Vision and Values 69one with a sponsor who had responsibility for the project
and who would give a progress report to the group at the
next meeting. The group also took responsibility for success
in a way it had not done before. True, the company had its
back to the wall, but this group had met in previous years,
thrashed over the same sort of problems and then gone back
to their little empires and carried on doing what they had al-
ways done, and of course nothing had changed. Now they
could not do this because they were aware of their old dys-
functional patterns and how the system of the business was
working to keep them from changing. No single person
could change it, not even the new CEO, it had to be a team
effort. In business systems, the person who breaks step will
not be able to establish a new way unless enough people fol-
low to give the new system a chance of working. When teams
work together, being honest, trusting each other, being pre-
pared to confront limiting ideas with a shared vision and
having the strength of character to face unpalatable truths,
then great and rewarding changes can happen. Whoever is
at the front of the room facilitating the process, everyone in
the room is a leader.
Bibliography
Nanus, B.,Visionary Leadership, Jossey-Bass, 1992
Peters, Tom, Thriving on Chaos, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992
Quigley, J., Vision: How Leaders Develop It, Share It and Sustain
It, McGraw-Hill, 1993