Senge is clear that a shared vision for an organisation cant be developed by senior managers devising a vision statement and disseminating this to the wider staff team. A shared vision has to be built out of individual personal 'visions' about what people believe their work to be about.

Key themes

• Developing a shared vision is a process of enquiry rather than a process of 'selling'. It starts with an assumption that everyone has an idea of what the purpose of the organisation is and encourages this to be shared and made explicit.
• There is a limit as to the degree by which a leadership team can enable individual 'visions' to come together. There may be a degree of chance that brings people together who share a common sense of what the main task is.
• Organisations do not need everyone to have a commitment to the vision. Many people within an organisation may be 'compliant' with the main purpose of the organisation and this is fine (much better than opposition!). However it is often the case that some people within the organisation show a commitment to the vision whereby there is a self investment which goes beyond usual expectations of work.

Implications for AMBIT

1. One of the 'visions' of AMBIT is that it creates a context of continuous learning. Senge offers a framework which is very accepting that not all staff within an AMBIT influenced team will be equally enthusiastic about this.
2. Developing a shared vision involves accepting diversity of perspectives on the core purpose of a team or service. More concretely, not everyone is equally enthusiastic about mentalization as an organising framework for what we do. It is important that mentalization does not become a new form of orthodoxy not least because this would close down the capacity of team members to make sense of each others experience of work.