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Blinded By The Light
David Schmaltz
(March 1, 2007)
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Few practicing project professionals would question the necessity of a shared vision. It has been burned into our worldview. But what if shared vision is not as important as we’ve been told? When a project team holds on for dear life to one unified perspective, who’s left watching the blind side, where most risks (and rewards) reside?
“Well I unsnapped his skull cap and between his ears I saw a gap but figured he'd be all right” — Bruce Springsteen, “Blinded By The Light”
Sure, it’s easy to peek into a foundering project, find an incoherent vision, and conclude that myopia caused the foundering. Scientists call this sort of conclusion Magical Thinking because it’s based upon a single situation, decided after the fact, and cannot be conclusively proved — or disproved. One might just as easily decide that the absence of lucky T-shirts caused the difficulty … or lack of gumption … or insufficient executive support.
Can we imagine an instance where the need for a shared vision might inhibit progress? Easily. A local economic development group milled around for two years failing to get the proper constituency to agree on a vision for their project.
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