By Janice Molloy
"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid." --Audre Lorde
In his recent blog post, "Setting the Foundations for Leadership," my colleague Mark Alpert talked about the importance of articulating a vision. Unless we know what we really want to create, it's difficult to design a path to get there. But s
ometimes the gap between our current reality and vision can seem more like a yawning chasm than a hairline crack in the pavement. That's when it can be useful to outline the incremental steps we can take in service of our overarching goal.
Edie Farwell, Program Director of the Sustainability Institute's Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows New Initiatives, has designed a visioning activity that can help bridge the gap between short-term initiatives and long-term aspirations. At the start of the program's recent alumni workshop, Edie had participants identify their:
- Big "V" Vision: Your dreams, what you want, how you want to be, how you want to orient yourself for the next three to five years
- Middle "V" Vision: What you want to experiment with in the next few months in service of your big "V" vision
- Little "v" Vision: Something you will do next week to support your big "V" vision
Each participant then shared his or her nested visions with a partner. One Fellow wants to finance and build a 40-megawatt industrial wind farm in Michigan (Big V). In the next several months, he plans to leverage his past work to form relationships with key partners in finance (Middle V). Within the next week, he will approach a specific construction company and get them to help sponsor the project (Little v). Another Fellow envisions sustainable agriculture in her region (Big V). To contribute to this process, she will establish a training program at her farm for young farmers (Middle V). In the short term, she will start taking in more young farmers now (Little v).
Building Momentum in Your Setting
If you want to do this exercise on your own, find a quiet setting where you won't be interrupted by emails and phone calls for at least 30 minutes. Bring a journal with you to record your thoughts. You may also want to arrange to share the outcomes with a learning partner, to build shared accountability. To keep momentum going, revisit your Little "v" Vision weekly, your Middle "V" Vision quarterly, and your Big "V" Vision annually.
In using this activity with a group, schedule about an hour. Edie introduces the process and then has people relax with their eyes closed as they evoke a detailed picture in their minds of each of the three visions. Participants then journal for 15 minutes. At the alumni workshop, people discussed their visions with partners over lunch. Some of them chose to report back to the group as a whole.
What can we create if, in the words of Audre Lorde, we all "dare to be powerful"? Try this exercise, and let's find out!
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications, managing editor of The Systems Thinker newsletter, and program director of the annual Systems Thinking in Action conference.
Photo of Grand Canyon: Mike Quinn/National Park Service
By Mark Alpert
I recently attended a wonderful three-day workshop called "Foundations for Leadership." Our instructors Beth Jandernoa and Peter Senge did a masterful job of leading the program. After more
than two decades of facilitating this workshop, Peter has not lost one iota of interest in the subject matter, the people gathered, or the possibilities for what might emerge.
The diverse group of participants from different parts of the world, different organizations, and different functions also enriched the experience. It didn't take long for our commonality and a sense of caring for each other to develop. That process raises a question: If complete strangers can develop a kind of shared vision within a few hours, why does it take us so long to do so within our own organizations, if it happens at all?
We were given the opportunity and the space to look deep inside ourselves to ponder what each of us really cares about and develop a vision for ourselves, our families, and our work. Likewise, we faced the challenges of being completely honest about our current realities. There is a tension that builds in the gap between vision and reality that creates a powerful call to action. That tension tests our integrity and strength to make choices about which way we will be pulled.
If the desire is strong enough and picture real enough, we will be pulled in the direction of our vision. If we are stuck working on the distracting issues of the moment, chances are good that we will be pulled in the opposite direction, away from achieving our objective. This dynamic brings up another good question: Why do we spend so much time and energy fighting fires, blaming others, and taking knee-jerk reactions to the everyday events happening around us? Wouldn't it be better to use our time and energy to work directly on the things we really want to create, the things that move us toward our vision?
Current reality will always be filled with noise, fires, and tugs for our attention. When we can step back far enough to recognize the one step forward, two steps back pattern we tend to fall into and stop long enough to examine the underlying causes of this oscillation, we can refocus our attention and use the tension in our favor to again pull us forward. It's a never-ending journey of improvement. Those who master this process well--and you probably know a few who have--are able to set a goal, achieve it, create a new vision, reestablish the tension, and use it to pull themselves on to bigger and better things.
It's humbling to realize how much room there is to go deeper inside, how much potential is still waiting to be discovered. I get excited by the conscious effort it takes, and I am thankful for the hundreds of opportunities that present themselves every day to practice.
During our closing exercise, one of the class participants shared a song by John Legend, "If You're Out There," which seemed to nicely sum up our focus for the three days. One particular verse toward the end of the song goes, "If you're ready, we can save the world, believe again, start to mend, we don't have to wait for destiny, we should be the change that we want to see . . ."
It gets you thinking, doesn't it?
Mark Alpert is president of Pegasus Communications.
violin photo: Ian Britton/freefoto.com
by Vicky Schubert
How far can it be from Bflat to high C? Well, from this singer's perspective, it looms as a gaping chasm. While the Bflat in the dramatic finish to Dvorak's "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka feels reasonably within my grasp, getting to C with some measure of control and finesse seems practically impossible--even though it's just two tiny steps away.
But, wait a minute.
Last week in Berlin, Usain Bolt broke his own world records in the 100 and 200 meter dashes, reaching mind-boggling lows of 9.58 and 19.19 seconds respectively--shaving .11 seconds off his previous marks in each of the two distances. Do you think he was agonizing over what was possible? A quick read of this man's unbridled confidence tells you that he sees standing records not as limitations, but as benchmarks to be passed in his inevitable march of progress. "I keep saying anything's possible as long as you put your mind to it," he quipped, and the records are sure to keep falling.
Like Chuck Yeager and the swaggering engineers and pilots who "pushed the envelope" to break the sound barrier in the 1940s, impossible just may not be in Bolt's vocabulary. He offers a striking example of Robert Fritz's creative tension model--a person for whom the crystal-clear vision of what he wants to do next proves an irresistible counterweight to his current reality.
I'm coming to understand how important it is for leaders at all levels to have the ability to believe in a future that might strain credulity for others content with, or resigned to, the status quo. Consider the case of George H.W. Bush, whose acknowledged inability to get "the vision thing" contributed to his election defeat and what might be viewed as a lackluster presidential legacy characterized by "prudence" and "staying the course."
By contrast, John F. Kennedy in 1961 boldly challenged the nation to commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade was out, of "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." In doing so, he ignited for many Americans a sense of possibility that led to countless technological innovations that now touch on almost every aspect of our lives.
While we can argue about whether the costs and dangers of continued space exploration and manned space flight make sense today, I think we'd be reluctant to give back the myriad benefits that accrued to us from that initial mission--including that shared sense of possibility. Our ability to create better energy and health systems will depend on a similar collective confidence. Whether pursuing tough incremental advances or quantum leaps, we won't get far without a willingness to believe in a previously unimaginable future state.
Will I ever sing a high C in public? Who knows? It may simply be a matter of emulating the White Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, who responds to Alice's assertion that "one can't believe impossible things": "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Maybe I just need a little more practice.
Vicky Schubert is marketing director of Pegasus Communications