The importance of vision

One thing I have been focusing on is the importance of vision.

I recently finished reading John Maxwell’s The 5 Levels of Leadership, and one of my key takeaways was the role vision plays in creating buy-in. Vision provides a roadmap for developing your people, determining what you teach, and deciding what you coach. All of it begins with knowing who you are as an organization.

For the past several years, I have used a framework from Harvard Business School to define vision. According to this framework, vision begins with your corporate purpose.

For instance, our corporate purpose is:

To create joy and community for as many people as possible.

Next are your core values. These are the things that matter to your company and do not change.

I like to compare core values to the streets in a neighborhood. The houses may change. They may be renovated, rebuilt, or replaced. But the streets—the routes that determine how you get where you are going—remain the same.

Core values are those streets. They are the guiding principles and behaviors that direct the company. They are the standards we do not abandon when making decisions. Ultimately, these values are the variables that shape culture.

Then you have your vision of the future: the place where you see the company going.

Finally, you have your BHAG—your Big Hairy Audacious Goal. What is the best-case scenario for the company if it follows its vision correctly over the next 50 years?

Vision matters for several key reasons.

First, vision provides guidance. It helps leaders translate core values into clear expectations for how people should think, behave, and make decisions. Because culture is ultimately defined by how people behave, vision helps shape the company’s trajectory.

Vision also informs strategy. When evaluating a decision or developing a strategic plan, leadership can return to the vision and ask a simple question: Does this move us toward the future we said we wanted to create?

Vision also shapes the perceived exchange between a company and its people.

Depending on the strength of the vision—or the absence of one—employees will view their time with the company as either a service or an investment.

When there is no compelling vision, people tend to see work as a basic exchange: hours for dollars. They provide a service, receive a paycheck, and go home.

But when a company has a meaningful purpose, strong core values, a compelling vision of the future, and a BHAG worth pursuing, people can begin to see their work as an investment. Their effort contributes to something larger than the individual task in front of them. The return on that investment is the opportunity to participate in the growth of the vision and see what their collective work becomes.

Viewing work as a service and viewing it as an investment produce two very different levels of ownership, effort, and commitment.

Lastly, vision gives the company an identity. It tells your people who you are, where you are going, and how you intend to get there. Your purpose gives the company meaning. Your core values shape its culture. Your vision of the future establishes direction. Your BHAG gives everyone something meaningful to pursue.

Without vision, people may know what work needs to be done. With vision, they understand why the work matters.