The Vision Workshop
One day to clarify what you should be doing today by looking into the future.
A lack of vision prevents alignment in an organization
Without a clear destination in sight, it’s all too easy to fall prey to distractions or mistake the urgent for the important.
As the old joke has it: “how many people work at Google? - About half.”
That’s not because half of the people are actually idling; everyone is working! Except they are not pulling on the same rope, thus making the product, in aggregate, appear less than impressive.
Misalignment hampers growth
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Without a clear destination in sight, it becomes hard to say no. Urgent-looking tasks are especially hard to resist.
This waste on a micro scale leads to waste on a macro scale, as the company tries to fight it by changing its processes, organizational structure, or tools.
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When everyone is busy with urgent tasks masquerading as important ones, resources get scarce for the important ones.
Strategic developments are often the most tragic victims: those can be truly valuable, but without clients or other stakeholders clamoring for them, they are all too easy to deprioritize.
Activities should be prioritized with the future in mind
A driver keeps their eyes on the horizon to steer their car: they don’t look at the road straight in front of the hood. Likewise, a company has to project itself in the future to know with any certainty what it should be focusing on in the present.
The vision workshop conjures this picture of the future, and brings it back into concrete actions for the present
In five exercises, we will start from the present, travel into the future, before coming back to today
Values
Values aren’t (just) something you put on your corporate website and pay lip service to.
Your values are what you deeply hold to be true and important and will be reflected in the business that you create.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates had similar ambitions but different values and created vastly different companies. Your values matter, which is why the Vision Workshop starts by capturing them.
2. Aspect
Independently of what it does, what will your company look like in five years? This is the question that is answered in this exercise.
Will you be local or global? Bootstrapped or funded? Will you remain a small team or grow?
Answering those questions will set the playing field: we don’t need to waste time speculating about businesses that are incompatible with your ambitions.
3. Scenarios
What will your company have achieved, when it reaches your goals? What impact will it have, on whom? This is the question we ask in step 3.
The goal is to dream big, conjure wild ideas, ones that might seem out of reach or even impractical.
Multiple scenarios are generated, depending on the circumstances of the company: it might include imagining the implications of dropping a business line, or refocusing on a different objective.
4. Path
Step 4 brings us closer to reality by asking: if we reached these scenarios in five years, what would we be doing in years one, two, …?
Suddenly, impossible-sounding ideas become plausible. Some scenarios are often seen as undesirable once the work to get to them is clarified.
This crystallizes desired futures and outlines important milestones to get to them.
5. Start / stop
The goal of the Vision Workshop isn’t just to dream; it is to set you on track to make your dreams a reality.
The final step addresses your priorities. Among all of your current activities, what do you need to stop? What new projects do you need to undertake?
This is where distractions are identified and killed. This is where time is freed for important strategic projects left on the second rung until then. In short, the important replaces the urgent.
You might be wondering…
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While my background is from software, I ran workshops with companies in industries as varied as consulting, FMCG, biotech, or services. I tailor the workshop to the particulars of the company and am yet to find an industry where the method is not applicable.
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As I ran workshops for companies of many industries, I have ran workshops with companies of all sizes, from start-ups to scale-ups—successfully!
The key question isn’t really the size but the ability to get a holistic view of the organization and to enact change. For larger companies, more thought should be put in who attends (see next question), and a workshop can be done on a specific division or product if the company’s purview is too large.
The only stage at which the workshop may be premature is pre-market companies: if you are in stealth mode, building your MVP, you likely aren’t distracted, and a first market feedback would be valuable for a discussion of your path going forward.
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Workshops are most successful when ran with around 4 to 8 participants, who can be whoever has an educated opinion on the company's future. This is not restricted to a certain role or hierarchical level.
Some founders and C-level staff may choose not to attend, if they are happy in steering their area of operations based on a vision provided by others.
On the other hand, workshops can benefit greatly from inputs from fresh eyes and/or people from the front lines, regardless of their seniority.
Very small companies might benefit from inviting people who, while not in the company, are close to it, such as investors or board members, to provide additional voices in the exercises and avoid groupthink.
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I know, I know: your time comes at a premium. For that reason, I have tried many times to run the workshop in a shorter format, but unfortunately with insatisfactory results.
It is therefore better to spend a full day and have a great, actionable result at the end, rather than waste half a day for an inconclusive outcome.
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The start/stop exercise gives you clear pointers as to what actions should be taken right now.
Moreover, the outcomes of all of the steps of the workshop are yours as a rationale for the actions, or should you wish to come back to them in the case of a pivot, or just if the vision needs refreshing.
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The Vision Workshop is not an unstructured brainstorming, and I am a fervant believer in the method of “working alone together”.
This means that we won’t just be sharing our thoughts haphazardly, but putting them on paper before going through them. This way, every participant can be heard, every objection raised.
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I hear you: markets and technologies are changing so quickly. How can one have any certainty that their vision is the right one??
The answer is: you can’t. You won’t. In fact, your vision is probably wrong!
And yet, you have to have one and believe in it to accomplish something. Will it be what you set out to do? Maybe not. You will find that out as you go. But setting out without a vision guarantees getting nowhere.
Let’s make it happen
Reach out, let’s talk, and let’s see how I can help.