The process of visioning may seem both daunting, and mysterious. Indeed it is in no way a straightforward method and there are always rocky rapids to navigate. An understanding of the make-up of this journey will create better results for this process to be a success.
Visioning – the process of coming up with breakthrough ideas – is often assumed to be an isolated and instantaneous affair. We have images of the isolated creative genius experiencing a moment of eureka! in the bathtub, or a great vision while fasting in the desert. What commonly happens is that a new concept is developed over a sustained period of time. Looking back, such a period will be riddled with moments of serendipity, moments where lucky connections, unexpected insights and breakthroughs made the difference. These breakthroughs are rarely the product of one mind; they almost always are the result of cross-pollination of ideas, and approaches from a different field being applied to the field the creative person is working on.
If creative leadership can enable their teams to work and interact in an open, connected network, this significantly increases the chance of these ‘lucky’ moments. We know that being an extravert does not correlate with being creative, but being connected does. According to Steven Johnson (‘Where good ideas come from’) this connection is what happened in the 18th century’s coffeehouses in Europe: these spaces allowed different perspectives, experiences, and areas of expertise to connect, which created a fertile environment for innovation, which for one thing led to the period of Enlightenment.