In order to invent the future, we first must have a "picture" of what we want that future to be.

The vision communicates to everyone what is ultimately important to the organisation and helps to align systems, structure, strategy, relationships, leadership styles, culture and skills.

Many have described it as the "glue" that holds the organisation together.

When there is a genuine vision (as opposed to the all-to-familiar "vision statement"), people excel and learn, not because they are told to, but because they want to.

A shared vision lifts people to a new height as they strive for what they truly believe in.

It creates a dynamic tension or energy by generating a gap between current reality and the desired future state.

Peter Senge (MIT,1991) likens this tension to stretching a rubber band between your hands. If you hold one hand steady, the other is pulled towards it. So it is with a shared vision. If the vision is held firm, people's actions try to close the gap to that future state.

Many managers make the mistake of thinking that they can create a vision for the organisation and then "hand" this vision down to their employees.

In this process they are presupposing that one individual can hand their personal vision, which they care deeply about, to another person and have that person believe in it to the same degree. Obviously this is not possible.

Most teams actually share a deep, fundamental sense of alignment, where member's personal visions are linked to the team and the organisation, but until they can give voice to these common aspirations, teams cannot build upon them.