Step 1: Choose your future with a compelling vision

1. Take time out from your busyness and invest time to assess where your team is heading.
2. Do the discovery exercise to identify what strengths your team can build on and what might excite them about the future. Answer the following questions:
   • What excites you about what your people are doing now?
   • What excites your people?
   • What does the team do really well, and what would happen if they could do more of it? What would you like your clients to be saying about your team in three years?
   • What are aims of the leadership above you, and what could your team do to give those aims some unexpected traction?
   • What’s happening in the market you serve and how could you anticipate and take advantage of those changes better than your competition?
3. Using your answers to the questions above, create a rough sketch of your vision. Don’t worry about getting the words right, focus on the key themes and points. Share your rough draft with your team and stakeholders around you, and seek their honest feedback. What are you learning? What does the feedback tell you?
4. Keep on iterating your version until you can confidently explain your conviction about what your vision is and what it isn’t. Your conviction will grow over time with the feedback you receive.
5. Celebrate! Having settled on your vision, you now have a future!