A PC on every desk, and in every home. A practical, affordable transportation for the masses. The happiest place on Earth.
Three visions from arguably some of the most visionary leaders. Bill Gates, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney each saw a way they could solve a need, and then aimed to provide it to as many people as they could.
Visions Are Intangible
What we don’t see in the visions above, are any mention of being a “leader in their industry“, or any operational language such as “conducting business with integrity“. There are no specifics regarding who matters most as in “maximizing shareholder value“, “our people are our greatest asset“, or “the customer is #1“.
Their visions harken to a time when, or place where, people live without a need. Every desk, every home. For the masses. On Earth!
The secret is create a vision that can’t be quantifiably reached. In my Discovering Your Ethos course I describe how ultimately every company should be focused on eradicating a need, rather than providing a specific product or service, as it allows room for future expansion and innovation. That’s my tiny issue with Mr. Gates’ vision, I would say that his definitely was reached.
Coca Cola knows that 2% of the world’s daily liquid intake is is a Coca Cola product. Had their vision been “I’d like to buy the world a Coke“, they could dust their hands off and head home.
Visions Leave Room to Dream
Focusing on measurable tangibles like market position, or sales quantities requires you to create a new vision each time the goal is reached. Focusing on the intangibles allows a little room for dreaming, because ultimately, I believe the best visions are unattainable, and come with the interesting side effect of always having more work to do! “Happiest” can always be improved upon. “Transportation” doesn’t say cars, trucks, and SUVs; it allows room for expansion into different industries – as long as they help move people where they want to go in a practical and affordable fashion.
While every company is in ultimate service to their customers, I believe corporate visions that describe unending servitude to someone else are tough for people to support forever. Everyone indeed needs to understand the purpose of their work, I simply feel that helping to fulfill a need is a much easier purpose for people to get behind.
Envision a world…
A vision should be a description of Utopia. A land where people never suffer from the need that your company solves. It doesn’t need to describe the how, the why should hopefully be apparent, you only need describe what the world is like there.
A land where they have a PC on every desk, in every home. Everyone has practical, affordable transportation there. It’s simply – the happiest place!
What does the world look like where the need your company fulfills has been eradicated?