Working at the edge, teams and leaders create from spaces of possibility.
Gaining a competitive edge, eliminating waste, creating sustainable results – how do we bridge the costly gap between vision and the implementation of great ideas? How do we effectively connect our teams and the organization’s vision and shared values?
Tapping into group wisdom and listening to that collective “one voice”.
Visioning and strategy design are often treated as a separate entity from strategy implementation and delivery. The receiving end, parties concerned like partners, customers, clients, and others, are often not even be invited throughout the game.
Lost in translation
Sunil Prashara, Project Management Institute, on the "Gap between vision and execution“ (also see the Brightline Initiative): “You often will find that the Chief Strategy Officer is responsible for defining the direction of the organization and then, there's a handover to the delivery side or the execution of transformation teams who's role it is, then, to make that idea a reality through program management, through execution. And therein lies the gap, this handover is the actual line between vision and actual execution, that's the gap.”
Working as one. Evolving together.
Many cultures feel challenged to leap into spaces of possibility together and to bring down the vision from there. Exploring those spaces in effective cross-business collaboration by tapping into different frequencies.
Extracting the core significance based on patterns that make sense, resonate with response and create solutions that are translatable into tangible action.
If we dare to go there, what we will find definitely is refreshing and might be a bit scary. Talking about energy and motivation? This is the mix that makes it.
From possibility to reality. States of emergence.
So, how are we with sense-making and sense-giving – beyond using words? It’s remarkable to notice that purpose and vision linger in a realm that lives before words.
How are we with tapping into pure potential and expressing essence? How are we with dreaming up together what the future might hold for our endeavors? And while experiencing how this vision unfolds, how are we with creating crisp and clear facts and figures around measurable objectives to ensure a rock-solid delivery validation?
This is where teaming up makes us stronger.
We all have our preference in one of those states of emergence – clearly sensing pure potential and easily giving it an expression; seamlessly picking up on what is offered and turning emerging probabilities into (user) stories; or making these stories feel very real by weaving in projected facts and figures. High-purpose teams thrive on integrating diversity and using practices that open us, connect us, and move us towards meaningful conversations.
Bringing down the vision. Walk the talk.
Support stage-gate processes, multiple-horizon planning, and other tools for turning vision into results with an integrated bottom-up approach to ensure committed delivery through professional services.
Vision design and strategy delivery… get the best of both worlds.
While executives excel at giving an organization’s vision strategic direction, engaging the collective wisdom, held by the teams made up of people on the front line from all parties concerned, will help figuring out how to best implement strategic goals to successfully deliver the desired result.
Making your vision come alive, turn vision into action, welcome people to own their ideas that lead to results. Support people to connect to their work, finding love in what they do… and they will commit to their decisions and actions with confidence.
This makes the difference of having heard of a vision, maybe even knowing it, as opposed to being deeply connected to your vision and having it integrated as a guiding principle of your actions.
Solutions that come with the service of implementation, giving your strategic goals traction. Created from spaces of possibility.
Turn insight into action…
Give your team the opportunity to check in with their vision from time to time. Make developing a product, service, or any other result feel more vibrant. Provide inspiration for the way the vision is turned into results, connecting with your company’s and the teams’ shared values, engaging mind and heart throughout the visioneering process. Finally, insights are turned into specific action steps.
Bringing down the vision
In this experiment we tap into all the three states of emergence where two of those spaces don’t fit our natural preference. So, there will be moments that feel a little awkward. Our first reaction might be making fun of it, rejecting the experience offered, not being willing to go there. If this should be the case, please remember: While beautifully weaving content and human process together, staying curious and humble turns out to be a good strategy to… stay ahead.
Step 1: Through visualization, we give the large group or team an experience of their collective entity – call it tribal unity, team mojo, cultural DNA or else.
Step 2: In the large group, we sort out the opportunities and threats (risks, issues, challenges) to be addressed.
Step 3: In breakouts, small groups of 3-4 people select the opportunity or threat they will work on. Once the topic is selected, the small group brainstorms ideas and solutions. Connect with corporate values, the agile manifesto, principles and core practices, and what else seams meaningful to the groups.
Step 4: Still in the small groups, prioritize the ideas/solutions found and generate actions. Per action, define SMARRT goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, relevant and time-bound).
Step 5: Bring it back and share key findings to the whole group.
Step 6: Commit to action, create accountability.
Success looks like
co-creating a vision with your team.
populating and enriching a corporate vision with a large group of people.
experiencing the three levels of reality/states of emergence and understanding how they relate to our business environment.
gaining more meaningful conversations and more sustainable solutions.
Deepen your insight…
The large-group facilitation technique “Bringing down the vision” is trained as part of the ORSC series, an ICF accredited Coach training program. Find more information on their website:
The experiment described in the steps above is based on the concept of Deep Democracy, a work developed by Arnold Mindell.
Attitude: Deep Democracy is an attitude that focuses on the awareness of voices that are both central and marginal. This type of awareness can be focused on groups, organizations, one’s own inner experiences, people in conflict, etc. Allowing oneself to take seriously seemingly unimportant events and feelings can often bring unexpected solutions to both group and inner conflicts.
Principle: Unlike “classical” democracy, which focuses on majority rule, Deep Democracy suggests that all voices, states of awareness, and frameworks of reality are important. Deep Democracy also suggests that the information carried within these voices, awareness, and frameworks are all needed to understand the complete process of the system. The meaning of this information appears, when the various frameworks and voices are relating to each other. Deep Democracy is a process of relationship, not a state-oriented still picture, or a set of policies. Source: https://iapop.com/deep-democracy/
Arnold Mindell (born January 1, 1940) is an American author, therapist and teacher in the fields of transpersonal psychology, body psychotherapy, social change and spirituality. He is known for extending Jungian dream analysis to body symptoms, promoting ideas of 'deep democracy', and interpreting concepts from physics and mathematics in psychological terms. Mindell is the founder of process-oriented psychology, also called Process Work, a development of Jungian psychology influenced by Taoism, shamanism and physics.
You want to know how to engage your team in discovering deeper ways to think about their own jobs and smarter ways of working together? Send me an email or call me.