Previously, on Leading Through Chaos: Chaos is hard because we can’t plan for it. Our protection? Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “barbell strategy”: avoid ruin while finding opportunity. Use “effectuation” to find upside opportunity when planning doesn’t work.
Finally, learned about the VICI “Nirvana Zone”, which tells us that long-term thriving happens when decisions are distributed and data-based.
How do you change your entire company? Well, that’s what leaders are for. They can change everything, from one-room startups to the Fortune 500 C-suite.
But before we get to the how-to, we need to cover some important background about the oft-abused, misunderstood “business “vision.” Why does it matter? What role does it serve?
For one, it’s the glue…
My first Leadership “A-ha”
Early in my career I worked for Intuit, the multi-billion-dollar maker of QuickBooks, Turbo Tax, and Quicken. Back then, Intuit as a 100-person company on a shady street in sleepy Menlo Park, California. Our only product was Quicken.
My first day. founder Scott Cook, sat me down with a pad of paper and drew his vision of Intuit. It would be at the center of everyone’s financial lives. Intuit would provide bookkeeping, credit cards, loans, tax preparation, and All the Things that people needed to run their financial lives.
I thought he was ridiculous. Delusions of grandeur, at least. His little 100-person company, with one product, would become the center of everyone’s financial life? cynical snort Pull the other one.
Maybe he was delusional, but he was right. His $16-billion-dollar company is now central to small business accounting, and tax preparation.
The meeting wasn’t for me to admire his vision; it was for him to align me with his vision, so we could make the dream come true.
Here’s what alignment looks like:
Someone has a great new idea: we could open a fried chicken restaurant. Yum! Everyone loves friend chicken. What’s not to love?
In an unaligned company, there might be presentations. Strategy sessions. Deep Thoughts about the market. “Programmers like to eat fried chicken. It’ll be a billion-dollar company by year 2!!” … but would programmers be good at making and selling friend chicken? Probably not.
In a company aligned behind Scott’s vision, we know right away that Intuit Fried Chicken isn’t a fit for a financial services hub. We don’t even need a test kitchen.
Being aligned means that decisions automatically lead in the direction we want to go.
Vision was more than just fancy inspirational words. Vision makes it possible for everyone to make decisions!
My eyes widened at the realization. I was giddy with excitement; I rushed to my fax machine (this was before email was everywhere) and faxed my great discovery to my business school professor, Len! You can see the actual fax here. I kept a copy.
Leading through turbulent times: The Importance of Vision
Vision help people make decisions, and more. Remember how people crave predictability? A well-crafted vision gives people predictability in their decisions and their destination.
(We all know this. We have shared cultural visions. A spouse, kids, and a white picket fence is a vision for “the good life.” It guides direction and decisions. In Silicon Valley, the vision is having a “unicorn” company and private doomsday bunker. That vision also gives predictability.)
Your job?
To craft and communicate a vision for surviving the storm. This series gives you pieces you can use to craft it.
This is not the vision for the company’s product; this is a vision for how you’ll thrive during chaos.
Here are some elements of the vision you can craft to transform your company:
We’re going to get through this. We’ll survive by finding upside opportunity while insuring that we survive.
Transparency and collaboration People commit to decisions they help make. We all know tariffs and political upheaval cause disruptions. Acknowledge that. Invite your employees to discuss what that might mean, how it might change things, and how you’ll survive.
Short-term survival matters. The effectuation principle of “bird in the hand” tells us to ask first, “What can we do with the resources we have?” That means your people, your systems, your relationships, and your assets.
Get people thinking about protecting your downside and boosting your upside, using your existing portfolio of resources.
If people really understand that lean times are coming and everyone’s in it together, it might enable solutions like across-the-board salary cuts instead of layoffs.
Long-term survival matters. If you do have to consider layoffs, think carefully. The AI hype machine claims that people are easily replaced by machines. But are they?
Your company’s capabilities and relationships reside in the systems and people.
Layoffs tank morale, erode (if not destroy) loyalty, and let critical assets fall by the wayside.
If you’re laying off a cashier, that might not be a problem. Their relationships and knowledge may not be valuable, but even that isn’t guaranteed.
A cashier might be closest to your customers. They may know best what customers are thinking … if anyone asked them.
Your procurement people may have valuable relationships. Your managers may have links to employees critical to your future success. Your product developers may have critical institutional knowledge. Your supervisors may have key operational insights.
And they’ll all have some perspective to spot upside opportunities as they pass by. Most opportunities won’t pan out (thus the “affordable loss” principle). But all you need is one.
Share the vision (wisdom from a Fortune 500 CEO)
When you have your vision of becoming a resilient, flexible company seeking opportunity … you need to make it everybody’s vision.
Unlike Scott Cook, you might not be able to convey the vision to every employee. So you need to lead by example.
My mentor Len (the one I sent the fax to) eventually became COO and Vice-Chairman of a Fortune 500 firm. He would still take my calls, so I called! I called to learn, “What are you working on today? How did you decide to work on those things?”
His answer:
“My only tools in the executive suite are communicating our vision and strategy, and walking the talk.”
He couldn’t tell people what to do, but he could coach them through making decisions that aligned with the company’s vision.
A smaller company executive has any more tools, since executives are closer to the front line, but setting direction and being a role model are still two of the biggies1.
Since you want to get everyone making decisions that lead towards this vision, demonstrate the decision-making process. A lot.
When there’s a decision-making meeting, walk through the decision process step-by-step:
- Do our options increase our short-term survival chances?
- Do our options increase our long-term survival chances?
- Do our options limit our downside (affordable less), with upside potential?
- Do our options give us information for better future decisions?
At first, talk through those questions on your own.
Gradually shift. Start asking the group those questions.
Then begin having groups walk through the questions for themselves.
This is how you cultivate the VICI “Nirvana Zone” for successful decision making.
What else can help?
This series has been about surviving in an ever-less-predictable business world.
Between international political trends, global warming, and the rise of the tech plutocratic class, prediction-based planning can’t be the only tool in our toolbox.
Fortunately, you don’t need to have all the answers. You just need a way to find the upside as the world hands you new surprises.
Crafting a strong culture around the barbell strategy and effectuation, you’ll have a tool for survival and opportunity recognition in a messy, unpredictable world.
- My article on a CEO’s job description lays out the components of a CEO’s job. The “role model” part applies to all execs. ↩︎
