I just got back from a trip to Vietnam and having returned from a country where religion plays a far greater part in everyday life than it does here, it prompted me to think about what we use instead.
One of the thoughts I had about this in a business context was that leaders in a largely secular environment tend to use vision to serve a lot of the same purposes as religion does in wider society.
1) Both vision and religion unite people in a common view
2) Both encourage people to see the bigger picture
3) Both provide a source of strength and direction in the tough times
I'm sure there are more but just taking those three points provides enough of a reason why you'd want to make sure that you have a clear vision for your team or organisation that everyone is bought into.
I received this comment from one of my team and I thought it was really interesting...
ReplyDeleteThe main difference between vision and religion for me (and why I prefer the former) is that a vision is open to interpretation and malleability. Religion has always struck me as "you're either in or you're out", whereas a (good) company vision should be something you can contribute to and shape by participating in it. Any company who took a dogmatic approach to their vision would either completely cock it up or become the new Google. And that makes me wonder if you even can be dogmatic about innovation and freedom?
A nice parallel drawn - perhaps business could try to use some of the lessons learned by religion in the past to engender even greater commitment to the collective cause?
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