Discussion: View Thread

Mark,
I'm confused about the "nonetheless". It seems you are saying that a good
vision must give meaning to those who must mount the effort, whether or not
anyone knows how to achieve the envisioned situation. I think that agrees
with my test #2.

Your assertion that visions should not be practical and achievable seems to
open the door to hallucinations. There is a difference in not knowing how
to achieve and in knowing the visions is patently ridiculous (even worse is
to not test it for feasibility). Do you suppose Custer envisioned his
glorious win at The Little Big Horn?

Perhaps we should not talk about vision in the singular. In any group,
there will be a spectrum of personality types -- a variety of attitudes
toward uncertainty and risk. Perhaps we should be talking about the vision
of the leader versus (perhaps lesser, more concrete) visions of the
followers. It is not necessary that all have the identical vision. In
fact, some argue that a good vision contains a high degree of ambiguity so
that others can "buy in" to the facet that "lights their rockets."

Many successful leaders I know do not reveal their grand vision all at once
for fear of scaring or losing the troops. Rather, they sort out some
interim situations to be achieved and describe one or more of those in
order to see who buys in to what. However, all the successful ones
thoroughly believe their vision is practical and achievable. Others I have
known have not found it necessary to apply that test and have burned up a
lot of money and a lot of perfectly good human beings in the process.

On Sun, 25 Jan 1998, Mark Lipton wrote RE: Vision-Hallucination
>
>Jack, et al.
>
>I agree with your comments and criteria for a workable vision.
Nonetheless, I am also a firm believer that an organization (and its
>leaders) can face enormous obstacles that may never be overcome. They can
>only, relentlessly, keep pushing against them. As I've written in the past
>("Demystifying the Organizational Vision"- Sloan Mgt Review, Summer, 1996)
>the visions most "followers" seem to embrace are those where these
>difficult challenges are clearly articulated within the context of the
>vision itself. It makes the vision both real and challenging. Visions
>should not be practical and achievable; that's the job of a strategic
>plan.
>
>Mark Lipton
>Chair, Dept of Human Resources Mgt
>Director, The Leadership Center
>Milano Graduate School of Management and Policy
>New School for Social Research
>80 Fifth Avenue - Suite 800
>New York, NY 10011
>212.229.2814
>lipton@newschool.edu
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of MG-ED-DV Digest - 24 Jan 1998 to 25 Jan 1998
>***************************************************

Jack Ring
32712 N. 70th St.
Scottsdale, AZ 85262-7143
602-488-4615

Jack,

We're clearly working towards similar, though maybe not the same thinking.

First, the only "should" that I had was meant to be that we should drop the
notion of vision altogether, and find something else.

I like your use of the word "envision" because that can be applied to the
here and now instead of the future. I frequently talk about envisioning the
behavior of a system, for instance.

Also, I like your thoughts that there can be multiple visions in one group,
because that breaks down one of the biggest problems with vision - the
development of alignment at the expense of diversity. Diversity, it appears,
is critical to having the capacity to adapt. But multiple visions also seems
to break down the basic application of vision, which is to create alignment.
(I don't want to be understood on alignment as though it is a black and
white issue. I recognize some greys here, and also recognize the emergence
of natural alignment in groups which offsets the need for fabricating
alignment associated with visioning.) If fabricated alignment is problematic
(and I think that to a large extent it is), then dropping the need for
alignment negats the need for vision.

Yesterday I read that Digital Equipment Co was being bought out by Compaq. I
was not surprised, having identified that DEC was not going to make it about
7 - 8 years ago. Did a little work as a consultant there at the time. I
recognized that their biggest problem was the vision thing. Ken Olsen's
vision about what was the appropriate type of computer, followed by the
troops being closed out from communication with other computer companies,
made it so that the company did not have the capacity to adapt in the fast
environment.

On the other hand, if you look at the companies that de Geus writes about in
"The Living Organization" you'll see that their ability to survive so long
(up to 600 years for 1 company) is linked to their adaptability rather than
visionary leadership.

Mark Michaels
President, People Technologies
Michaels@ipat.com
To move a mountain, start with one pebble at a time.