individual contributes to the desired future state. Assurance that decisions made are congruent with a vision, requires that people have knowledge of that future.
Creating a “paint by the numbers” picture of a chosen future for your organization, requires a belief that the decisions made today are grounded in the best available information, synthesized in a competent manner, and will be executed upon strategically and operationally by individuals and groups with the appropriate capabilities to achieve success. Without this basic belief, visioning becomes an exercise in futility – blue sky and rose colored glasses dreaming.
The process of creating a vision serves another important purpose: as participants in the process visualize the future, they tend to temper their imagination with their current reality. This leads to enthusiastic discussions around issues and topics that may not have received their deserved attention. Resolution of these issues and clarification of the elements within each topic may lead to the conclusion that the vision as first conceived is unrealistic and needs modification.