Vision

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision coupled with action can change the world.”
– Joel Barker

This toolkit provides insight into Vision which is one of the six elements that the we, in the LIH, explore in depth in our "Innovation Culture" training. Here you'll learn what it's all about and why this element is particularly important in terms of innovation culture. In addition, the toolkit includes other external as well as LIH resources that will give you a deeper understanding of the element and provide opportunities for application.

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Vision, Mission, Purpose, Northstar, Core Ideology... These concepts can interfere with each other and are at times used interchangeably on powerpoint slides that rarely see the light of day once they’ve been coined. At LIH we use a definition of vision that helps us to best leverage impact, by creating something useful and communicable.

Vision can be defined as, ‘A mental image of a possible and desirable future state of the organization. The goal of this exploration is not to justify the LIH way of using vision, but to support you in ultimately articulating a vision, and how you want to use it in your context!

Take what you need to act and lead.

Why is this important for innovation

Research shows a considerable influence of elements like company purpose and mission on employee satisfaction and customer loyalty. While all of these concepts are important, in the context of innovation, we argue that vision takes a special place. It provides a frame for innovation and strategy. Where purpose can be too generic to provide help for innovation decisions, mission can be too precise and rarely leaves room for the unpredictable innovation opportunities.Focusing on vision can be considered a tool to create desirable futures to strive for.

This sets the scene for innovation, by giving freedom to test new approaches in an incremental or extensive way, leading to leaving known paths that may have shown their success in the past, to ultimately redesign the business model and capture new markets.

In order to set our focus on vision, we need to be clear about the terminology. As above, such terms as ‘vision’ and ‘mission’ can be fluffy or defined differently depending on who’s talking, so let's have a look at the definitions of each that have become helpful for us at LIH.

Guiding | Purpose is your organisation’s strongest, longest and most widely shared belief. It answers the question “Why do we exist, beyond profits?” Markets can change and vision may shift with those changes, but your sense of purpose should be unwavering.‍
Inspiring | Vision describes your aspirational state. Your vision statement is what you will achieve in the future, the results you want to reach for, the measurable impact you want to make.‍
Driving | Mission is your vision in action. It is the strategy with the bold moves you need to take, that drive you every day to fulfil your purpose. Describes what business the organisation is in (and what it isn’t) both now and projecting into the future.

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So in a nutshell, purpose keeps you focused on why you exist, vision provides a direction, and mission empowers how you will accomplish it.

Innovation leaders not only dream of what the future should look like; they are committed to communicating their vision to their teams internally and reflecting it externally.

Without effectively communicating a vision, it is hard to motivate your team to carry the idea into manifestation. It is crucial to promote a sense of shared-ownership, in this sense, a leader’s vision is only as good as the methods used to develop and communicate it.

What to expect from this toolkit

Tools & Methods:

Vision Statement Canvas: A ready-to-use canvas template, with a Miro board and PDF, that walks you and your team step by step through writing a clear vision and mission statement.
Guided Future Thinking: A roughly 20-minute guided coaching exercise, adapted from the systemic "miracle question," in which a moderator reads a script that helps everyone discover which elements of a desirable future personally pull them forward, making it an ideal warm-up for a vision session.
Mission Vision Tool: A worksheet from MITRE's Innovation Toolkit that guides you through a set of questions, fill-in-the-blank templates and quality checklists to draft a clear vision and mission statement, with real examples from organizations like Nike, Tesla, and Feeding America.

Read:

The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone: Cardone argues that most people drastically underestimate the effort success takes, and pushes you to set targets ten times bigger than you think you need and then take ten times the action to reach them.
Start with Why by Simon Sinek: Sinek explains why inspiring leaders and organizations start by communicating their purpose, the "why" behind what they do, and how that creates loyalty and motivation that facts and features alone never will.

Listen:

Future-Proofing Your Strategy w/ Scenario Planning: Strategy consultant Peter Scoblic uses the U.S. Coast Guard as an example to show how ongoing scenario planning helps organizations imagine several possible futures and build strategies that hold up whichever one arrives.
To Build Strategy, Start with the Future: Innosight cofounder Mark Johnson explains his "future-back" approach, where leaders set aside time to picture where their organization should be in five to ten years and then work backward to the choices they need to make today, even in the middle of a crisis.

Watch:

3 Things that Make a Meaningful Vision: Simon Sinek explains that a vision, mission, or "Just Cause" is only worth having if it's resilient enough to survive cultural and economic change, inclusive enough to inspire everyone who hears it, and focused on serving others rather than benefiting those who contribute to it.
Fuel vs. Vision: Sinek contrasts companies that treat money as fuel to advance their "why" with those that make money the purpose itself and end up treating people as disposable.

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