Casting vision is one of the most important things leaders do. Leaders are charged with the responsibility to clarify bold vision for the future and communicate the vision in a way that generates buy-in and catalyzes movement.
But vision casting is also an art. You can’t vision cast from the hip, treating it like a thoughtless leadership activity that requires little planning and preparation. When we take that approach, we inevitably cast a vision that is too big, too small, too wide, too narrow, too fast, or too slow. Here are the dangers in each approach.
The SIZE of Vision Casting:
1. Vision Casting That’s TOO BIG Creates a Loss of Credibility
Vision should be big—really big—but it can’t be so big that it undermines your credibility. In other words, the size of the vision has to be matched by the size of the leader. When the size of a vision outpaces you as a leader, a credibility gap forms and people will start jumping ship. This doesn’t mean they don’t like the vision; it means they don’t believe you’ve got the goods to get them there. Therein lies an important lesson: The bigger you grow personally, the bigger the vision you can cast organizationally.
2. Vision Casting That’s TOO SMALL Creates a Loss of Excitement
People want to be challenged. People want to be inspired. But if your vision doesn’t challenge or inspire, people will remain seated in their lawn chairs and yawn with boredom. Tiny visions produce tiny buy-in. Simply put, when vision is too small, it feels routine. It’s like a re-run of yesterday with a lazy afternoon nap dropped in the middle of the day. There’s no excitement.
The SCOPE of Vision Casting:
3. Vision Casting That’s TOO WIDE Creates a Loss of Focus
Big is all about size whereas wide is all about quantity. In other words, big says, “Let’s take Mount Everest.” Wide says, “Let’s take every mountain in the world.” When your vision gets too wide, people feel confused about what you’re trying to accomplish. Rather than being focused, the vision tries to accomplish everything, everywhere. That’s an impossible feat.
4. Vision Casting That’s TOO NARROW Creates a Loss of Movement
A narrow vision might be focused (which is good), but the problem narrow visions have is that they apply to so few people that you can never reach a tipping point of momentum. In other words, if in a church of 1,000 people, the vision only feels relevant or applicable to 10 people, you’ll never gain traction. The vision is simply too narrow to jumpstart major forward movement.
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The SPEED of Vision Casting:
5. Vision Casting That’s TOO FAST Creates a Loss of Buy-In
Think of vision casting like peeling back the layers of an onion. You have to cast the vision to one organizational layer at a time until the vision permeates the entire organization. When we launched a major vision campaign at 7 City Church, I rolled the vision out to my wife, then my inner circle, then the staff, then the board, then high-capacity donors, then the volunteers, and then the entire congregation. All of these were separate meetings spread over the course of several months, but the outcome was worth it. The bigger the vision, the longer the runway. You can’t get a 787 vision airborne on a Cessna runway.
6. Vision Casting That’s TOO SLOW Creates a Loss of Unity
I once knew a leader that was so slow in his vision casting that the people in his organization started creating their own visions. In other words, a lack of vision created division. That’s what happens when you wait too long to cast vision. You make room for petty visions to surface that distract and divide the efforts of your team and organization. Unity suffers when leaders drag their feet on setting direction for the future.
The sweet spot of vision casting is in the middle…the right size, scope, and speed. So, before you start casting vision, ask yourself if the magnet of “Too” is pulling your vision in an unhealthy direction. If it’s too big, too small, too wide, too narrow, too fast, or too slow, you’ll lose buy-in and diminish your impact.
