ateness, and shared feelings. Vision and purpose give people clarity, consensus, and commitment; visions inspire people to cooperate and do their best work. The leader transforms images, hopes, fears, expectations, and desires into a way of talking about the organization or a vision, that most can commit to. Visions become real as leaders participate in inspirational speech making and personal conversation with others. Vision is not just a management skill and the visioning process may be fragile. Special problems of vision creating and implementing include the following: multiculturalism and diversity, loss of vision, needs for vision transformations, cynicism, and needs for the leader's spiritual development.
The author concludes that vision expresses feelings about the organization and its work. Mission describes why the organization exists and vision provides the organization with personal meaning for all associated. Leadership includes the role of helping people to understand and express their caring about the organization through vision.
3. Building High-Performance Teams
For this chapter Bradford focuses on small face-to-face groups (five to twelve members). These are groups that have continuity over time as opposed to groups that are a temporary collection of people; this allows group dynamics and commitment to develop. There is also a focus on decision-making groups and how to build these teams.
A team that works well is able to produce quality problem solving solutions with effective implementation, and is a source of learning for others. Core areas for building effective teams are discussed and include the following: issues of cohesiveness with transition issues of control and influence; the problem-solving process and factors that inhibit this process; and managing how the group operates as a whole. Stages of group development are presented. Membership is the joining of a group with the quest...