How to Create a Vision

When creating a vision, starting by searching for a short and beautiful phrase often leads to generic language. What matters is gathering materials before wording.

There are three things to look at: values the company has protected in the past, issues customers and employees see in the present, and the direction society or the business is moving toward.

Placing these three side by side reveals what should change and what must not change. Vision is not an ideal that falls from the sky. It is language that connects the company's accumulated time with the future it wants to choose.

One reason vision creation becomes difficult is that there are many similar terms: purpose, vision, and values. All matter, but their roles differ.

Purpose shows why the company exists. Vision shows what future the company wants to realize. Values show what the company will protect while moving toward that future.

For example, if the purpose is “supporting local life,” the vision may be “creating a society where everyone can choose life with ease.” Values are the attitudes protected to make that possible. Separating these roles makes language easier to organize.

In BOEL's PROJECTS case TOMAMU the WEDDING, the appeal of clouds and nature was redefined not only as a wedding-day location, but as an experience across the entire stay.

The work was not simply arranging beautiful photographs. It designed the flow of information and emotion along the time users spend: arrival, stay, ceremony, and afterglow. The choice shifted from “where to hold the ceremony” to “what kind of time to spend.”

Creating a vision works the same way. It does not end with words. The future must be designed so customers and employees can feel it as experience. Only then does vision become a reason to choose.

Read the PROJECTS case “TOMAMU the WEDDING”

Vision creation becomes easier when moved through five steps.

First, understand the current state. Gather how the company is seen by customers, employees, and society.

Second, draw the future image. Put into words what state should increase and what discomfort should decrease.

Third, shape it into concise language. Choose words whose meaning does not drift when different people hear them.

Fourth, move it into touchpoints. Decide how it appears in products, hiring, sales, and the website.

Fifth, operate it. Continue using it in meetings and evaluation, and refine it when needed.

A common failure after creating a vision is announcing it and stopping there. The words exist, but what they change is not decided. Over time, they are forgotten.

To prevent this, decide in advance where the vision will be used: when choosing a new initiative, explaining the company to candidates, revising sales materials, or reviewing customer response language.

It is also necessary to set criteria for what not to do. Once the company knows what it will stop doing, vision becomes a decision axis rather than decoration. In practice, the places where the words will be used must be designed as well.

A vision is not finished once it is created. As the business, customers, and employees change, the way the words are used also changes. That is why the organization needs places to refine the vision through operation.

Even once a month is enough. Look at meetings, creative materials, hiring interviews, and customer voices, then ask whether each decision matched the vision. If it did not, review whether the wording was unclear or the operation had drifted.

By continuing this check, vision becomes organizational learning rather than a distant ideal. Through use and refinement, the future image gradually becomes part of the field.

BOEL does not see vision creation as a process for summarizing words. We see it as designing which future the company chooses and how it will repeat decisions that fit that future.

With a vision, the company can return to the same future image when adding products, welcoming people through hiring, or changing customer touchpoints. Expression and behavior become less likely to drift.

A good vision is not completed at once. It is refined through use: in meetings, proposals, interviews, and moments facing customer voices. Repeatedly checking decisions against the future creates the company's own way of deciding.