A vision is vague as long as it stays at one level. It only becomes concrete once you work it out in layers: from vision to vision state, from target to target state, each with its own degree of detail.
The problem is usually not that the vision is poorly formulated. The problem is that there is no intermediate step between the beautiful sentence on the first page of the strategy document and the daily decisions on the floor. That intermediate step is exactly what the four layers are for.
The management of a company with, say, 120 employees formulates as its vision: "we are the most trusted partner in our sector". Everyone nods in the management meeting. Three weeks later the sales department has no idea whether a deal with a discount fits that or not, and customer service doesn't know whether speed or thoroughness should weigh more heavily.
The vision itself doesn't need to change. What is missing is the vision state: what "trusted partner" means in three years' time in numbers, in behaviour, in choices that will then be self-evident. Without that layer, the vision remains a wishful sentence that everyone interprets differently. How you set up that translation step is explained on the page about how do you make a vision measurable.
A second reason a vision remains vague: it has only been discussed in the boardroom. The CFO interprets the word "trust" differently than the head of operations, and neither of them has ever compared that with each other.
In an organisation of this size, there are usually four to eight of these kinds of interpretations running alongside each other, without anyone noticing until two departments make opposing decisions that both "fit the vision". What helps is an ambition round in which not only management but the entire organisation contributes what the vision means for their role. That is a different conversation from a discussion about how you get your management aligned, although the two are connected: first the top has to agree on the direction itself, only then does a broader round have something to respond to.
Making a vision concrete seems like a straight line: vision, then goal, then action. In practice, eight dimensions run alongside each other at the same time, from customer value to organisational structure to technology, and these dimensions don't always pull in the same direction. A target that is commercially logical can become an operational problem. A double check across those eight dimensions shows where the tension lies before that tension surfaces during execution.
This is also where many companies get stuck: the vision is clear, the departmental goals are clear, but they work against each other. Sales wants to deliver faster, operations wants to secure quality first, and both claim they are following the vision. What you do when departmental goals work against each other is exactly the type of conflict that becomes visible as soon as the layers between vision and execution are filled in instead of skipped.
The target state is the layer where the abstract stops: here it no longer says "trusted partner" but which operational model belongs to that, which decisions become faster or, conversely, more careful, which role gets which responsibility. Anyone wondering what that means concretely for how the organisation is set up will find an explanation without jargon on the page about what a target operating model means in plain words.
To prevent this layer from being built on shaky ground, it works with five confidence gates: moments at which it is checked whether the translation from vision to target is sufficiently substantiated to proceed to the next layer, or whether an assumption first needs to be sharpened. This prevents an organisation from working for three quarters on a target state that turns out afterwards to have been based on a wrong interpretation of the vision.
Whether your vision remains vague due to a missing layer, a missed ambition round, or unnoticed tension between dimensions, can be seen with a short check. The free test "is your vision steerable" consists of six questions about the four layers and shows within a few minutes at which layer the translation breaks down.
The next step after that diagnosis is the capability back-translation: the roles and tasks that the target state actually requires, placed next to what capacity and work exist today. That difference, expressed in hours rather than in ambitions, is exactly what the work scan on ftetoai.com shows.
Vertel wat u wilt bereiken, dan kijken we samen wat daarvoor moet staan.
Answers come from this site’s knowledge base. Not tailored advice, and not a scan of your company.