Turn your vision into action

Following on from last week’s blog Win an award, create a vision, I wanted to help you keep the momentum going.  

A clear and unified vision is the foundation for moving towards success, a wonderful thing to have – and completely useless if there is no action.

How do you move your vision towards action?

Begin with a group brainstorm. Involve everyone in the process. Below are some tips to add to your own ideas.

Use a metaphor

Using a metaphor is a great way of approaching this, and adding some fun. A few suggestions would be the metaphor of a journey with an end clearly defined.

A surfing metaphor using waves as the theme, catching each wave, what are the peaks, the troughs? What occurred for you to get dumped and how did you respond?

Create visuals using large charts. Organise the information into themes; challenges (current and future); guiding principles; collective aspirations, personal aspirations (how do these connect/align with the team’s aspirations). Bring in values and purpose, your why for doing this.

Set clearly defined goals and create a timeline that shows individual and group responsibilities, allocate dates that each task will be completed by.  Again, get creative and draw a timeline on your chart.

Determine “what” and “how”

Be specific about what you are going to do and how. Allocate who is responsible for each task.

Walk the path

Once you have your plan laid out, begin taking steps towards it everyday. The steps can be bold and large or small and steady, or a mix of both. The important part is to keep moving towards your goals.

Reassess and adjust

During this process there may be challenges and obstacles; identify them, be flexible, open-minded and willing to face each with determination and creativity.

Re-affirm your goals on a regular basis and make adjustments as needed. Create from what presents itself rather than fighting against it.

Challenge the “business as usual” approach. What needs to change to help you achieve your outcomes?

Game plan

Create a clear and concise plan that is easily understood. You may want to use your visual charts as a structure to keep you focused on your outcomes.

Accountability

Ensure that you set times and dates for action items to be completed and specify by whom.

Have fun.

Pollyanna Lenkic is the founder of Perspectives Coaching, an Australian based coaching and training company. She is an experienced facilitator, certified coach and a certified practitioner of NLP. In 1990 she co-founded a specialist IT recruitment consultancy in London, which grew to employ 18 people and turnover £11 million ($27 million). This blog is about the mistakes she made and the lessons she learned building a business the first time round and how to do it better second time round. For more information go to www.perspectivescoaching.com.au

For more Second Time Around, click here.