Visionary Communication
When companies communicate their vision it can be somewhat one sided. The vision is pushed down the communication hierarchy in the traditional ‘command and control’ style. And often generalisations and nominalisations abound. For example: ‘To be the global partner of choice for the automotive components industry’, ‘to achieve customer service excellence’.
If they are lucky, and remember to communicate this message at least five times, organisations will at least have a chance of employees recalling the statement. But quite often this becomes a mantra, present in the headspace but empty of meaning or action.
The vision, if properly bought in to, will drive behaviour. And changing individual behaviour is the only way we change organisations. Ultimately we need vision statements to be absorbed into the ‘muscle memory’; it needs to be the fuel that drives the engine. Through a somatic connection to the intellectual understanding of the vision statement, a powerful vision statement will drive the right behaviours. It will run like the printing through seaside rock, running right through the individual; part of their core.
By getting employees to hear the message, picture the vision through their own filters and interpretations and feel the connection to its meaning we will tap into a higher level of purpose and this will help to organise beliefs, values and guide behaviours.
Communicating the vision in this way will make the vision come to life in employees across the whole organisation. Then people will live and breathe and behave the vision.
In communicating the vision leaders need to bypass their own filters and get out of their individual ‘maps’ of the world, and second position the employees. Also, by allowing a certain looseness in interpretation of the vision, letting go of control to some extent, employees will synthesise a vision of their own.
Essentially the communication of vision, and the ultimate purpose which is to change behaviour, is purposeless unless that communication has been allowed to be loose enough to pass through the filters of each individual for interpretation and absorption into the somatic/muscle memory.
There are some fun and highly effective ways to do this too. Contact sue@changeworksblog.com to engage in conversation!
or visit our web: www.changeworkscom.co.uk
Changeworksblog is run by Sue Tupling with the sole aim to provide advice, help and enlightenment on communication and behavioural change. 
Hi Sue,
As you say, perception and interpretation – how people make sense of things – are key. Communicating in ways that resonate with people’s own perspectives, interests and motivations is an important part of this. And, for me, this means shifting the primary focus of communication from message passing to joint sensemaking.
I talk in Informal Coalitions about leaders (throughout the organization) providing vision through their day-to-day interactions with staff. By that I mean helping people to ‘see better’ or to make different (and, hopefully more useful) sense of issues and events than they might otherwise have done. From this perspective, vision is more about insight than far sight.
I disagree that visions drive behaviour (as per third paragraph). More often than not they just enable the senior managers to feel satisfied that they are doing ‘best practice’. And a mantra is not empty words.
People’s actions are driven by much more complex things than the company’s vision. Such as their background, their interactions with others in the organisation, their own intentions.
As consultants we should be able to account for these things in our advice to our clients.
Hi Stephen and Chris,
Thanks for your comments. ‘Joint sensemaking’ is a good phrase. A vision, if properly formulated (ie incoporating values and competitive positioning etc) can tap into employees higher levels of learning and change (that of identity and values/beliefs). This can have a strong influence on actions, if it is communicated in a way that resonates.
Insight through day to day interaction is vital. People change people. In that individuals take their lead, in terms of behaviour, from those around them (those who have influence anyway). In my experience a vision may be well communicated, and people can chant it easily; but they don’t necessarily know how to translate that into the right behaviour.
For example, a sales person in an organisation with a vision ‘to be the customers first choice of service provider’ is under pressure. The customer wants the equipment in 3 weeks, yet he is told the lead time from the factory is 12 weeks. The customer is screaming at him so he arranges for a free of charge hire until the kit is delivered. Beneficial for the customer, but a guaranteed loss maker for his organisation! Perhaps a better behaviour would be to challenge the lead time and encourage collaboration across divisions to find an alternative.
For a vision to become real, behaviour has to change (or at least be ‘right’). And action are driven by a complex interaction of motivational drivers, culture, reward systems, performance management, social networks etc etc.
Future posts will cover this in terms of communication and behavioural change. And i welcome debate and comments and blog submissions around such topics from anyone who has something interesting to share.
Hi there,
I am writing with a contrary view because it is what I actually think, and also because I hope that it will spice up the dialogue on both our sites.
I have posted previously on my blog about why you don’t need a vision. I used to think that visions were important. As I reflect on actual experience working in organisations, I have come to the conclusion that they are not necessary.
I appreciate that vision is an appealing idea and that famous people like Tom Peters and Peter Senge have propounded that they are necessary, and that lots of other people think this is the case. I think that organisational life is too complex and unpredictable to respond well to a simple solution like creating a vision.
I think that as leaders our change efforts will be much more effective if we do not waste time on “vision”. Instead, we should tell people what our intentions are, what we want to achieve. And then observe and listen closely to their responses. And respond accordingly.