Vision Core · Vision Statement · Module
Reachability
Whether the vision is actually attainable, on what horizon, and what would have to become true first — the half that separates ambition from fantasy.
The idea
How it works
Kotter’s list of what makes a vision effective includes feasible, and it is the criterion most often quietly dropped. A vision nobody privately believes produces cynicism rather than effort, and the cynicism attaches to everything else the leadership says.
The useful analysis is the gap: what is true today, what has to be true at the horizon, and which of the differences the organisation can actually influence. A vision resting entirely on conditions outside its control is a forecast.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
State the gap in both directions
Where the organisation is now and where the vision puts it. The size of the gap is what determines whether anyone believes it.
- 02
Separate what you control from what you do not
A vision depending on a market shift is a bet. That is legitimate and it should be named as one.
- 03
Ask privately whether people believe it
Publicly everyone agrees. The private answer is the one that predicts effort.
- 04
Name the first thing that has to change
A ten-year vision with no identifiable first step is not yet connected to anything.
One level in
The components of reachability
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
The belief check
Whether the people who would have to deliver it privately think it is possible.
Learn
Ask privately whether people believe it. Public agreement is universal and predicts nothing.
The other modules in vision statement
The statement
The articulation itself: a future state with a horizon attached, written so that someone outside the room could tell whether it had been reached.
LearnWhat it rules out
The opportunities the vision makes it wrong to take — without which it cannot settle an argument, which is the only thing a vision is used for under pressure.
LearnProgress
Whether the organisation is closer than it was, established on evidence rather than on activity — because a decade-long vision is otherwise unexamined for a decade.
Learn