CLARIFY
Questions to Ask Before You Write Your Company Vision
By Jennifer Hudye · August 10, 2026 · 4 min read
A blank page is the enemy of a good vision. The fix is a set of questions that pull the picture out of you one piece at a time.
Answer these in the present tense, three years out. Write by hand or talk them through out loud.
About your day
- What does a normal Tuesday look like? Where are you, what are you doing, and what are you not doing anymore?
- What time do you start and stop? How many days a week do you work?
- What is the first thing you do when you open your laptop?
About your team
- Who is on your team, and what are they handling without checking with you?
- What does a new hire say about their first week?
- What decision would your team have brought to you last year that they now make on their own?
About your clients
- How do clients describe you to a friend, word for word?
- How do new clients find you?
- What do you no longer have to explain or defend on a sales call?
About the money
- What is the profit margin, not just the revenue?
- How many months of cash are in the bank?
- What does the business pay you, and what is that money doing for your life?
About your life
- What does your health look like? What have you kept up for three straight years?
- Where have you traveled, and who was with you?
- What family moments did you not miss?
About the business, part two
- What is the one thing people in your industry now say about your company that they did not used to say?
- What did you stop selling, and why did that make the business better?
- What is running smoothly now that used to be a weekly fire?
- Who joined the team in the last three years that changed everything, and what do they own?
About your state of mind
- How do you feel when you open your laptop on a normal work day?
- What are you no longer worried about that used to keep you up?
- What are you proud of that has nothing to do with revenue?
- When someone asks how the business is going, what do you actually say, and how do you feel saying it?
How to answer these well
Say the answers out loud or write them by hand. Typing invites editing, and editing shrinks the vision.
Answer in the present tense, as if the three years have passed. Be specific enough that you could picture a real scene. And when you catch yourself hedging with roughly or hopefully, cross it out. If it is in the vision, it happened.
You do not have to answer every question. The ones about a normal day, and about what your team does without you, tend to open up the rest.
The question to save for later
Notice that none of these ask how. That is on purpose.
How is the question that shrinks a vision. The moment you ask how, your brain answers with whatever looks possible from where you stand today, and the vision collapses down to a slightly better version of now.
Write the whole picture first. Push it further in the Expander stage. Then, and only then, start asking how you get there and break it into a 90-day plan.
What to do when an answer will not come
Some questions will produce a blank. That blank is information, not a failure.
If you cannot describe what clients say about you in three years, you may not have decided what you want to be known for. If you cannot picture your team without you in it, you may be more attached to being needed than you thought. Note the blank and move on. Come back to it after the easier sections are filled, and the answer is often clearer.
Do this alone first, then with your team
Answer every question by yourself before you bring anyone else in. If you brainstorm the vision with your leadership team from a blank page, you get a safe, committee version that excites no one, including you.
Your draft should be yours. Then you bring your leaders in to stretch it, argue with it, and add what you missed. That order matters. See getting your leadership team bought in.
A shortcut for the personal section
Founders freeze on the life questions more than the business ones. If that is you, try this. Describe a single perfect ordinary day three years from now, hour by hour, from waking up to going to sleep. Where are you. Who is there. What do you do in the morning. When do you start work and when do you stop. What is dinner like.
A day is concrete enough to actually write, and once you have one, the rest of the life section tends to fall out of it.
Hold the vision. Not the circumstances.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the one question to avoid when writing a vision?
- How. Asking how too early shrinks the vision down to whatever feels achievable today. Write the picture first. The how comes after.
- Should I answer these questions alone or with my team?
- Draft your answers alone first so they are honest. Then bring your leadership team in during the Expander stage to push the vision further.
- How long should this take?
- A focused couple of hours for a rough first pass. The full facilitated process takes a day plus a few weeks of refinement.
- What if I get stuck on a question?
- Skip it and come back. The questions about a normal day and about what your team does without you tend to open up the rest.
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