How's this for vision...
"America is a tune. It must be sung together." Gerald Stanley Lee
Vision.
I blog this each year as I have found it to be one of the finest examples of vision I've ever found. I talk about vision all the time in organizations and help them create vision statements which inspire. Bill Gates imagined a computer on the desk of every person. Martin Luther King imagined children of all races playing together on the playground. Neither of these men were entirely sure how to get there.
This below is a letter from John Adams to his wife Abbigail on July 3rd, 1776. Note that Congress voted to approve independence on the 2nd of July and formally adopted the declaration on the 4th. John Adams knew well the great struggles which lie ahead but he could imagine a future. That is what leaders do and, with courage and conviction, they rally their teammates behind a vision because they know the end is worth all of the means. Happy Independence Day everyone! United we stand. Divided we fall.
Make it Personal!
Rob
"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epocha, in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.
You will think me transported with enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means. And that posterity will triumph in that days transaction, even altho we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not."
John Adams
Rob Campbell