How to write a vision anyone will actually remember
Draft the better-future version, compress it, then run the stranger test. If they cannot repeat it back tomorrow, it is not finished.
Most organizations do not have a vision that people in the building understand or connect to their own daily work. That is closer to the norm than the exception, and the gap shows up in more than morale.
Here is the part nobody says out loud. Most leaders who call themselves visionary have never done the hard, boring work of writing the vision down in words a stranger could understand. That is the real reason great ones are rare. It is not a gift some founders have and others do not. It is a writing exercise most people quit before finishing.
A vision should describe a future where the company has made things better, for customers, for the people who work there, and for the community around it. Not a longer feature list with a mission statement stapled to the front. This worksheet walks the draft and then tests it on someone with no context.
What you get
- Three drafting prompts for the better-future version
- A compression step, one paragraph with no jargon and no metrics
- The stranger test, with the three questions to ask and space for what they actually said
- Two failure modes to check yourself against, including the vision that only lives in the CEO's head
Where should we send it?
One email with the worksheet. You can unsubscribe from anything else in one click.
On its way
Check your inbox. If it has not landed in a minute or two, look in promotions or spam, and add sam@startuppatterns.com to your contacts so the rest arrive.
Adapted from the Organization chapter of The Mindful Product Company by Sam McAfee.