Speaker: Vision is terrifically important, and without vision of where a company is going, or in any organization, it is going to be very hard to get anywhere in a coherent way. The second part of your question about how do you communicate it, the way I would approach how do you communicate a vision is kind of step back and say, well, how do you develop a vision in the first place? The communication of it then has to follow what's the development. I've been in some situations where the leader had a vision, the leader thought the vision was compelling, then he went out to communicate it and found that people weren't buying it, or they weren't fully buying it, and so forth. And so, the communication of the vision wasn't the issue. The issue was: how do you get people to find meaning in it, and personal meaning for them, so that they connect to it, and they have a line of sight with “what does it mean to me?”, because we all have “what does it mean to me?” written on our foreheads, looking at somebody, and that is kind of what we are all thinking all the time, or feeling. So to me, the critical question about developing a vision is: given the whole set of circumstances for whatever the organism is, what is the best way to develop the vision, so that you can get buy in and a feeling of personal connectedness about it, and that dictates what the communication process is going to be, and the degree in which it's . . . 2 way or multi way, or one way, or just what. So to me the heart of it is: yep you need a vision, and what's the best way to come up with it?

Speaker: I would like to give a quick example from one of the organizations that has been involved in Tennessee Quality, and it's an organization called Caterpillar Financial Services out of Nashville . Their approach, they had a good trainer here. They actually brought in outside individuals to go worldwide and interview a cross section of employees, I mean they did in the field, in the board room, in the cubicle to find out what's important to you, what gets you here daily, what's your vision of the organization, what values do you have that are important to you to be able to contribute to the overall well being? Out of that, they published a book, which is the words of the employees, on their vision and their values associated with the organization. So anyone new that comes into that organization has the book, and I promise you you can identify with it, and out of that is the guiding principle and document that they use to drive all decision making. So that is a very real part of it, this step to our vision and our values.

Speaker: I would suggest that you don't have to go far from Tennessee Tech to look at a good example of the kind of leadership we are talking about here. Your President, who was new two years ago, certainly exhibited that leadership in this school, and he has a vision for the University that some of us see as we visit here, and as we talk with him from time to time, and he is not one of these folks who gets on a horse and leads a raid, but he certainly leads effectively, and he's a caring person, and he's an effective person. Those are examples that I think address that question.