Written by Dr. Oleg Konovalov 

In 1957, when Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, president, and CEO of LEGO Group and the LEGO founder’s son established the base vision they had back in the day he was well known for calling around to random employees within the organisation at 02:00 am and asking them to recite what the brand vision was for Lego. That was based on the notion that if people can’t do it in their sleep, they can’t do it when they’re not asleep.

Why it is so important to get vision into the minds of all? Vision is a collective understanding of where we are going to be in the future, what this future will look like, and who will benefit from it. Therefore, the vision must be shared with all and penetrate all levels of the organisation.

A shared vision exists when a group of people is consciously working toward achieving the same goal. Vision defines goals, the level of strategic performance needed to achieve those superior goals, resources, effort, and competencies necessary to achieve the vision.

A shared vision works as an inner code of high engagement and a progressive attitude toward work amongst team members. People consider a shared vision as the main control instrument if they believe in it. It stands on three elements – simplicity, communication, and sharing.

Simplicity

To get a vision to all minds and hearts or infuse it into the DNA of the team, the vision must be simple and well-communicated.

Vision is elegant thinking about complicated things and thus, must be simple. A vision is not a vision unless it’s understood. Simplicity lets people believe in the vision. If the vision is complicated most people will ignore it. Vision operates and makes execution possible from its simplicity.

The simpler the vision in its core meaning, the easier it can be shared with employees, customers, and partners and thus, easier to scale inside and outside an organisation. Simplicity makes people understand the vision, believe in it, and execute it.

As Marshall Goldsmith, a top leadership expert in the world, predicts the growing importance of simplicity –

“I’m a great believer in simple things. If it’s not simple, people don’t remember it. In the new world, people’s attention span is not going up, but down. You have to be able to communicate these simple ideas.”

Is your vision simple enough? Think of two questions: 

• Can you present your vision to professionals in two minutes or less?

• Can you explain your vision to a ten-year-old in two minutes?

Vision must be well-communicated across all levels of the organisation. Communication is an essential property of vision whose primary role is to make a vision a collective property, giving it away so others can participate in it. A vision’s strength is determined by how well it is communicated to others.

The aim of effective communication is to make others the co-owners of the vision. A shared vision is vitally critical for encouraging vision ownership by as many people as possible. The sense of belonging or ownership grows from within to bring everyone from the outside back inside. Thus, it creates a circle of supporters which grows bigger and bigger with every sharing. It engages shareholders, employees, customers, and enthusiasts from all over the world.

If people are not engaged in achieving the vision or know little about it, they have little chance to contribute to it at their levels or positions.

In reality, people on a work floor will only start hearing about your vision when you become sick of talking about it at the board meetings. Thus, communicating vision is not about talking a lot, but about how well vision is communicated and shared.

Communication starts with your immediate team. They are co-creators of the vision and will be more effective the more they understand and have a stake in that vision.

If employees don’t feel that they are part of the dream they will leave. Very quickly that becomes a very transitory population and not a solid team. It becomes exceedingly important to explain the vision to them in a very subtle and very simple way and they have to buy into that dream because if they do it then they become part of it and they stay with you for a long time.

Communicating and sharing vision

A compelling vision demands compelling communication where word of mouth is simply not enough. It must be passionately shared to reach hearts. Thus, communication is a core that keeps the conversation going, and sharing has an in-depth effect in engaging people and turning them into real participants. We communicate information, where a story of success and positive change is shared.

In practical terms, communicated facts hit our conscious mind, whereas shared emotions hit our unconscious mind.

The shared vision is a shared passion, shared emotions, shared engagement, and mutual affection. For a vision to succeed it must be shared in a way that allows people to see things as a visionary does. Sharing vision is a process of transferring the rights of possession and obligations to execute them from the visionary to his supporters. At the same time, the role of sharing is to make everyone involved feel equally important regardless of their role. Vision is for all, not for a visionary only.  

John Spence, one of the top leadership experts, said to me:

“Sharing the vision helps people answer the question of why is this so important and why am I personally committed to it. I think that shared vision is something that creates a lot of momentum and motivation inside and outside the organisation. Sharing allows a company to motivate employees by giving them an opportunity to be involved in crafting the vision not just being told what it is.”

The true magic in communicating vision lies in the ability to encourage ownership of the vision in others. The ownership of vision can be defined by realising who owns the results of the vision. To find the answer ask your people two questions:

–  Does your vision make people excited?

–  Do you feel pride when the company or a co-worker experiences success in implementing the vision, or only when you do?

No force is stronger than people united by a common vision; making decisions together and acting as one. Instilling a shared vision is a goal before profit and is critical for the success of any organisation.

If you want to learn how to create and execute a strong vision, read the book, The Vision Code where the process of creating, communicating, and executing a vision is discussed in detail.

About the author

Dr. Oleg Konovalov is a global thought leader, author, business educator, consultant, and C-suite coach.

Oleg is named among the top eight global experts in leadership and shortlisted for the Distinguished Award in Leadership by Thinkers50. He is on Global Gurus Top 30 in Leadership, is the #1 Global Leading Coach (Marshall Goldsmith Thinkers50 Award), and has been named one of the Global 100 Inspirational Leaders 2022, along with Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey.

Having been named ‘the da Vinci of Visionary Leadership’ by many leading authorities of our time, Oleg is considered #1 in the world in the field of vision and visionary leadership.

He is the author of The Fisherman’s Path to Leadership, The Vision Code, Leaderology, and other books.