Make vision visible so progress feels real and repeatable

You’ve probably been told to ‘aim higher’ without much else. It feels like staring into fog. One manager I coached said her team was ‘going to be the best support team in the region.’ No one knew what that meant. Her coffee went cold as she tried to write objectives that didn’t sound like slogans.

We tried again. She wrote a simple paragraph that said, ‘Parents who call us get a helpful human within two minutes, their child’s issue is understood on the first call, and we close the loop the same day.’ That’s vivid. Then she picked three weekly milestones: reduce time to first hello, log reasons for callback, and complete a ‘same‑day close’ checklist. They built a big progress board and used magnets with names. It felt a bit old school, but everyone could see the fruit tree getting closer.

Something shifted in a week. People began to celebrate when a magnet moved. During one huddle, a rep shared how she handled a tricky call and two others copied the script that afternoon. A mild hedge: not everything fit perfectly, but at least the team knew what to say no to. They cut two pet projects that didn’t serve the picture of success.

By the end of the month, ‘first hello’ dropped from three minutes to ninety seconds, and callbacks fell by a quarter. The team felt proud because their progress was visible, not hidden in a slide deck. That’s the science at work: clear mental images plus visible mile markers direct dopamine toward the right work, and weekly reviews keep attention steady without panic. When you can see the fruit tree, it’s natural to keep walking.

Write a vivid paragraph of what success looks like in human terms, then pick three weekly milestones that you can observe, like a prototype demo or ten user tests. Put a public tracker on the wall or in a shared doc so everyone can see the ‘fruit tree,’ and use a quick weekly review to discuss what moved, what stuck, and what to cut. The key is to make progress look touchable and to edit your focus as you learn. Try mapping this tonight and do your first review seven days from now.