My pick for best example of the power of vision is John F. Kennedy’s challenge to the nation to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. When JFK announced that vision he inspired a generation of Americans to achieve an impossible dream.
Your vision may not be so grandiose but the power of your vision to inspire and lead your organization – and you – is the difference between a coffee shop and Starbucks or a local hardware store and Home Depot.
Vision is not about dreaming. It’s all about deciding where you want to go with your business (and your life). JFK didn’t just dream about sending a man to the moon. He ordered it. He said it will be done. And then he charged America with figuring out how to make it happen. Thus was born perhaps the greatest era of American innovation.
The world we live in today didn’t just happen. Somebody had a vision for a computer on every desk. Someone else had a vision for an online bookstore. Someone had a vision for a wireless telephone that could be used anywhere. There is power in vision. What’s yours?
So true, Doug !
I believe that our world, as it has become expanded by technology, has also become smaller in scope. In business, we look now, at a more minute to minute agenda. Governments rarely feel they have the mandate to look beyond a year or two, if that.
Reaching to what is beyond the horizon is lost to managing that which is in sight.
Thanks for the reminder that it IS important, to strive towards greater goals, and to remember that over the horizon there is a discovery to be made !
Bob Gray´s last blog ..Thanks For The Memories…
Thanks for your comments, Bob.
Our world changes so fast that anything more than two or three years out is an eternity but that’s not an excuse for not having a vision or a plan. Without a vision and a plan we are playing whack-a-mole.