By Stephen Tweed, CSP

Several weeks ago, I was re-reading Andy Stanley’s wonderful book, Visioneering. Andy is the pastor of North Point Community Church, a three campus church community in the northern suburbs of Atlanta. I picked up his Visioneering book some time ago when I saw the cover and was immediately drawn to the title.

As you know, we’ve been big on vision as part of the process of growing your home care business. Our four corner stones: Assessment, Direction, Competitive Advantage and Measurement rely on vision as part of setting direction. Perhaps you’ve heard me speak and tell the story of the young man in the audience in California who said to the group, “Vision without action is hallucination.” Then in another program, a participant responded to that, “Yes, and action without vision is confusion.”

We want neither hallucination nor confusion when it comes to seeing the future of our home health or hospice businesses.

I define vision as “a consciously created fantasy of what could be, fueled by the conviction that it should be”.

Andy Stanley says about vision:

“Visions are born in the soul of a man or a woman who is consumed with the tension between what is and what could be.”

How do you feel about the status quo in your home health agency or hospice? How does the tension play out between what is and what could be?

What is your vision for the future of your home health care business? What actions will you take to turn that vision into reality?

I’m in full agreement with Andy Stanley’s definition of “Visioneering.” It is “the course one takes to turn vision into reality”.

The ‘visioneering process’, as we practice it at Leading Home Care, has seven steps:

1. Assessment – Where are you now?

2. Visioning – Where do you want to be? What does your ideal future look like?

3. Force Field Analysis – Define the driving forces pushing you toward your vision, and the restraining forces that are blocking your path.

4. Competitive Advantage – Define what makes your home health agency or hospice different from your competitors. Home Care & Hospice are more competitive now than ever before in history.

5. “Strategic Plan at a Glance” – your one-page plan for achieving your vision.

6. High Value Activities and High Value Contacts – initiatives that will move you toward your ideal future.

7. Measurement – Setting up a strategic scorecard to measure and manage your progress.

Another aspect of this process is “vision casting”. That’s the process of painting a word picture of a possible and desirable future. Visionary leaders of home care companies are “Vision Casters” who continually paint word pictures for their team members about where the company is going, and what the future will look like. They paint a positive picture of hope and change, and then develop strategies for Visioneering . . . turning those word pictures into reality.

Whether you are developing a new strategy to grow your business, or concentrating your next ACHC accreditation survey with flying colors, you can use the Visioneering process to develop focused initiatives to get the outcomes you seek.

About the Author: Stephen Tweed is Chairman and CEO of Leading Home Care … a Tweed Jeffries company. He works with CEOs and senior exectives of home health agencies and hospices who want to grow their business and get ready for the future. He can be reached at www.leadinghomecare.com or at 502-339-0653.