In no other profession has the concept of “vision” been so important as in landscape architecture. Many of the country’s earliest and greatest cities were laid out by visionary men with order and cultural stimulation as criteria: William Penn’s plan for Philadelphia, L’Enfants’s majestic plan for Washington D.C., Burnham’s for Chicago and Howard’s Garden City concepts.

In fact, throughout history, individuals like Olmstted, Burnham, Jefferson, Sullivan and Downing have envisioned the environment as rational but bold, orderly but dazzling, and above all, an aesthetically pleasing world. These men embodied D.H. Burnham’s philosophy of design: “Make no little plans?EUR??,,????'??+they have no magic to stir man’s blood, and in themselves, will not be realized. Make big plans. Aim high in hope and work. Fora noble, logical diagram, once recorded, will never die.”

As landscape architects practice in today?EUR??,,????'???s society, these same visionary qualities are essential. Successful designer incorporate form, color, texture and size from the palette of design elements, but in planning their combination, must also be able to “see in their mind’s eye” that combination in various seasons and time periods five, ten, and many years into the future.

With such a vision being key to a landscape architect’s career success, one would expect that their firms would be driven by an equally powerful vision of where the firm is heading. Unfortunately, for most firms, it’s another case of the “the cobbler’s children having no shoes.” While the corporate world is riding the crest of the wave in using shared visions to create high performance organizations, most landscape architectural firms have yet to get into the water!

Why? While virtually all human efforts consist of a process of moving from what is now, toward what can be in the future, frequently landscape architectural firms fall into two significant traps along the way.

First, they limit their thinking to what “is now.” Problem solving becomes a barrier instead of a step as the focus on potential problems creates their own ultimate self fulfillment. The more they dwell on each problem, the more formidable it becomes. Usually, they give up, convinced they can’t win. Secondly, they may be able to envision what they want their practices to ultimately become, indecision or conflict over how to gets there thwarts productive efforts and stagnation results.

To avoid these two traps, you must first become clear about what you want from each situation, not what you don’t want. This “can be” orientation creates mental and physical energy and reveals the most appropriate avenues for you or your firm.

Until recently, the practical application of creating and implementing a firm vision was difficult to communicate and absorb. Through innovations in the human resources development field, the technology has been simplified to a point where it can be easily understood and incorporated into the management strategy of even a one-person firm.

The best approaches to developing shared visions can be gleaned from current organizational transformation programs. Here’s one:

The Process

Step 1. Ask yourself “What’s working?” What are the aspects of the current situation that are just the way you want it to be? Examples might be the chance to get your designs built, autonomy, a creative studio environment, etc.

Step 2. List the things that are not working. (What are the things about the current situation that are not the way you want them to be? Examples from some firms include insufficient income, ineffective marketing efforts, difficulty collecting accounts receivable or a portfolio of unrewarding projects.

Step 3. Examining each specific item in step 2, transform each one into a present tense statement of the result you want on teach issue. Example: Change “I’m not making enough money” to “I enjoy the compensation I desire and deserve.”

Step 4. Make the decision to choose an orientation toward excellence! Take one last look at the step 2 list and discard it forever. Focusing on the problems themselves will not make them go away and will do nothing but demotivate.

Step 5. Rewrite and integrate the above two paragraphs into a single idea. This will ultimately become your firm’s “Vision Statement.” Vision statements identify the rewards that will accrue to your team when corporate goals are met. The statement must integrate the personal vision of each member of your staff. It must respect the heritage of the organization’s past, but emphasize the promise of the future. Most importantly, it must be compact enough to be memorized and referred to often.

After your firm’s vision statement has been identified, maintain its motivating value with these three principles:

Discover the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy

Reflect back on someone who thought you had more talent or abilities than you thought. How did that affect your performance? Why not create those same expectations of performance for yourself, your peers and your staff? Performance expectations are a powerful force in creating excellent or mediocre firms, whichever expectation we choose. Commit your vision to memory. Reflect on it often. You will be amazed at the opportunities you will suddenly discover to help you make it a reality!

Release the Power of Visualization

The design process is one of creating things in your mind, committing them to paper, then seeing them constructed as you had visualized. Various solutions are mentally envisioned, analyzed and discarded before the optimal design is reached. In the same way, you can create mental pictures of how you and others will respond to the various events in the day-to-day management of your firm. Before an important meeting, presentation or interview, ask yourself: “What is the end result that I would like to create?” Then affirm it and visualize it as if you already had that result. If there is a particular project you are working on, whether it is an award submission, design project of marketing piece, write one page describing all the details of what it would be like if it turned out exactly the way you wanted. Then read and visualize that result each day to allow the power of your subconscious mind to work on it while you sleep.

Applying the Power of Group Process

While it may be time consuming, the commitment developed as a result of everyone’s participation always outperforms the compliance secured by coercion of force. Team members must “own” the solutions to the firm’s problems before they will be implemented. Likewise, they must “own” the “vision” of the form’s future before it becomes a reality.

Will implementing management by vision in your firm really make a difference? Our experience shows that the process of developing and truely implementing a shared vision in a firm improves staff productivity and enthusiasm for marketing and client service, as well as improving morale and staff retention at a time when qualified professionals are in short supply. However, the specific results your firm achieves will be determined (but not limited to) the priorities and goals you and your staff have set, the benefits are inherent: when everyone’s vision, commitment and work-focused energy align with a larger vision for the organization, people will actively seek ways to improve their own contribution.

Sounds like just the kind of thing D.H. Burnham would have prescribed.

Kerry Harding, ASLA, and Robert Heightchew, Jr., P.E., Ph.D., are principals in Organizational Excellence, Inc., a design-firm-centered consulting firm headquartered in Burke, Virginia. In addition to helping landscape architectural firms of all sizes improve their management and marketing programs, they are frequent speakers and authors to related design societies.

Acknowledgement: The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution to the ideas expressed here of Dr. Lewis E. Frees, creator of the Harmony Program of Organizational Transformation.