Jay W. Vogt

Every company team enters a phase now and then when its future appears hazy.  You hear people say, "We lack a shared vision" or "We're getting stale." Yet leaders know they need to bring people together, they're just not sure how. They need to inspire folks and find common ground even when their budgets or day-to-day projects allow for little time or money.  What do they do?

Driven by such requests, I've begun using a process called "Grounded Visioning."  It takes about half a day, though you can easily spend longer, and I've often seen great results in as little as two hours.  It works for small teams and big groups as well.

How can teams create an inspiring vision of the future so quickly? The key is to ground it in how the team acts when at its best — a "grounded vision." There are six quick but essential steps.

Assemble your team

Everyone who has a stake in the future of the team-team members, leadership, and key stakeholders-comes together. 

Ignite your spark

Every visioning process needs a spark that ignites people's passion for what is possible.  Short "appreciative" (focused on the positive) interviews in pairs accomplish this by asking such questions as: What attracted you to this team and keeps you committed? When's a time you felt most connected with, committed to, and proud of this team? What are three dreams, hopes, and aspirations you have for this team?

Share best practices

People are asked to call out what attracted them to this team.  At one medical center client of mine, that meant such responses as: Dynamic combination of science, medicine, and acting; opportunity to improve patient safety; and chance to play with new ways of thinking and behaving.

This exercise, though short, reawakens everyone's commitment to the team and maps the DNA of the inspired team.

We ask for a few stories about times when folks felt most connected to the team.  One told a story of going live with a demonstration in front of a high level audience, facing last minute difficulties, and yet pulling it off memorably; another cited feedback from participants about how this experience had changed their lives.

After several such stories, themes naturally emerge.  These themes map how the team is when at its very best.  In our running example, my client's people declared: We change cultures through life altering experiences; we operate well under pressure and enjoy working on the edge; and we stay close and connected as we jointly improvise and discover

Share your dreams

At this point people are engaged, proud, and relaxed.  Now they are ready to share their dreams with each other.

Each person is next asked to write out their dreams on sticky notes, then come to the front of the room, read them aloud, and post them. Slowly we sort them into similar categories.  In this way a shared vision begins to emerge. Watching this from a place in the audience is like viewing a photograph emerge from its chemical bath and gradually become clear.

Before long, several themes and goals emerged, among them: expand research, play worldwide leadership role, and collaborate with other experts.

Select the best

It is usually hard to get large, diverse groups to reach consensus quickly.  So in Grounded Visioning a shortcut is taken called "multi-voting."  Every participant gets a few adhesive dots, about one for every three options.  One client, in choosing among a total of seven, each got two dots/votes.  In mere minutes, three priorities emerged: sustain growth, ensure smooth operations and expand research

Plan next steps

If there's time, we'll ask volunteers to form working groups around top priority goals and create action plans. Lacking time, volunteers are asked to do this task at a future date. At the medical center, three work teams formed and leaders volunteered.  The team's growing edge was now clear.  Passion had begun flowing again.

In sum, a "grounded vision" is a shared vision of the future grounded in how the team is when at its very best.  Created by teams or large groups in half a day or less, the process is engaging, intuitive, and fun, and consistently creates results in record time.  In times of swift competitive changes and pressure to adapt on a dime to the latest technological challenge, it's a process no team can afford to ignore.

Jay W. Vogt founded Peoplesworth, a consulting and coaching practice in 1982 to help organizations develop shared leadership, continuous learning, and successful collaboration. He can be reached at jay@peoplesworth.com.