What’s Your Vision?
Effective leaders have a clear vision for the future of their enterprise. Effective leaders know where they intend to go.
The often-quoted phrase from Proverbs: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Without vision, there are no standards, laws, or guidelines from which to organize collective efforts and build a good business for the future.
This is Habit #2 in Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Begin with the end in mind.
Surrounded by constant distractions of the modern world, a clear end picture is vital to your long-term success. With a clear end picture—a compelling vision of the future—you have a powerful way of filtering out the noise and focusing your attention on what’s most important. With a clear end picture, you can quickly evaluate ideas and make decisions to grow your business and support your career.
Most people resist the notion of crafting a vision statement because it requires sacrifice and focus. I don’t want to be restricted, they might say.
Ultimately, if you don’t determine a clear direction, you’re subject to the whims of others—and of your competitors. And gravity, as it is, naturally pulls you down to the lowest common denominator.
All great businesses were defined in advance by a clear vision of the future. From that end picture, they rose like the Phoenix out of the ashes of competitive industry to market leader position. Amazon.com’s vision is “to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” We can observe this vision in progress as their market capitalization has grown to $60 billion and rising.
Cult Brand IKEA’s vision is to “create a better everyday life for the many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.” Simple, but obviously effective.
What’s your vision for the future of your enterprise?
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