Vision: how to unite your team behind a supernatural idea
What makes us human? And how a boring staple manufacturer developes a legendary vision
In our Culture Series, I zoom in on building sustainable culture within an org as analogous to the world’s most enduring religions. Thank you for your support. If you like what you see, share this with your colleagues and subscribe to writings on my substack mailing list.
In this post, I will:
Convey the importance of vision as a uniquely human attribute
Give guidance on how to create a strong vision for your company
Walk through an example of how we turn a boring staple manufacturer into an iconic aspirational brand
Vision: a uniquely human experience
Millions of humans coalesce around beliefs in God(s), messiah, heaven, afterlife, souls, and other principles that cannot be seen or touched. We have built massive temples, colonized the world, and created nation-states with over a billion people driven by beliefs of a future unseen outcome better than our present visible one.
Our ability to believe is likely one of the best (and worst) traits of being human. It is responsible for massive innovation and massive destruction.
Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, argues humans are unique in our ability to rally around something unseen. This is why apes max out at ~20 members per tribe whereas humans can number in the hundreds of millions. Apes can rally together to climb a tree to get a real banana, but apes cannot form a collective around the belief that there will be infinite bananas in the afterlife
You cannot rally millions of apes around a simple slab of natural stone, but consider how many millions of people in the world vehemently fight over the stone surface of the Temple Mount due to their beliefs.
Characteristics of a good vision
A good vision is:
Larger than life: a great vision cannot describe your present reality. If you are a staple manufacturer, your vision cannot be "we manufacture staples." That's an observed fact. It is not a vision.
Future-oriented: a great vision should give stakeholders a future to look forward to.
Soulful: a great vision appeals to an emotional or spiritual motivation.
How to create a vision for your company
The best company visions go beyond what your product currently does and instead focus on what your company can unlock for its stakeholders in the future. Here are some prompts use while brainstorming your vision statement:
Imagine a world where our product is ubiquitous. What could humanity accomplish in such a world?
SpaceX: "To revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets."
Tesla: "To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy."
LinkedIn: "Create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce."
Consider the end user of your product. What do they care about? What are their beliefs? Where does your product/service fit into their grander goals? (sometimes, it's easier for us to consider the big visions of others than the visions for ourselves)
Patagonia: "We're in business to save our home planet."
JetBlue: "To inspire humanity – both in the air and on the ground."
Nike: "To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world."
Coca-Cola: "To craft the brands and choice of drinks that people love, to refresh them in body & spirit."
What's something you can do that others cannot? Now, what is the impact of this on your end customers?
IKEA: "To create a better everyday life for the many people."
TED: "Spread ideas."
Budsies: “Making a huggable world”
Microsoft: "To help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential."
These prompts push you to take the perspective of your customers or employees. Remember that your vision must motivate your most important stakeholders.
Case Study: UpKeep
Let’s take UpKeep as an example. UpKeep creates software to optimize the operations of maintenance teams within organizations. Their vision could have been something straightforward like “we improve the efficiency of maintenance teams”. Instead, they noticed that maintenance teams are often overlooked as secondary to manufacturing, sales, or other key teams. For its vision, UpKeep honed in on what the maintenance team believes and aspires for: that they are fundamental to the workings of a company. With the right tools, the maintenance teams can truly create a positive impact on the whole business’ bottom line. UpKeep’s vision became “To empower maintenance teams to revolutionize their business”.
"World's Best": The easy way out
Having trouble coming up with a meaningful vision for your company that will rally its stakeholders? A backup solution is simply to aim to become the "world's best."
For example, let's say you are a staples manufacturer (the type that binds paper, not the type that feeds populations). Your most straightforward vision could be "To be the world's best staple manufacturer."
The problem with these visions is that they are bland and ambiguous. What does "best" even mean? Such a vision might inspire some stakeholders to feel excited if delivered with gusto, but it likely won't evoke an enduring passionate following.
One way to spruce it up is to swap out "best" with something more palpable. Consider words like fastest, most attentive, entertaining, endearing, and reliable.
Going back to our staple manufacturer, you might say, "To make the world's most reliable staples." This vision now creates something aspirational since stakeholders can work together to create strong, quality products. You can imagine such a vision influencing the values of the organization like "meticulous quality," "attention to detail," or even "excellence or bust."
Instead, you should think bigger…
A common mistake that founders make is focusing on what's in front of them rather than the more significant position their company could hold. Notice how Ikea's vision did not mention furniture, and Tesla's did not mention automobiles. Instead of focusing on the main product your company currently offers, think about what space your company could occupy.
An excellent example of this is Netflix. Their vision is relatively direct, but they didn't stop at their core product of becoming the world’s leading movie or TV show service. Their vision is "to become the world's leading streaming entertainment service."
Let's go back to our staple manufacturer example. Today, this company makes staples. But, what larger space could the company occupy? Think horizontally and vertically.
Paper binding (staples, paper clips, binders); the company likely already has distribution relationships with office supply retailers, so why not expand to all sorts of office products?
Bindings and fasteners (staples for construction, rivets for packaging, etc.); the company already knows how to manufacture staples for paper, so why not expand to other types of fasteners
A broader vision could be "The world's most reliable fastener company."
… and more metaphorically
Think beyond the nuts and bolts of your product and consider what your product affects. As an exercise, imagine what would happen if your product suddenly vanished from your customers' lives.
Back to our favorite example of the boring little staple manufacturer: What is a staple? It's a piece of metal that binds paper. But what would happen if everyone's staples vanished suddenly? Offices would be in disarray. Essential documents would get jumbled.
Let's think of some vision statements for our mundane stapler manufacturer through that lens:
Binding anything (people, cultures, businesses): "we bind ideas together."
Holding together essential items: "we bind together the most important parts of life" or "we secure the most important documents in the world" or “securing the world’s greatest ideas”
Note how these metaphorical statements remove any limits to the company's growth. Binding ideas together could take the form of staplers and paper clips, but also document management or project planning software.
Moreover, stakeholders can take pride in these ideals. You can envision a marketing or customer success campaign that invites clients to share content around the important documents they used their staples on. It's one thing to have an employee motivated by producing a good staple… it's another to have them motivated to produce a good staple used at the US Supreme Court to bind the country's significant rulings. To some, adding emotion to a straightforward product may seem trivial, but to many, the enhanced feeling is palpable.
You must believe your own vision
If you think you can flex your Mad Men creativity and spin up a mega vision to rally your people, consider that, first and foremost, you must believe in your own vision. Stakeholders will see right through your BS if you do not fully embrace and believe in your own vision. Your values (both corporate and personal) and company strategy decisions must all be aligned. You might be able to make minor, short-term deviations, but over time, your people will lose faith in your vision and your company.
"But my company is boring"
A common complaint I hear from founders and (especially) small business owners is that their business is too dull to have a vision. They understandably believe that their enterprise CRM, billing suite, or even neighborhood laundromat is too mundane to have a large vision.
I don't buy it.
I've intentionally used something as incredibly mundane as a stapler manufacturer for my examples above so you could see how nearly any business can wield a big vision.
(A laundromat could aim to be a hub for the community or the most dependable laundry service in the city)
The dangers of a vision gone too far
Lastly, I must warn you that vision is a strong and dangerous weapon to wield. The same vision used to gather millions of Germans to unite behind a shared vision of a stronger nation was later used to brutally murder millions of Jews, gypsies, political contrarians, and other fringe communities. Mega visions of Theranos' Elizabeth Homes and WeWork's Adam Neuman rallied thousands of employees and raised billions of dollars, but the chase of the vision blurred the requisite ethics.
When you deliver your stakeholders a vision, you may create a culture of followers that encourages and empowers you. Remember to use that power wisely and in line with your values.