A vision needs to be Appealing, Believable, and Challenging to drive innovation. JFK's moon landing pledge and Jack Welch's GE principles show how a clear vision creates shared purpose, makes delegation easier, and sparks innovation across the organization.
Chapters
If you want to lead innovation in an organization, then you start with a vision. You say to your people, we're here today, we've done really well, but where we want to be in 2 years' time or 18 months' time, whenever, is here, somewhere different, with different markets, different products, different organization. You paint a picture of what the future will look like, and it should be something which is appealing, believable, and challenging. ABC. Appealing— they like it. Believable— it's difficult, but it can be achieved. And C— challenging. If you throw down a challenge deliberately to people, you say, I need your help to get there. We're going to have to innovate. We're going to have to find new and smarter ways to do it. And the vision statement shouldn't be just plain platitudes about outstanding customer service or being in the top percentile for service, something like that. So Tesco's vision statement is creating value for customers to earn their lifetime loyalty. GlaxoSmithKline's vision statement— they're a big pharmaceutical company— is to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better, and live longer. So they're making it something worthwhile. It's a goal that's worth making an effort for because you're going to help people to do more, feel better, and live longer. Is that worthwhile? Yes. Because what you're trying to do is to inspire your people to believe. You want passionate people in the team who buy into the vision and want to achieve it. And the most famous example of a vision statement is John F. Kennedy, President of the USA, who in 1962 said, before this decade is out, we will land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. At that stage, nobody knew how they were going to do it. He put together a team of really bright people, he gave them a lot of resources, And they achieved it. They achieved a remarkable goal, getting a man to the moon and returning him to the Earth with the technology they had in the 1960s. Jack Welch, the CEO of GE, said this. He said, good leaders create a vision, articulate a vision, and passionately own the vision, and they relentlessly drive it to completion. And if you can do this, if you can set a vision, there are 3 big advantages. First of all, People have a shared sense of purpose. They're setting out on a journey together as a team. They know what they're trying to do. Secondly, you can delegate a lot more because you can devolve responsibility lower down because everyone knows what they're trying to— what the ultimate goal is. And thirdly, people will be more innovative. They know there are challenges. They know they've got to find new ways. They know you don't know every answer to every question, so they're more likely to come up with creative ideas. So that's the challenge for you. If you want to lead innovation, start with a vision. It's worth spending a lot of time— I run vision workshops, I help organizations craft a vision, and the vision statement is really important. It has to be something that everyone buys into, and it should be appealing, believable, and challenging.
