Vision Casting

When I reentered the workforce after 10 years of being a stay-at-home mom, I had one of the most unconventional mentorships. My mentor took me on and assigned me to all his side projects. As I worked alongside him, I watched as he created the brand, image, and vision for a wide variety of company concepts. The thing that was so unusual about this situation was the rapid-fire pace. Business concepts would be created and flushed out creatively within weeks. Any disruption to the business model would cause the project to be dropped unceremoniously.

It was an accelerated crash course in marketing and branding. To hear my mentor talk, you could imagine the business one to three years out. This was a god given gift to vision cast and enroll others in the possibility of what could be. What I learned over time is that anything could be looked at through this same lens of marketing and branding as a vehicle of vision casting.

When people ask me what I do in my role of a Business Relationship Manager, I say I do English to English translations between departments. I paint a future where silos between departments are broken down and innovation can thrive. I slowly infiltrate the negative talk (e.g. ‘not my job’, ‘we don’t do that here’) and replace those beliefs with new visions of the future that empower individuals to embrace being the authors of change. I allow them to imagine what a convergence of business objectives across the enterprise could look like. A future where there is ease and flow interdepartmentally.

The key to vision casting is in the storytelling. In business, I plant a lot of seeds (visions) that could be harvested two years out when timing is better. When I do this, it is a very directed campaign to change the culture and way people feel about the future and the possibilities it holds. I will continuously sell these visions and watch for the changes in perception of the future. I have found that using this technique allows for change in a slower more gradual way where people feel like they have more opportunity within their role to shape and control their workspaces. Individuals are encouraged to start thinking of solutions to problems that would not have been expected of them in the normal course of business. Vision casting is how leaders can inspire people, regardless of position in the company, to embrace being change agents.