5 Ground Rules for Creating Your Vision of the Future
“Ok, before we get started. Let’s go over some ground rules.”
The atmosphere in the room just dropped a couple of notches on the congenial barometer. I can almost hear each and every one of the people seated at the U-shaped table in front of me thinking the same thing.
Uh-oh. Ground rules? Ground rules suck. Ground rules mean you’re going to tell me to do something I don’t want to do. Or worse, you’re going to tell me NOT to do something I love doing.
I want to tell them, “No, these aren’t those kind of ground rules. These are rules that are going to help us break through what’s been holding you back. These are rules that will help us talk about what really needs to happen without looking through the lens of internal politics, or unspoken codes of behavior.” But I don’t tell them this. Instead, I click forward to the next slide in the presentation and give them a few moments to take in the rules for themselves before I begin explaining exactly what they mean and how we’ll use them today.
The ground rules on the slide are ones I’ve used countless times before; passed on to me from a colleague on a project that I can’t remember the details of any more. After years in management consulting, we all had our favorite presentation snippets that we used for different situations and projects. This one just happened to be one of my favorites. Whenever I had to conduct a visioning session – a sort of brainstorming for the future based on the input of a diverse group of people – I’d whip out the ground rules. But instead of being restrictive, these rules were permissive.
They gave the people in the room permission to sidestep the mental blocks they were accustomed to dealing with in their daily work experiences. They took away the validity of statements like, “This is the way we’ve always done it,” and “Oh, we tried that before, it’ll never work”, before they could even hit the air. The ground rules gave the people in the room permission to dream out loud and in the open.
I haven’t used the ground rules in a while, but every so often, I remember them. Whenever I’m planning my next adventure, or having a self-conversation about my goals for the future, or challenging myself to challenge myself, I remind myself that, before I begin, I should go over these ground rules.
Ground Rule #1: History is only relevant if it helps determine the future vision.
Some of us spend a lot of time beating ourselves up over mistakes or occurrences in the past. Sometimes we can become so lost in regret or an unhealthy nostalgia that we find it difficult to keep moving forward. The only real reason for recounting the past is to use it as a guidepost for where you are planning to go in the future. In other words, you should determine your tomorrow by eliminating what didn’t work and continuing to do what did work for you yesterday.
Ground Rule #2: Find Rules to Break! – Think ‘Out of the Box’ About:
- Who Performs the Work (i.e., the Pool of Performers)
- Where Work is Done (i.e., Geographical Limitations)
- When Work is Done (i.e., Absolute or Relative Timing)
- How Your Actions are Controlled
- What You Really Need
Convention is the kryptonite of creativity. Rules and norms are important for a certain sense of order, but when clung to like dogma, they can be crippling. By questioning written and unspoken rules (and sometimes breaking them) you can discover which rules made no sense to begin with, and open up a whole realm of possibilities that you never considered before.
Ground Rule #3: Consider the findings to date, but do not limit yourself to these inputs; think big, think beyond.
Everyone comes into this world with a certain set of ‘limiting inputs’: income, race, family status, mental ability, physical attractiveness, etc. Who you are and what you’ve done until now is relevant data, but it’s not the only data that matters. Those who see themselves as only a set of limitations get stuck because they cannot imagine overcoming their limitations or using them to achieve a greater representation of themselves. Remember, it’s not the cards you’re dealt, but how you play your hand.
Ground Rule #4: No idea is too silly or outrageous, encourage each other to think of unconventional ideas. Defer judgment, and do not douse others’ creativity.
Have you ever watched two or more small children playing a game of make-believe? It usually starts with one child’s idea, to which the others add their own sprinkle of imagination. Suddenly, a bath towel is transformed into a cape or a magic carpet, or a bunch of empty cardboard boxes morphs into a magnificent fort. Now, can you imagine what would happen if one child piped up in the middle of the make-believe and said, “Oh, that’s ridiculous. That’s not a magic carpet, that just a towel.” Game over, right? Resist the temptation to always be the voice of reason when others are dreaming out loud. By affirming others’ creativity, you encourage the same within yourself.
Ground Rule #5: State assumptions.
Assumptions are merely placeholders for factual information. Sometimes we don’t know all there is to know about a subject, so we have to rely on assumptions until we can get the facts. There’s nothing wrong with having assumptions, but you should always be cognizant of the assumptions you hold. By being aware of your own pre-conceived notions about yourself and the world around you, you’re less likely to become trapped or surprised by them, and – more importantly – you can begin to change them.
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Sage Small Business Solutions provides inexpensive infrastructure solutions for small and microbusinesses. If you're interested in improving your small business, or implementing techniques discussed in this article, find out how Sage can help.
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Hi there! I’m Kisha Solomon. I’m a writer, business advisor, and the owner of Sage Small Business Solutions.
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