Shared Vision

WHY SHARED VISIONS MATTER

Senge uses AT&T, Ford, and Apple to illustrate the role of a shared vision. Theodore Vail had a vision of universal telephone service that would take fifty years to bring about. Henry Ford envisioned common people, not just the wealthy, owning their own automobiles. Steven Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and their Apple cofounders saw the power of the computer to empower people. He also points to the growth of Japanese firms such as Komatsu (which grew from one third the size of Caterpillar to its equal in less than two decades), Canon (which went from nothing to matching Xerox’s global market share in reprographics in the same time frame), or Honda, linking their ambitions for global success to a shared purpose. What is most important is that these individuals’ visions became genuinely shared among people throughout all levels of their companies—focusing the energies of thousands and creating a common identity among enormously diverse people.

Many shared visions are extrinsic—that is, they focus on achieving something relative to an outsider, such as a competitor. Yet, a goal limited to defeating an opponent is transitory. Once the vision is achieved, it can easily migrate into a defensive posture of “protecting what we have, of not losing our number-one position.” Such defensive goals rarely call forth the creativity and excitement of building something new. A master in the martial arts is probably not focused so much on “defeating all others” as on his own intrinsic inner standards of “excellence.” This does not mean that visions must be either intrinsic or extrinsic. Both types of vision can coexist. But reliance on a vision that is solely predicated on defeating an adversary can weaken an organization long term.

Kazuo Inamori of Kyocera entreats employees “to look inward,” to discover their own internal standards. He argues that, while striving to be number one in its field, a company can aim to be “better” than others or “best” in its field. But his vision is that Kyocera should always aim for “perfection” rather than just being “best.” (Note Inamori’s application of the principle of creative tension—“it’s not what the vision is, but what it does …”)

A shared vision, especially one that is intrinsic, uplifts people’s aspirations. Work becomes part of pursuing a larger purpose embodied in the organizations’ products or services—accelerating learning through personal computers, bringing the world into communication through universal telephone service, or promoting freedom of movement through the personal automobile. The larger purpose can also be embodied in the style, climate, and spirit of the organization. Max de Pree, retired CEO of the Herman Miller furniture company, said his vision for Herman Miller was “to be a gift to the human spirit”—by which he meant not only Herman Miller’s products, but its people, its atmosphere, and its larger commitment to productive and aesthetic work environments.

Visions are exhilarating. They create the spark, the excitement that lifts an organization out of the mundane. “No matter how problematic the competition or our internal troubles,” commented one manager, “my spirit always rebounds when I stroll into the building—because I know what we are doing really matters.”

In a corporation, a shared vision changes people’s relationship with the company. It is no longer “their company”; it becomes “our company.” A shared vision is the first step in allowing people who mistrusted each other to begin to work together. It creates a common identity. In fact, an organization’s shared sense of purpose, vision, and operating values establish the most basic level of commonality. Late in his career, the psychologist Abraham Maslow studied high-performing teams. One of their most striking characteristics was shared vision and purpose. Maslow observed that in exceptional teams the task was no longer separate from the self… but rather he identified with this task so strongly that you couldn’t define his real self without including that task.

A shared goal can make people willing to challenge a plan that no longer serves it. In 1961, John Kennedy articulated a vision that had been emerging for many years among leaders within America’s space program: to have a man on the moon by the end of the decade. This led to countless acts of courage and daring. Senge describes such a decision in the mid-1960s at MIT’s Draper Laboratories. The lab was the lead contractor with NASA for the inertial navigation and guidance system to guide the Apollo astronauts to the moon. Several years into the project, the lab directors became convinced that their original design specifications were wrong. This posed considerable potential embarrassment, since several million dollars had already been spent. Instead of trying to jerry-rig an expedient solution, they asked NASA to disband the project and start over again. They risked not just their contract but their reputation. In this account, meeting the moon-landing goal mattered more to them than defending the existing design.

Apple Computer during the mid-1980s, when the entire small computer industry rallied behind the IBM PC, persevered with its vision of a computer which people could understand intuitively, a computer which represented the freedom to think on one’s own. Along the way, Apple refused the “sure thing” opportunity to be a leading PC “clone” manufacturer. Though it never reached the volume sales of the clones, Apple’s Macintosh was not only easy to use, it made “intuitiveness” and “having fun” priorities in personal computing, and influenced the look and feel of later graphical interfaces.

You cannot have a learning organization without shared vision. Without a pull toward some goal which people truly want to achieve, the forces in support of the status quo can be overwhelming. Vision establishes an overarching goal. The loftiness of the target compels new ways of thinking and acting. A shared vision also provides a rudder to keep the learning process on course when stresses develop. Learning can be difficult, even painful. With a shared vision, we are more likely to expose our ways of thinking, give up deeply held views, and recognize personal and organizational shortcomings. All that trouble seems trivial compared with the importance of what we are trying to create. As Robert Fritz puts it, “In the presence of greatness, pettiness disappears.” In the absence of a great dream, pettiness prevails.

Shared vision fosters risk taking and experimentation. When people are immersed in a vision, they often don’t know how to do it. They run an experiment. They change direction and run another experiment. Everything is an experiment, but there is no ambiguity. It’s perfectly clear why they are doing what they are doing. People aren’t saying “Give me a guarantee that it will work.” Everybody knows that there is no guarantee. But the people are committed nonetheless.

Lastly, shared vision addresses one of the primary puzzles that has thwarted efforts to develop systems thinking in management: “How can a commitment to the long term be fostered?” For years, systems thinkers have endeavored to persuade managers that, unless they maintained a long-term focus, they will be in big trouble. With great vigor we have proselytized the “better before worse” consequences of many interventions, and the “shifting the burden” dynamics that result from symptomatic fixes. Yet, I have witnessed few lasting shifts to longer term commitment and action. Personally, I have come to feel that our failure lies not in unpersuasiveness or lack of sufficiently compelling evidence. It may simply not be possible to convince human beings rationally to take a long-term view. People do not focus on the long term because they have to, but because they want to.

In every instance where one finds a long-term view actually operating in human affairs, there is a long-term vision at work. The cathedral builders of the Middle Ages labored a lifetime with the fruits of their labors still a hundred years in the future. Senge draws on a Japanese analogy comparing the growth of an organization to a tree, taking twenty-five to fifty years. Parents of young children try to lay a foundation of values and attitude that will serve an adult twenty years hence. In all of these cases, people hold a vision that can be realized only over the long term.

Strategic planning, which should be a bastion of long-term thinking in corporations, is very often reactive and short-term. According to two of the most articulate critics of contemporary strategic planning, Gary Hamel of the London Business School and C. K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan: “Although strategic planning is billed as a way of becoming more future oriented, most managers, when pressed, will admit that their strategic plans reveal more about today’s problems than tomorrow’s opportunities.” With its emphasis on extensive analysis of competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, of market niches and firm resources, typical strategic planning fails to achieve the one accomplishment that would foster longer range actions—in Hamel’s and Prahalad’s terms, setting “a goal that is worthy of commitment.”

With all the attention given to this component of corporate learning, however, vision is still often regarded as a mysterious, uncontrollable force. Leaders with vision are cult heroes. While it is true that there are no formulas for “how to find your vision,” there are principles and guidelines for building shared vision. There is a discipline of building vision that is emerging, and practical tools for working with shared visions. This discipline extends principles and insights from personal mastery into the world of collective aspiration and shared commitment.