Go back in time to the years between 1995 and 1999. Imagine you’re the CEO of an online bookstore that  just launched a website feature that allows customers to submit book reviews for everyone to see. Your publishers are not happy because books with bad reviews will lead to revenue losses. They ask you to scratch the idea. As a compromise, one or more publishers urge you to permit only positive reviews of your books. The argument being that this move will increase your book sales as more customers see positive reviews and not negative ones. The question then becomes what would you do and how would you think through the decision to be made. 

If your vision for your online bookstore was to be the market leader in online book sales, or to be the publishers choice bookstore,  then you’re more likely to investigate permitting only positive reviews. However, if your vision was rooted in helping customers with their book needs (e.g. book recommendations, etc)  then you would realize that you’re not simply selling books but helping customers make a purchase decision. And to do that, you have to give them both the positive and negative reviews so they can make an informed decision. This is how Jeff Bezos (Amazon’s CEO) described his decision when faced with this situation in the early years of Amazon. 

Today, 20 years later, we can’t imagine online products without reviews or with just positive reviews. This story is instructive because it reflects the power of vision. A clear and compelling vision helps you see what others (competitors, suppliers and even customers) may not see yet. It uniquely shapes your thinking and aligns it with your future state and value creation activities.

The Amazon book reviews illustration above may seem obvious after the fact but it wasn’t at the time. How do we know it wasn’t obvious? Well, the publishers argued against it. Now publishers and product manufacturers use online reviews to improve their products and services. That same vision that is centered on customers’ needs is what drives Amazon’s innovation and customer obsession today. A clear and compelling vision makes a significant difference. Vision matters. How you see things matters. And we believe this is the secret weapon of exceptional leaders. 

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. Exceptional leaders see things that others don’t. Their actions are informed by their vision of a future state and a better world. Let’s consider a second illustration. 

Assume your vision for a company you lead is to have the largest video rental business in the world. And you realized that vision and had been sustaining your market leadership position for about a decade.  Then, a couple of executives from a different company schedule a potential partnership meeting with you. During the course of the meeting, the executives offer you their entire company for $50 million. You look at the company (“due diligence” - no profits,  poor DVD market, etc). You also look at your organization and your market position (financial success, market leader, etc). The decision is clear. You decide not to buy or partner with the company and laugh them out the door. 

You didn’t see a lot of things because those things didn’t align with your vision. Now imagine if your vision was to provide home entertainment to everyone. Now it doesn’t matter whether customers come to you to rent videos or you go to them to deliver entertainment. You may now be more inclined to see different opportunities for partnership with the other company. Why? Because they can help you advance towards your vision  - providing home entertainment to everyone. 

You still may choose not to buy them but you’re at least not so dismissive of their business model. You perhaps will choose to keep a very close eye on the market on ways to advance towards your vision. Of course, this illustration is inspired by the true story of Netflix and Blockbuster (the market leader at the time). Today Netflix continues to advance towards a vision for global entertainment and has been delivering original content since 2013. Blockbuster shut its doors in 2010.

As of the time of this writing (August 2020), Netflix’s market capitalization is over $200B; In hindsight $50M may have been a small price to pay. However, hindsight is always 2020 though.  What really matters in this case is foresight and a compelling vision is incredibly helpful when it comes to foresight. 

The third and final story begins with a question. How do the same plant employees who apparently weren’t good enough (to keep their plant open,) end up being the same exact plant employees that rebuilld and rebrand the plant. How is this possible? This is the power of vision. 

First some background. The yoghurt plant was put up for sale by one of the largest food companies in the world because it couldn’t make the yoghurt business work. 

When a potential buyer toured the plant, he saw people instead of things like machinery, etc.  Instead of seeing a run-down plant that was closing,  the prospective buyer saw the possibility of creating wellness for the employees through a new yoghurt company. The yoghurt would be natural delicious greek yoghurt but it wasn’t all about the yoghurt. It was about wellness for all. He saw something no one else could see at the time, not even the employees giving him the tour. He saw Chobani when he looked at a closing yoghurt plant. The prospective buyer’s name is Hamdi Ulukaya and he’s the founder of Chobani (it means shepherd in Turkish) 

Why didn’t the sellers see this opportunity, it was the same plant and the same employees. The main difference was the vision of the leaders. Chobani CEO’s  vision was about something bigger than himself and was about a benefit to others. It wasn’t necessarily about yoghurt though yoghurt was the first tangible expression of the vision. Today Chobani is one of the most recognizable yoghurt brands

Business can be a force for good, nutritional wellness, social and environmental wellness, 

A series of other wellness programs and initiatives.