A Vivid Vision is vital for any great company and great COO no matter how big or small. A vision statement or mission statement isn’t good enough. Now is the time to learn to create a Vivid Vision and implement it into your company. This blog is here to teach you why.
But First, What is a Vivid Vision?
Put simply, a Vivid Vision is a document that describes what the leaders of a company envision for their company’s future and how they’ll get there. It should be around three to five pages long and include lots of detail for an inspired future.
“In the case of a Vivid Vision, visualizing […] involves picturing your business three years down the road, but not in some ambiguous, conceptual way. Close your eyes, hop in your mental time machine, and take a tour around your company three years in the future. Don’t get caught up in the realism either. Dream as big as you want to.” – Cameron Herold
Your Vivid Vision pushes and inspires you, your employees, and anyone else around you to dream big and work hard for the future outlined in the document. It’s inspirational and unifying.
What Makes it Better Than a Vision Statement?
Vision statements and mission statements are useless. They don’t work, they have never worked, and they will never work. Why is that? It’s because of how they are made.
To create a vision statement, you get a bunch of smart people in the room. You put a bunch of your favorite words up on the whiteboard. You vote on the words. You eliminate all the words that didn’t get any votes. You then try to mash up all the leftover words into a sentence with some great adjectives and adverbs to highlight them. That’s your vision statement.
Mission statements are created similarly. They’re just a bunch of pretty words that sound nice together put into a sentence that you think will make your company sound awesome and attract clients/customers.
“Vision statements can often be impersonal and removed from the day-to-day work your team is tasked with.” – COO Alliance
The truth is, that one sentence mashup that you come up with will not align with everyone. It rarely truly inspires anyone and it certainly doesn’t show anyone where you’re going.
Create a Vivid Vision Instead
Vivid Visions work. They unite everyone in your company and inspire them to do their best to make that great future vision come true.
A big, hopeful, successful future benefits everyone in your company. Seeing a Vivid Vision that shows them that will push everyone to work hard for it. That’s certainly not something a little vision statement can accomplish.
So write your company a Vivid Vision. Dedicate the time to dream up a big future for yourself. It’s certainly worth it and, who knows, it just might be fun to write along the way.
Have you tried creating a Vivid Vision before? How’d it go? Let us know in the comments below.
If you have questions or would like more information, I’d be happy to help. Please send an email, and my team will get in touch with you!
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2017 and has been edited for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
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