Formula 1 for Business. O'Connor Daniel

his vision of the future.

      For organizations like Steve Job’s Apple, having a vision and communicating it to the team provides the focus, energy, enthusiasm and commitment to get things done; the right things. Because it is necessary, firstly to have a clear vision of the desired destination before it is possible to plot a course to get there. Far too many organisations undertake the challenge of developing strategy and planning before they have crystallized their vision. ‘What exactly are we looking to achieve?’ The answer to this central question will go a long way to determining ‘how’ to go about the work necessary to getting there.

      Taking off on a journey without a precise understanding of where you are going is a futile exercise; like getting in your car and just ‘driving’ without knowing where you are going, you will waste valuable time and fuel, and worse still you will likely become deflated for your lack of a satisfying outcome. This analogy may sound a little silly but this is exactly what many business owners do when embarking on what is one of the most serious and significant endeavours in their life: running a business.

      However, having a vision is not just the domain of world changers like Steve Jobs and Apple. Everyone is business needs a vision to fuel the fires of direction and activity. Even if only a relatively small concern, having a vision in business usually determines the difference between measured success and mediocrity.

      A friend of mine in Bunbury, Western Australia, has a cleaning business and her vision when starting out, was to have it run under management providing her with a specific income and freeing her time to do other things. Having that focus on a vision which is meaningful to her has allowed her to achieve it within record time and now she holds the privileged position of being able to spend her time how she wants and can expand the vision to even greater heights.

      A Harvard university study concluded that we need vision for three main reasons:

       To clearly perceive what is possible: To focus on a vision is to consider the possibilities and to reach for an inspired future. Once the desired possibility is perceived, recognising the details allows for the formation of a clear vision, which will in turn allow for the development of strategy and goals.

       To overcome the drift effect: With vision comes purpose; without a vision we lack purpose and we tend to drift aimlessly. Vision is critical to overcome this ‘drift effect’.

       Because having a vision is the key to creating effective change: To effect positive change in any field it is necessary to focus on the ‘desired outcome’; the clearer the vision of the person or the business, the greater the success that entity will experience.

      If you do not have a vision for your business, you are on a journey without a destination akin to a rudderless ship and you will wander aimlessly looking for answers only to return to what you already know. I remember an old saying that goes something like: ‘when you not aiming at anything you hit nothing a hundred percent of the time’. Having a clear vision is the first step towards being able to identify the targets you are ‘shooting at’.

      Many business owners are so short-sighted because their focus is on doing ‘urgent’ things and as a result, they can hardly see past tomorrow.

       Urgent versus Important

      We have seen so many businesses which simply do not have a clear vision and it is a prime contributor to their eventual and inevitable struggles. Many people who have come from having a job (even those from lofty corporate positions) to driving the wheels of entrepreneurialism fail to recognise the importance of clearly defining their vision and then fall prey to the ‘urgent’ things at the expense of the ‘important’ things.

      When you really look, the urgent things are rarely the important things and the important things are often not urgent. The seemingly urgent things such as emails, phone calls, customer needs, and administration can all be streamlined or delegated. However, the important things like dedicating time to refining your vision and building strategy to define how to achieve the vision will never be done if you do not make them priority and schedule time for them; time, that is uninterrupted and non-negotiable. When all said and done there is nothing more important than having a clear vision so allocate time to building and maintaining it.

      When you think of ‘visionary’ people, it is natural to conjure up images of great folk such as Bill Gates, revolutionising the significance of the personal computer, or Henry Ford, who envisioned a world where everyone would want one of those newfangled mechanical buggies (and people though he was insane!), or Richard Branson, who continues to extend the Virgin brand across countless industries. However, ‘vision’ belongs to us all. We were all designed to create our own possibilities and ‘business’ provides the ultimate platform to achieve our dreams.

      The people referred to above are well known for building an organisation around their vision, which provided the driving force for the business to flourish and prosper. They all dedicated significant time and energy to conjuring a detailed vision which would define their organisation, they spent time on strategy and they were quick to employ capable people to deliver much of the urgent operational requirements.

      The great business leaders ensure that they are not held hostage to ‘unimportant urgent’ and reserve adequate time for the very important ‘big picture’ things; vision is the most critical of these ‘big picture’ things.

      This does not just apply to captains of industry; the same applies to leaders of successful small businesses. We should not be lured by the executive position in large corporate companies. There are many more small business owners and builders who make far more money than if they took senior positions in large corporate organisations. They have several distinct advantages in their business operations, including their freedom to dream, to take holidays, and to change almost anything without being accountable to shareholders and auditors.

       Partnering up with success

      A small business client in the northern suburbs of Perth has long since reached his financial saturation. This is where he could not hope to spend all of his wealth in this lifetime and quips he will have to rely on relatives to get rid of it all for him. He has (at last count) more than 15 businesses in which he has a significant share, but in nearly all of these (apart from his real estate agency, his property rental roll and his business brokerage) he is willing to share this with other business leaders, provided that their vision and integrity matches his.

      He makes his business partners feel uneasy about where they presently are heading and want to shift to a higher level of activity, profit, market share, etc…. Most of his partners come to him for money to finance their small business operations, but end up with something far greater than just an increase in profits. Darrell has a way of building their vision to a point where they understand they were aiming too low. In nearly every case, their gift of equity to him still gives then a greater company value than they would have had if they achieved what they set out to do and he eventually owns a chunk of their enterprise that still represents more than they originally had in most cases.

      Most of us have heard the story of the senior QANTAS exec who commissioned feasibility on a low-cost airline. Although the numbers all worked, his bosses killed off the idea so they did not dilute their brand. He recognized the opportunity and sought a partner with vision. He found one in Richard Branson and Virgin Blue was born.

       Your Personal Vision

      It is important before developing a clear business vision however to be clear about your personal vision. It is critical that your personal vision is congruent with the business vision because your drive to pursue the business vision will be dictated largely by your personal reasons for wanting business success.

      It always fascinates me that many people will dedicate more time and energy to envisioning and planning for a three week annual overseas holiday than they will to their own life. They ream over the details to ensure that everything goes absolutely smoothly for those three weeks only to abandon themselves to ‘the urgent’ when they return from holiday. Sit down and really consider what you want from a personal