The logical question is why more businesses don't leverage the power of the vision process. A big reason is that most CEOs report a great deal of discomfort working with the vision process. This doesn't imply they disbelieve in the value of vision—but they feel ill-prepared for the process.

This last measure is perhaps one of the most compelling findings if one considers all the growth that's not being achieved. While Larry Bossidy in his book Execution takes on senior managers for their failure to execute well against strategy, perhaps the bigger problem is the lack of clear vision to create a meaningful strategy. Without vision, strategic planning is worthless. Nonetheless, senior executives do believe vision is important. A 2002 Conference Board study of 700 global CEOs found that the most important "marketplace and management issue" in both 2002 and 2001 was "engaging employees in the vision." This ranked higher than access to and cost of capital.

The operative word here is "engaging." Success, when it comes to vision, isn't crafting a few paragraphs that sound like they were excerpted from a Dilbert comic strip. Success is a vision that tells an engaging story people want to be a part of, challenges people, and creates a sense of urgency. Success is when the vision becomes embedded into the daily decisions and actions of those you want to lead.

CEOs often talk the talk; committees crank out visions and post them on their Web sites and on the walls of corporate conference rooms. But usually, the process doesn't go far beyond that. Rarely does executive management take advantage of vision to transform every far-flung limb of the company. The work I do with CEOs and executive groups makes me realize it's difficult for them to stretch their thinking toward the future. They're very grounded, realistic people. They're drawn to missions that let them describe what an organization does now, rather than to vision, which forces them to describe why a company engages in these activities.

The vision-development process is a balancing act. It requires imagination, a mental capacity for synthesis, and a trust in intuition. CIOs, in particular, coming from a background that emphasizes analysis, facts, and function, may be the last C-suite executives to appreciate the impact of an overarching vision. And I've seen this to be not only a leadership deficiency in some CIOs, but a significant career killer. When so much in the CIO's training is about dealing with verifiable facts, it's hard to let oneself pull anchor and engage in a process that feels like floating in a sea of possibilities. But the CIO must play a crucial role in articulating the company's vision, embracing it, and adopting an IT strategy and infrastructure to support it.