Why is it that two companies in the same industry, with similar processes and procedures, both with skilled, competent employees can produce dramatically different results? What makes the extraordinary company extraordinary?

Consider this well-known parable:

A traveler is walking down the road when he encounters two people, seemingly engaged in the exact same type of activity. Both are in front of large blocks of stone, both equipped with the same tools. However, the traveler was struck by the distinct difference in which the two men were conducting their work. The first man was moving at a fairly normal pace, chipping away at his stone block. The second man was whistling, periodically looking at his work contemplatively, moving quickly, and producing more.

He stopped the first man and asked, "What are you doing, sir?"

The first man replied, "I'm cutting stone."

The traveler then approached the second man, asking, "And what are you doing, sir?"

The second man proudly replied, "I'm building a cathedral."

As this parable demonstrates, people naturally and easily take exceptional action to produce unprecedented results when they see, for themselves, that they are building something worthy of their personal commitment. This ability to connect day-to-day work with capturing big and compelling possibilities is what we call "the future".

The Future as Context

The future sets the context that decides what the people of an enterprise see as possible and what they see as not possible; it determines people's thinking, actions and behaviors. Like the cathedral in the parable, the future is decisive; it sets a horizon that calls people into action. The demands of the future can elicit new and often unfamiliar behaviors and innovative approaches to the business at hand.

In actual enterprises, what is the future that we are talking about? It is comprised of the bold aspirations, the exciting direction, the driving intent that gives meaning to each individual's, team's, and group's work.

What sets the context for an enterprise?

How is the future created? What sets the context for an enterprise? The context is created by a network of conversations. This is the non-physical environment of ideas, unwritten rules, expectations and beliefs that shape perceptions and perspectives of each employee, team and group. It exists in the content of your meetings, the conversations as people work, the work that managers pay attention to and the work they don't call to attention, the problems that defy resolution, the taboos and what people think they really need to do to succeed. It can be found in the gossip and the cafeteria chatter, the jokes and the banter. It manifests itself in the levels of accountability, collaboration and innovation that your enterprise can foster.

A Vision and the Future are not the Same

Developing an enterprise with a potent and powerful future as a guiding context is not merely an act of writing vision statements and unveiling multi-media presentations at offsite meetings held in interesting venues. It takes a particular brand of leadership: the leader who appreciates that the power of an enterprise is not merely in its capital or in its transactions; that galvanizing the Human FactorSM is not a matter of rewards and consequences or the job of human resource systems. It is the leader who is willing to invest in intentional work force development, who knows that no "talk is cheap," that in fact talk is the "gold of the realm" and therefore has the interest and discipline to master the types of conversations that build and inspire an enterprise.

What about your enterprise?

Perhaps the most critical question to ask yourself is: if an observer were looking at your workforce, what type of action would he or she see? What is the cathedral that you want your people building for your organization? Are you powerfully mobilizing your people, the Human Factor, to capture the future? Is a new future asking to be written for your enterprise?