Developing Team Vision

A vision is a word picture of a future state. Teams need both hard and soft visions of the future. A hard vision would involve a written statement that describes what the organization will perform like when it is achieved. It may involve markets captured or status or recognition received. This type of vision would read something like: " The COE Team will be the most efficient and effective provider of high quality engineering design and support in the HVAC industry. We will obtain and retain the HVAC Association Award of Excellence in Engineering. Eighty percent of all engineering designs will be produced and delivered within 4 days of order receipt, while 100 percent will be completed and delivered within 6 business days. Ninety percent of all HVAC support requests will be satisfied within 24 hours, and 100 percent within 48 hours." Hard visions can either be developed by the team or developed by management and given to the team. When management provides a team's vision, it will need to be able to complete the statement: "We are shooting for this vision so that..." And the so that's need to be things that the individual team members can relate to and care about. Some organizations are led by charismatic leaders who are capable of developing and painting a very appealing picture of what the future organization will be like. In the absence of such leadership it is better to let the team develop and present its own vision for management approval.

Soft visions should be developed, stated and shared by every team member. The " Who's got a dollar? " exercise is a way of getting team members to explain their vision of what they would like to see the organization become: "How would it feel to work here? What would I be getting out of the experience? What would it look like? How would I then be able to describe it to my neighbors?"

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