Vision Obstacles
Vision is a popular topic. Many authors, speakers, and consultants testify to the importance of a compelling vision. But it can be very difficult to self-diagnose your own vision.
Here are a few common obstacles that can help you diagnose and improve your vision.
Confusing Results with Vision
Many executives confuse vision and results. They are so focused on achieving results, they mistake the profits for purpose. Your vision is the positive impact you want to make in the world. Results are simply how you measure your progress towards that vision.
I was working with a client last year and I challenged one of the senior leaders that they didn’t have a compelling vision. “Yes, we do!” he replied. “Our vision is to be a $400M company!”
“Great.” I said sarcastically, “so can we sell $400M of ice cream?”
“Of course not.” He replied. As a technology provider of hardware and software solutions, ice cream is clearly outside the scope of their expertise. But the leadership team had not invested the time and energy required to craft a compelling vision. So as you can imagine, they were struggling with recruiting, struggling with retention, struggling with growing inefficiencies, and struggling to achieve their desired $400M revenue target.
A strong vision statement enables companies to say NO to good opportunities, so they can remain focused on great opportunities. Great opportunities align with your purpose, and values and delivery results. Companies with a weak vision and strong commitment to results will say YES to anything that makes money, which further dilutes their purpose and the trust of their employees.
Focusing too much on your customers
Many companies have produced great results by being “customer focused”. But this is a dangerous and short-term strategy for three different reasons:
Customers don’t know what they want.
Steve Jobs famously said, “customers don’t know what they want until I show them.” Henry Ford once said, “if I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse.” Most customers don’t know what they really want. So placing their wants of your customer at the center of your business model is risky and unsustainable.
Customers want the wrong things.
Some customers do know what they want, but what they want isn’t good. HERE is a scary story of YouTuber following the feedback of his clients/audience. Their input led him down a dark and dangerous path for their own amusement. Certainly, we are all responsible for our choices. But every organization needs a clear purpose to help leaders determine which customers should be listened to and which customers should be ignored.
Customer wants and desires are different.
For most of us, we struggle every day between our wants and our desires. I desire to be healthy, but I really want a doughnut. I desire to save enough for retirement, but I really want that pair of shoes. “Desire” is the word I use to describe the deeper, longer-term longings of our heart and soul. “Want” is the word I use for short term interests and temptations. Most of us struggle because our wants and our desires are deeply misaligned. Wants are easier to articulate than desires. Most consumers have not done the hard work to define their desires and defy their wants. The growing forces of instant gratification in nearly every aspect of life are feeding our wants and starving our desires. By placing your customers wants at the center of your business, you are likely speaking to the worst version of them and encouraging their most shallow and self-destructive behaviors.
Focusing too much on your employees
Some companies have produced great results by being “employee focused”, but this too is a dangerous and short-term strategy.
1. Work is hard.
Quality, meaningful work is hard. If it wasn’t hard, you wouldn’t have to pay people to do it. They would do it for free. Or maybe they would even pay you for joy of working. But every job, no matter how perfect the fit, will have some unenjoyable tasks that must be done. I believe all leaders should try to make work as meaningful and enjoyable for their people as possible, but there are limits. There will always be unpleasant work that needs to be done – cleaning bathrooms, dealing with angry customers, filing the paperwork, etc. If employee happiness is at the center of your corporate narrative, then these unpleasant assignments become chores to be minimized, delegated, or avoided. But if there is a bigger purpose, then even the most menial and unpleasant tasks can be viewed as a means to a positive end.
2. Happiness is a function of time.
Do you want to be happy? Sure, everyone wants to be happy. But the better question is, “over what time period do you want to be happy?” If you want to maximize your happiness over the next 60 seconds, I hear great things about crystal meth and ecstasy. But those drugs will destroy your happiness over the following hours, days, and weeks. If you want to maximize your happiness over 40 years, the experts all agree you should eat well, get good sleep, exercise, find a hobby, develop a meaningful career, save and invest your money, commit to a single partner for the rest of your life, have kids, and invest in a handful of deep, meaningful friendships. Will any of those produce happiness in the next 60 seconds? Nope. Not at all. In fact, some of them might feel bad for a long time before you see any happiness payoff. You can’t really have happiness until you define your time horizon. As a business leader, you have employees across the entire spectrum. Some employees will work for decades to see their desired payoff. Other employees will quit because of an uncomfortable 5-minute conversation. How can you make your people happy when everyone is optimizing for a different timeline of happiness?
The only way to achieve results, satisfy your customers and engage your employees is to craft a compelling vision – a desirable, future reality that we can achieve together.
How does your corporate vision stack up against this standard?
