What's Your Big "V" Vision?
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