Here’s an exercise that I’ve found helps people think about vision: “Cast yourself forward three years (or whatever your planning horizon). Perhaps you can imagine relaxing at home, 3 years in the future, while contentedly reading an article about our company. The article describes the noteworthy success that our organization has accomplished. Imagine the headline and the story that accompanies the headline.

“Write down the headline and the story in your own words. In the story, describe what were the most important decisions that propelled the company to this success. Who is responsible for these changes? What specific things did the company do? Talk about what conflicts it had to resolve along the way.”

When people are ready, ask them to share their headlines and stories. Then ask people to share their emotional reactions: “Which stories excite you?” Second, ask them to think analytically: “What are the rationales for each vision? What’s the value to our customers? What’s the benefit to the company?” Continue to ask the necessary questions until a well-defined vision is created.

Effective leaders who want to generate lasting, sustained success in their organizations need to spend a considerable amount of time and energy clarifying and communicating the strategic focus of the organization. This is the first step in building the levels of trust needed to enable people to act nimbly and quickly in the face of accelerating complexity and change.

When you assess the core values of an organization, you become more in tune with the needs and wants of your customers, shareholders, and employees, therefore ensuring success. The same can be said for small companies and large companies, non-profit organizations and public organizations. Communicating the core values creates powerful alignment across departments and divisions. This yields clarity of focus and enables people to make better decisions, consistently, across long spans of time.

It is very important to implement common values in order to build trust. Trust will reduce the amount of micromanaging that the manager actually has to conduct. In a values-driven organization, managers can delegate decisions and ask people to think for themselves. When people are set on common ground through the implementation of common performance related values, they are more likely to produce the desired results more consistently.

Aligning people around core values is the first thing that a leader should do. Doing this ensures that an organization will progress steadily.

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