Vision is widely acknowledged to be one of the prominent traits of inspirational leadership. We expect our leaders to inspire us with new horizons and be our guiding lights for our journey into the future. Yet, while we easily identify the critical nature of 'vision' in the toolkit of great leaders, we provide little direction on how to develop and grow one's personal visionary capacity.

The recently developed, academically grounded module 'Raising Visionary Capacity' provides a developmental learning and practice framework by identifying the critical dimensions of visionary capacity, and creating a leadership practice field for experimentation with practical approaches and methods to grow these capabilities.

Sessions are designed to run between a half day (minimum 2.5 hrs) and a full day (8 hrs). Group sizes of 20 to 35 participants are common, but smaller groups (12 people) and larger groups (up to 120 people) have been accommodated.

The session uses a variety of work forms, such as lecture, conversations, exploration, voting, reflection, duo exercises and meaningful and fun re-energizers.

For more download the full module description here.

References and Praise:

Wharton School of Business

as part of the 1-week leadership program designed for executives from US financial institutions. We delivered the module to 47 participants in an afternoon session, and ran the add-on module 'Visionary Communication' in an evening session.

Nyenrode Business University

as part of a multiple module leadership program designed for executive and non-executive board members. We ran a 3 hour workshop, 21 participants. It rated 4.5 (out of 5), with praise such as 'Eye opener on how to look at future developments', 'Inspiring View' and 'Fantastic story, clear and good graphics'.

Multi-national leasing company

part of company's in-house executive leadership program, we ran several full day workshops based on this module. Ratings varied between 4.4 and 4.7.

FutureFacts™ is a rich, comprehensive and unique visioning and planning method, pioneered and extensively used by Vongolo Consulting. It stimulates a structured dialogue around provocative and unconventional future events and future directions, discussing and rating rationale and likelihood as well as impact on the organization. By weaving these ideas into a handful of coherent and engaging stories about the future, it becomes possible to see the most resourceful course of action for the organization.

The methodology is supported by a powerful web environment that ensures an on-going strategic exploration of the future.

The strategic capacity of every leader is directly correlated to the ability to develop and maintain a future-oriented perspective. Not only pivotal for discovering the best route forward, but acting in a future-oriented fashion is a source of inspiration and motivation to the whole organisation.

FuturePriming™ is a proprietary technique, developed by Vongolo Consulting, to raise this capacity in an intuitive manner. The technique takes a fundamentally different angle to dealing with change. The FuturePriming process tickles imagination, pushes boundaries in thinking, and provides a deceptively simple structure for practical use. As a result, the ability to identify change earlier than others is significantly strengthened.

Scenario Planning is a proven methodology to structurally explore the future by developing several equally plausible futures, drawing implications and generating strategic options. The Scenario Planning methodology was developed during the 1970's at Royal Dutch Shell, and has since been adopted by many companies as a rich future scanning approach.

Vongolo has extensive experience organizing and facilitating these sessions. Content-oriented Scenario Planning sessions typically take between 1 to 2 days, training sessions (in combination with raising awareness to future-orientation) typically cover a half day.

In partnership with Decision Strategies International

An intensive, exploratory workshop based on the recent cooperation between professor Paul Schoemaker (Wharton School of Business, and international thought leader on decision making under uncertainty) and Vongolo Consulting.

Based on the co-authored and highly praised article 'Beyond the Downturn', this workshop is aimed at understanding the fundamental, long term changes that have become uncovered by the recent economic developments. The learnings are applied to validate, assess and refresh your strategy and prepare for future transitions by reducing risks, generating ideas and options that take a variety of plausible scenarios into account.

This half or full-day workshop is intended for Board Room Executives and Management Teams, and provides a perfect platform to facilitate a powerful strategy off-site and board retreat.

In partnership with Enact

Based on the international best selling book Blue Ocean Strategy by INSEAD Professors W. Chan Kim and R. Mauborgne, the Blue Ocean Simulation is the ideal way to engage in depth with the concept, ideas and practices of this landmark work on innovation.

The program has participants practice and test Blue Ocean Strategy moves and provides them with a deeper understanding of what it takes to switch from a Red Ocean to a Blue Ocean strategic mindset. It's an invaluable hands-on experience, which dramatically empowers organisations to build forward-oriented, innovative company cultures.

In partnership with Decision Strategies International

How do we know that we make the best decision? What causes blindspots, cognitive dissonance and irrationality? And what pitfalls undermine decisions, and how can these be prevented?

Learn to make better business decisions in challenging situations. The Critical Thinking module has been developed by Decision Strategies International, the consultancy firm founded by prof. Paul Schoemaker (Wharton School of Business), with faculty relationships with Wharton, Insead/Cedep and Duke University.

This state-of-the-art module focuses on reframing issues so that the right problems are addressed, distinguishing systematic patterns from random events and identifying acceptable risks in alternative decisions. By exploring and experimentation, you are exposed to the hidden risks of irrationality involved in the decision making process, learn how to recognize them and prepare for better decision making in the future.

In partnership with the Pearl Group

Navigating the future is no longer the preserve of the strategy department. Whatever your position, you will be spending an increasing amount of time thinking about and trying to anticipate what's coming. Our Rehearse the Future program is a whole brain, whole person approach that draws on your intuition and imagination, just as much as on your reason and experience.

Developed and offered in partnership with the Pearl Group, an ensemble of specialists from the performing arts and creative disciplines, this program is not theorising about what is coming, but has you engaged in a real-time, improvisational experience in which you get to live the future, and rehearse the choices and options that you will face down the road. This is not a role-play program, but a fundamentally new experience to help you get into your future skin, so when the future arrives you'll be ready!

In partnership with the Pearl Group

Some say 'Practice makes perfect', we say 'Practice makes practical'. Since our earliest school days we've known that learning goes by practicing. Yet in business, this message is all but practised.

MyPracticeField.com offers a unique infrastructure to support experimentation with newly acquired skills, insights and behaviours in your day-to-day reality. So that practicing is not 'on top of' but integrated into the things you do anyway. By providing deceptively simple prompts, reminders, awareness messages, “practicioners” are encouraged over a sustained period to practice new ways of acting and working.

A variety of practice programs is available, e.g. on Vision Development, Engagement, Innovation and Inspiration, to leverage your development investment and bank your learning in practice.

The Connecting Conversations program connects the different parts of the organisation from the bottom up, crosses in-company boundaries that normally remain uncrossed and brings a unique human dimension into the organisation.

By facilitating frequent loosely structured lunch conversation between two colleagues who would otherwise have remained strangers to eachother, silos are bridged, knowledge transfer is accomodated and a shared culture is created that helps overcome hurdles and barriers that stand in the way of one company feeling and behaviour.

In particular during phases of change and uncertainty, the Connecting Conversations program (and its on-line platform that takes away the logistical hurdles to manage these connections) is an invaluable tool to bond the company together and radiate positive energy while going through transformation.