You’re leading a high-stakes transformation, under pressure to deliver more, faster, and with the same or fewer resources. Board expectations are rising, scrutiny is increasing, and the margin for error is shrinking. Whether it’s shareholders, investors, regulators, or customers watching, the cost of underperformance is getting harder to absorb.
Your challenge? To unlock greater output and impact from your existing team, without burning them out or compromising quality. It’s a pressure shared by many Leaders and Executive Teams, but the real question is: where will you find the edge that turns that pressure into performance?
At VISION, we have spent 40 years working with clients to create that edge. This is how:
Traditionally, industries aiming for greater productivity have focused on material assets, processes and data flows. Early examples include Henry Ford’s assembly line, and today, Lean and Six Sigma. Similarly, in information management, methodologies like double-entry bookkeeping in finance and Agile and Waterfall in IT have become standard and only go so far. These approaches have been successful in reducing specific types of waste and boosting productivity, they often take centre stage when we describe how we do and deliver work. But neither things nor data are responsible for work. People are. Making people effective requires an entirely different interpretation of the world. How do they think? How do they learn? How do they listen to each other, make requests of each other, and care for each other? None of this is covered in a traditional process map.
“Coordination waste” does not show up in dashboards or accounting ledgers. Yet, we all understand that the ability to skilfully work with people is a priceless asset on any project, and we know the consequences when coordination breaks down are tangible and disruptive. Commitments are vague, action is unfocused, endless waiting for others to do their piece, finger pointing and blame take centre stage and decisions are kicked into the long grass…and projects run late and costs spiral. The standard processes used today, rooted in engineering and physics, are simply not designed to address this challenge.
Recognising this, VISION has partnered with academics from philosophy and biology to develop a methodology that puts people at the centre. We view a business as an intricate network of commitments, a shared set of moods and practices, and a collection of spoken and unspoken conversations. We have developed a language and framework to consistently improve people’s effectiveness and remove the hidden waste caused by poor coordination. We call this approach Commitment-based Management™.
Moods
Our moods direct how we show up and view the world. They influence how we think about things, open and close possibilities. Think of approaching a task with a mood ambition of “this is exciting” vs approaching a task with a mood of resignation “this will never work”. With the right mood, we can have better conversations about difficult things and achieve much better outcomes. It’s important to get it right – moods are contagious!
Commitments
Rather than looking at actions, we look for the critical commitments between people that are essential for driving action in an enterprise. Our work often shows up instances where crucial commitments and conversations are either weak or absent. To strengthen these, we apply “The Loop”; an iterative and forward-looking framework for making and assessing commitments across both individual projects and the entire business. “The Loop” acts as a steering wheel for your business, driving action at the project level. At the enterprise level, we use it to develop a robust “Network of Commitments”, our interpretation of your business processes, revealing key dependencies and opportunities.
Listening
We promote listening not as a passive act, but as a trainable skill for producing meaningful interpretations about the world. People frequently only listen for agreement, seeking what confirms their existing views. We train individuals to listen for moods, commitments, and Speech Acts, the language that makes work happen. We further develop the ability to listen for concerns, going beyond spoken words to uncover what truly matters to a speaker, and to listen for difference, exploring unique perspectives for a deeper understanding.
We believe that change isn’t achieved through explanation or persuasion, but rather through the consistent application of skilful practices. We design and deploy these practices with your teams and support them in the transition from one set of behaviours to another. In general, we focus on three key areas of work: Decisionmaking, Handoffs, and Evaluations, because they are areas responsible for most of the coordination waste in an organisation. In addition, we use industry-specific practices where they will be useful e.g. Pull Planning for construction projects.
Our commitment to practical experience is fundamental to our approach. We move to action quickly, learn from real-world outcomes, and continuously adapt and improve. We make a strong, bold promise, like improving productivity by over 25%, and share the risk for delivering it. We pinpoint the commitments that matter most, and ensure people make them with clarity, strength, and purpose. We keep those promises alive, clearing blockers, sustaining momentum, and creating a culture of accountability and ambition. The result? Your teams show up at their best; focused, energised, and delivering every single day!