Tag Archives | vision

Vision is Mapping a Future and Steve Jobs is a Visioning Icon

By on May 4, 2012 in Business, Culture, Employee Engagement, Executive Excellence, Leadership, Trust

♦ Leaders Leading Leaders

Seeing into the future is rather like running in heavy fog eyes wide open.  I was recently invited to participate in a strategic planning session for a not-for-profit organization where the CEO wants to see 30 years out into the future.

I proposed a people analysis as part of this process because there is an assumption that some of those folks who are currently in the organization will still be there to carry out this vision.  Some will not, the math doesn’t work.   Age is not your friend in this exercise.  Or in Steve Jobs’ case, illness was not his friend nor was his illness our friend.  I don’t know about you but I miss him!

In the fuzzy environment of the global financial crisis, technology advancements, and unpredictability of the environmental issues, there is something exciting about skipping all of those considerations and saying “this is where we WANT to be.”

Our favorite recent runaway successful leader Steve Jobs said, “ A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them.  Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.” That is vision in the face of a crumbling economy, yes? At Accountability Pays we use all Apple products.

Vision is an inside job that belongs to the leader. Moreover, it differentiates a successful leader from an also-ran leader.   But it isn’t enough to just envision the future, without giving it legs.  Warren Bennis said, “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”

Jobs could have believed in putting quality products into the market and flopped but general consensus says he tenaciously adhered to a winning combination of innovation AND a veracity about quality AND an incredible sensibility for design to differentiate those products from ANY competitor.  He had the capacity and the drive to translate his vision into more market share than any company anywhere in any industry.

Here is a teaser quote to send you on your way to visioning.  Who said this?  “Apple’s market share is bigger than BMW’s or Mercedes’s or Porsche’s in the automotive market. What’s wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?”

Your comments are welcome and invited.  Feel free to give your examples, your stories.

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Always go back to the mission (and vision).

By on December 1, 2009 in Business, business planning, Leadership Books, Perspectives, strategic planning, strategy, Trust, Uncategorized, Values

We have a new friend, Kim DeMotte, whom we met at a fabulous conference last month for people who want to build on their success to expand the good they can bring to the world. At a dinner, Larry and Kim struck up a conversation about corporate governance, and Kim said some things that resonated with Larry and myself.

First, you have to trust people to do a good job, and in this instance we were speaking of someone holding the job of CEO. When a CEO reports to a board, how do you govern that CEO such that they are responsible AND allow them to do their job, their way.

In this video with Kim, you can get it straight from “the horse’s mouth,” (sorry Kim, not a literal translation)… Kim is an advisor to the corporate world. He lives in St. Louis. What you should know about Kim, in addition to his comments here on corporate governance, is that he authored a book called “The Power of No” in which Kim (and contributors) illustrate just that! Get the book, it’s excellent!  I particularly appreciate Kim’s straight talk.  No muss, no fuss, just straight talk.  We could use more of that today, with a sagging low in trust of leaders in this country (and elsewhere, we don’t on the corner on that malady).

In the name of mission (and I would say some think mission is vision, so I’m including vision here also), do the right thing. Clear communication enables a whole host of positive effects. Too many wus’s won’t take a hard stand, set a clear boundary, say no. Amazingly enough, some of the most mature, noble looking men fall into the trap of being too nice, and mucking it up for everyone from the top of an organization down to the last person to feel the effects of poor leadership.

To that I say, “Cut it out!” Get Kim’s book, read Susan Scott’s “Fierce Conversations,” and go back to the mission. Whatever doesn’t fit the vision and the mission, do not tolerate.


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