"Truly great [professionals] understand the difference between what should never change and what should be open for change, between what is genuinely sacred and what is not. This rare ability to manage continuity and change--requiring a consciously practiced discipline--is closely linked to the ability to develop a vision."
Introduction
The passage above is from Jim Collins and Jerry Porras's Building Your Company's Vision, originally published in the September-October 1996 issue of the Harvard Business Review and derived from their work together on Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. (The HBR article is freely available, or you can purchase and download a PDF from HBR or Amazon.)
Collins and Porras's article was originally aimed at organizational leaders and intended to highlight the value of a corporate vision, but I've found in my coaching practice that their principles apply equally to individuals and can be readily adapted to help a person define their own professional vision. (For example, I've substituted "professionals" for "companies in the passage above, and coaching clients of mine have found this quote personally meaningful to them. I suspect that the transferability of Collins and Porras's ideas from organizations to individuals derives in part from Porras's study of systems theory and the many parallels between organizations and individuals from a systems theory perspective.)
Please note: The concepts and language below are derived from Collins and Porras's original work, which I've merely adapted and modified for use by individuals. For a fuller exploration of Collins and Porras's ideas, I highly encourage you to read Building Your Company's Vision and Built to Last in full.
Developing Your Professional Vision
A professional vision consists of two interrelated elements:
- Your CORE IDEOLOGY: What you stand for and why you exist as a professional, lasting qualities that in some cases will never change over the course of your lifetime.
- An ENVISIONED FUTURE: What you aspire to become, achieve, or create--a vividly described goal that will change only at long-term intervals.
Let's discuss each of these elements and their constituent components:
Your CORE IDEOLOGY
Your core ideology defines what you stand for and aspire to achieve as a professional. It consists of 1. Your Core Values and 2. Your Core Purpose. Be aware that you can't create your core ideology; you discover it. You won't deduce it by observing anything in your external environment; you understand it by looking within yourself. Your core ideology must be authentic and genuine. It is not relevant to consider what core values you should have or what your core purpose ought to be. Aspirations may be part of your long-term envisioned future or your short-term strategies, but they're not elements of your core ideology. (You may identify authentic core values that have weakened over time, but you should also acknowledge the great effort that will likely be required to revitalize them.)
This emphasis on authenticity is important because the purpose of your core ideology is to guide and inspire you, not to differentiate yourself from anyone else. Other people may readily share your core values or purpose. What will distinguish you is the consistency with which you live by your core ideology, not its content.
1. Your Core Values
Your core values are your essential and enduring tenets. These guiding principles require no external justification and have intrinsic value, meaning and relevance to your conduct as a professional. You will not alter your core values in response to changes in your circumstances or external environment; rather, you will change jobs or even professions in order to remain true to your core values.
You'll have to push with relentless honesty to define the values that are truly central for you. After drafting a preliminary list of potential core values, ask yourself the following five questions about each item:
- If for any reason this value became a disadvantage and you were somehow penalized for maintaining it, would you continue to live by it?
- If you were advising your children about their core values, how important should this value be in their professional lives?
- If you were independently wealthy, how significantly would this value continue to affect your dealings with other people?
- If you were to launch a new career in an entirely different profession, how important would this value be to you?
- Do you expect this value to be equally valid for you a year from now? Ten years from now? Twenty-five years from now?
Aim to narrow down your list to three, four or (at most) five items. If more than five values remain on your list after asking these questions, consider whether you're confusing values (which rarely change, if ever) with strategies (which should change as often as necessary).
2. Your Core Purpose
Your core purpose is your professional reason for being. It reflects your idealistic motivations for working. Your core purpose is a concept that should have meaning and relevance throughout your entire career, and it shouldn't be confused with professional goals, which may change frequently during your lifetime.
Your core purpose is like a compass heading: it defines a course for you to follow, but it is not a destination that you can reach. But even though your core purpose doesn't change, it will inspire change. The fact that your core purpose can't be entirely fulfilled should drive you forward.
You can begin to understand your core purpose through a "Five Whys" exercise. First, state what you do as a professional in clear and simple language. Then ask yourself, "Why is this important?" Answer the question as clearly and simply as possible, and use your answer to redefine what you do as a professional. Then ask yourself, "Why is this important?" again, and repeat the process four more times. Each cycle should help you define your professional purpose at a deeper and more fundamental level. It may take fewer than five "Whys?" or it may take more, but at a certain point you will have a sense that this is your core purpose.
Another approach is to ask yourself, "If I woke up tomorrow independently wealthy, what would keep me working in my current job? What deeper sense of purpose would motivate me to dedicate my valuable energies to this career, if there were no need for financial rewards?"
The point of these exercises is not to create a perfectly crafted list of core values and definition of core purpose. The point is to gain a deep understanding of your values and purpose, to enable you to live and express these concepts in a consistent way throughout your career.
Don't confuse core ideology with core competencies. The latter define "What you're good at," while the former defines "What you stand for and why you exist." Your ideology and competencies should be aligned and are often related, but they're still different concepts, with different implications for guiding your career.
Finally, once you've defined your core ideology, be aware that you are now fully free to change anything that's not part of the core. If it's not core, you can change it! Which brings us to...
YOUR ENVISIONED FUTURE
Like your core ideology, your envisioned future also consists of two parts: 1. An Audacious Goal and 2. A Vivid Description of what it would be like to accomplish that goal.
1. An Audacious Goal
Ordinary goals are, well, ordinary. Audacious goals...
- Look beyond your current capabilities and environment.
- Are clear and tangible, requiring little or no explanation.
- Are compelling, energizing and engaging.
- Focus your efforts on their fulfillment.
- Have a defined finish line.
By definition, an audacious goal may have a modest chance of success, but it also compels you to believe that you can--and you will--achieve it.
Take care not to confuse your audacious goal with your core purpose. You will one day achieve your audacious goal and move on to new ones, but you will never fulfill your core purpose. If your audacious goal is a mountain to climb, your core purpose is a guiding star on the horizon.
2. A Vivid Description
This is a vibrant, engaging and specific description of what it would be like to achieve your audacious goal. It may be useful to think of it not only in linguistic terms but also in images, as if it were a picture you could carry around with you to instantly communicate your audacious goal to others and to remind yourself of what success would feel like.
Passion, emotion and conviction are essential elements of a truly vivid description. You can't just describe it; you have to feel it.
If identifying your core ideology is a process of discovery, determining your envisioned future is an act of creativity. You may find it tempting to "analyze" your way into the future, but this approach may not yield success. If you're having difficulty identifying your audacious goal, it may be more effective to start from a vivid description of what success would feel like (by any definition of "success" that is relevant to you). This involves asking questions like the following:
- Where do you see yourself in ten or even 25 years?
- If a journalist in the future were to write an article about you and your success, what would the article be about? What topics would it cover?
- What limits have you set for yourself as a professional? And what would it look like if you exceeded those limits?
Note that there is no "right" envisioned future. Your vision is the vision that you find exciting and stimulating. Don't measure it using other people's yardsticks.
Ultimately, your vision is not a text that exists separate from your career; your vision will be defined by the actions that you take as a professional. An outside observer should be able to infer your vision by watching what you do without ever reading it on paper. So...what's your professional vision?
Appendix: Developing Your Professional Vision Exercises
Here's a streamlined version of the steps described above, which is also available as a set of PowerPoint slides (148 KB):
CORE IDEOLOGY
1. Core Values
List your values, ask the following questions about
each one, and narrow down your list to three, four or (at most) five core values:
- If for any reason this value became a disadvantage and you were
somehow penalized for maintaining it, would you continue to live by it?
- If you were advising your children about their core values, how important should this value be in their professional lives?
- If you were independently wealthy, how significantly would this value continue to affect your dealings with other people?
- If you were to launch a new career in an entirely different profession, how important would this value be to you?
- Do you expect this value to be equally valid for you a year from now? Ten years from now? Twenty-five years from now?
2. Core Purpose
("Five Whys") State what you do as a professional in clear and
simple language. Then ask yourself, "Why is this important?" Use your answer to
redefine what you do as a professional, and then ask, "Why is
this important?" again, and repeat the process four more times. It may take fewer than five "Whys?" or it may
take more, but at a certain point you will have a sense that this is
your core purpose.
ENVISIONED FUTURE
1. Audacious Goal
Identify an audacious goal that...
- Looks beyond your current capabilities and environment.
- Is clear and tangible, requiring little or no explanation.
- Is compelling, energizing and engaging.
- Focuses your efforts on its fulfillment.
- Has a defined finish line.
2. Vivid Description
Describe what it
would be like to achieve your audacious goal. Think not only in linguistic terms but also in images, as if it
were a picture you could carry around with you. Start from
a vivid description of what success would feel like. Ask yourself:
- Where do you see yourself in ten or even 25 years?
- If a journalist in the future were to write an article about you
and your success, what would the article be about? What topics would
it cover?
- What limits have you set for yourself as a professional? And what would it look like if you exceeded those limits?
Many thanks to Jim Collins and Jerry Porras for their groundbreaking work in Building Your Company's Vision and Built to Last.
Gear image courtesy of Icons Etc.
