5 Questions to Ask When Casting Vision
You’ve been casting your vision but is your vision catching on? Over the past 15 years of learning and leading, I’ve found these 5 questions helpful to ask when you are on the brink of casting you vision.
1. Am I casting the WHAT or the WHY?
In the book, Start With Why, author Simon Sinek writes: “every person on the planet knows what they do. Most people know how they do it. Very few people know why they do what they do.”One of my favorite examples of casting “the why” is from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He’s one of my all time favorite leaders and a man I greatly admire. If you remember he did not approach the podium that day in 1963 and say I have a plan, instead he said “I have a dream”! He casted his WHY and the rest was history.
2. Does the vision STILL move me?
Are you still “the leader in belief”? There was a day when you could hardly speak the vision out loud without tears rolling down your face. We need to return to that day and lead from that place.
There will be seasons when your eyes and soul are dry, I’ve been there too. In those seasons rest and ask God to renew your passion and deploy other leaders to take the torch for a time but friends, at some point we have to be MOVED by the vision for it to move others.
3. Is it memorable?
One of the biggest traps we fall into while casting vision is we make it too thorough. Your vision can either be thorough or memorable but it cannot be both. People latch onto things they can remember and I’ve yet to sign up for something or give to something that I could not remember. One of the keys to making our vision memorable is by hunting for a metaphor. A metaphor is often what makes our visions, viral. They become contagious because now people can carry them to other people. When you hear people talking about your vision, that are not on the payroll, you’re onto something. That means your vision is now carry-able, it has handles and something that has handles can be carries a lot of places.
4. Who would suffer the most if we didn’t accomplish the vision?
This question is an easy one to bypass but it’s one of the keys to casting a vision that people willingly sacrifice for. Nothing will be moved down the field without sacrifice and if the vision is about us, it wont’ get very far. Think through the names of real people, real neighbors, real barista’s and real family members you started your organization to serve and bless. So many leaders, due to fatigue, end up drifting into self preservation mode. The vision becomes about themselves instead of those they originally started it for. When that takes place, like Elvis, the vision has left the building.
5. What is my system for casting vision?
My 5th and final question might seem disconnected from the others but while I have you here and while you’re excited to cast vision, take that energy and build a system that will ensure the regular casting of your vision.
Why?
As it’s been said before, “vision leaks”. Some of the seasons I regret as a leader are those seasons where I only casted the vision when I felt like it. A vision casting system creates a regularity and rhythm for keeping the vision in front of those you’re leading. Without a system your vision casting will become accidental or random.
Those are my 5, if you’d add any, leave a comment below!
Onward!