How I Used AI to Create a More Compelling Strategic Vision in 7 Steps

“Does this really even matter or am I just wasting my time?”

Strategic planning, even in somewhat stable times, often felt like a mix of hopes, dreams, wishes, tea leaves, and spreadsheets. Now, with so many more things changing more quickly than ever, I found myself spinning and flailing, the sound of the ticking clock counting down to our EOS 2-Day Annual Planning drowning out any useful trains of thought.

Intellectually, I know strategic planning is important. I’ve read the books and HBR articles. I’ve listened to the speakers. I’ve completed the workshops. I’ve built my own Frankenstein’s monster greatest hits compilation of them all. I’ve surrendered to the simplicity of EOS. Yet, year after year…another strategic plan, another 3 Year Vision, another seemingly waste of time, energy, and effort. I even consoled myself multiple years with Eisenhower’s “plans are useless but planning is indispensable.”

Sitting in a coffee shop, fingers hovering over my laptop, waiting for a blank document to reveal a clear vision, I was hit with a tidal wave of doubt, uncertainty, fear, and guilt. Why can’t I summon some brilliant vision from the heavens for my team. This is what I am supposed to do and they are desperate for direction, for leadership. This year needs to be different. This year will be different.

This year was different.

This year, I changed my approach and got a much different outcome: one embracing the tension between dreams and details, people and metrics, feeling and seeing, inspirational and approachable, tomorrow and today. One that created a clear path with focus, alignment, and momentum.

If you too have become jaded with vision work, or are just feeling too consumed by the fires of today to spend time thinking about the future, I hope these next few minutes together can help re-inspire you on the importance of this work. I hope some of the tactical takeaways open up your brain to attack it differently, so you too can create a different result. Your team is begging for you to lead and supercharge them to do amazing work today that is meaningfully connected to your vision of tomorrow, each and every day.

What was the biggest shift for me this time around?

I brainstormed and collaborated with strategic planning consultants. I reviewed and honed my ideas with expert thought leaders and pressure-tested the plan with world-renowned futurists. I even worked with inspirational speakers to craft a compelling narrative…and I did all of this, not with a room full of highly paid experts, but by leveraging generative AI in ways you can too, and I am excited to show you how.

The 7 Steps to Create a More Compelling Strategic Vision:

1. Build a Virtual Board of Directors
2. Conduct a Strategic Brain Dump
3. Gain Early Buy-In with Key Leaders
4. Refine with Narrative + Strategic Anchors and Priorities
5. Leverage Generative AI for Strategic Feedback
6. Incorporate Broader Team Input
7. Finalize and Share the Vision

Step 1: Build a Virtual Board of Directors

I started by creating a “Virtual Board of Directors,” using generative AI to simulate perspectives from diverse leaders and thinkers. By framing AI prompts to emulate the expertise of strategic planning consultants, thought leaders, and futurists, I gathered a range of perspectives on the challenges and opportunities we face. This approach allowed me to challenge assumptions, consider alternative viewpoints, and pressure-test my ideas before bringing a draft to my team—all on demand, all without needing a real boardroom full of highly paid experts.

Who are the top five entrepreneurs, authors, or leaders you would love to get advice from to expand your thinking?

Step 2: Conduct a Strategic Brain Dump

Some people can open a blank document and freely write their vision. That’s not me. I’ve found that my thinking is sharper when I have a structured framework to guide me. One of the best resources I’ve come across for crafting a compelling 3-Year Picture is Cameron Herold’s Vivid Vision. Using this approach as inspiration, I created an outline that focused on key areas of the business—such as team culture, customer experience, and innovation. I then started filling in the blanks for both the current state and the future state of each area. This structured process helped me balance practical realities with aspirational goals, ensuring that every critical dimension of the business was thoughtfully considered.

What opportunities could you uncover by clearly defining where your business is today and where it’s headed in three years?

Step 3: Gain Early Buy-In with Key Leaders

After completing the structured brain dump, I began refining the framework by collaborating closely with my Integrator. This stage was all about making sure we were aligned on the direction before putting in the heavy lift of building it out. I have learned the hard way to create these little “pop-ups” moments throughout any building process—opportunities to pause, reflect, and confirm alignment before running too far down the wrong path…which I’ve wasted many hours doing so. Together, we discussed priorities, identified potential challenges, and clarified areas where additional input would be needed later in the process. This early collaboration ensured the framework was solid enough to move forward with confidence.

How can you create intentional checkpoints to confirm alignment before putting in more heavy work?

Step 4: Refine with Narrative + Strategic Anchors and Priorities

Based on the alignment from the structured brain dump, I created a draft narrative that cascaded into strategic anchors and priorities to provide structure and focus. The narrative brought the vision to life, while the anchors served as directional requirements, key areas we needed to prioritize to achieve our long-term goals. From there, I outlined the strategic priorities that would guide our actions over the next three years. This construct created a foundation for alignment, giving the team clarity on both the “why” and “what” behind our vision before introducing it for broader feedback.

How can you turn your initial ideas into a narrative that cascades into the anchors and priorities your organization needs to focus on?

Step 5: Leverage Generative AI for Strategic Feedback

With the narrative, anchors, and priorities in place, I used AI to map potential three-year goals and projects under each strategic priority, identifying specific initiatives that could help us achieve those priorities. These weren’t set in stone but provided a clearer picture of how the vision could cascade into practical actions, bridging today’s work with tomorrow’s outcomes. For example, I explored scenarios that aligned past progress with future goals, refining ideas to ensure they were both ambitious and realistic. This process brought fresh insights and helped confirm that the vision was both actionable and grounded. I tested and refined the full cascaded structure before sharing it more broadly. This step wasn’t just about validation—it was also about creating actionable clarity.

What potential goals and projects could bring your strategic priorities to life and connect the future to today?

Step 6: Incorporate Broader Team Input

Once I had the draft narrative, strategic anchors, and priorities in place, I brought them to the rest of the leadership team for their input. This wasn’t just about refining the draft, it was about uncovering blind spots and challenging assumptions. Each leader brought their unique filters and perspectives, which pushed us to consider critical questions: What does this vision actually look like in the day-to-day activities of the team? How would we know if we’ve achieved it? Their feedback helped ensure the vision wasn’t just aspirational but also tangible, giving us a clearer picture of what success would look like inside the company. By aligning on the big picture first, we laid the groundwork for a detailed plan that everyone could see themselves in and support.

Who on your team brings unique perspectives that could challenge and strengthen your vision?

Step 7: Finalize and Share the Vision

With the leadership team’s feedback fully integrated, the final step was to polish the vision and prepare to share it with the rest of the team. This stage was about bringing everything together: refining the language to ensure the vision was compelling, accessible, and inspiring for everyone, from leadership and individual contributors to clients and partners. Sharing the final vision wasn’t just about presenting, it was about inviting the team to see themselves in the future we were building and helping them understand how their daily actions contribute to making that vision a reality. The goal was to create alignment and momentum, empowering the team to use the vision as a guide for making decisions, even in situations where the next step might not be explicitly clear.

How can you create a vision that becomes a living guide for your team, helping them connect their daily work to the future you’re building together?

From Vision to Action

This year, vision work felt different. By leveraging generative AI and following these seven steps, we crafted a vision that wasn’t just a lofty idea but a clear, actionable guide to connect today’s efforts to tomorrow’s goals. It looks different, it feels different—and now the real test will be in how it drives execution. Time will tell if this approach delivers better results, but the alignment, clarity, and energy it’s created already feels like a major step forward.

As I’ve been sharing this approach with other leaders, the same uncertainty keeps coming up: the actual technical usage of generative AI to transform the strategic planning process. I’m often asked about the actual how-to’s of:

• Building a Virtual Board of Directors and generating fresh perspectives on the challenges and opportunities ahead.
• Training a custom GPT to capture your company’s unique voice and tone so your narrative feels authentic and aligned.
• Framing and structuring prompts to refine your vision faster, saving time while creating something exponentially better.
• Using AI to explore potential goals and projects that cascade from your priorities into actionable steps.
• Leveraging AI to test and pressure-check your thinking, ensuring alignment before you share the vision with your team.

If this resonates with you, I’m considering hosting a small-group workshop to show exactly how to do all of these things so you can use AI for crafting a compelling, actionable strategic vision—one that bridges the gap between today and the future you’re building. There will be a small fee to participate, but my goal is to make it accessible while delivering tremendous value. If you’re interested, let me know, and I’ll share more details soon.

Leadership isn’t about always having the perfect answers, it’s about having the courage to chart a course and bring others along with you. Your team is thirsty for clarity, for inspiration, and for a sense of direction that connects their daily work to something bigger. When I sat staring at a blank document at the start of this process, wondering if it would even matter, I couldn’t have imagined how different it would feel today. Crafting a vision like this isn’t easy, but it’s the kind of work that transforms not just your business, but your people. The hardest part is often starting, but your team is waiting for you to take that first step. The time for that first step is now.