In the last video, I was talking about motivating people, the young through inspiring people. Well, we could do even more than that and superboss leaders do even more than that. In this video, I want to talk about how they think about their really an uncompromising and a compelling vision. Who doesn't talk about vision? Let's get that out of the way. Of course, people talk about vision, trying to explain what this is all about and what you're trying to do. We understand that, but there are a few things that superboss leaders do when it comes the vision that I think are worth pointing out. The first is the question they ask or they answer really with vision is a really fundamental question. The question is this, why do we exist? Which is not always the friendliest question. Why do we exist as a team? Why do we exist as an organization? What are we trying to accomplish? What would happen if we didn't exist? By the way, every team, every company, every organization has to have legitimacy to exist. Outside stakeholders have to buy into it. By that I mean actually not just outside stakeholders. People won't work for you if you don't have a legitimate reason to exist. People won't buy from you whatever it is you're selling. They won't want to partner with you. Regulatory agencies will look at you a little bit. You got to be able to an answer that question. Superboss leaders answer that question when it comes to vision and they are completely uncompromising with that. Alice Waters, the woman that moved to France, to Paris under displeasing lifestyle and then came back to open up Chef Penny's restaurant, this legendary restaurant. You can't work for her unless you buy into her vision of organic farm to table, local sourcing, healthy food. If you don't buy into that, you can't work for her. It's just not going to happen. I think that's a very common theme for a superboss after superboss. They have that vision and they expect you to say, this is what I want and if it's not, that's fine but this is not the right fit for you. This is not the right match. This why do we exist question is one that I think every single manager and even individual contributor can ask. Very often we don't. Another way of saying the same thing is vision is not just the job of the CEO or the executive team. Of course, it is. But I think it's also the job of everybody in a company, everyone in life really when you come to think about that. If you're a middle manager, if you're managing a sales team or a group of coders or market researchers or whatever it happens to be, you need to be able to convey to yourself and to the people around you why you exist. Why does this team exist? What would happen if we went away? What happens that is good because we are here? Now, of course, the vision you might have as you're a middle manager or a first-line supervisor or whoever it happens to be, it has to be aligned or consistent with the overall vision of the organization. But you still have to be able to find that. That's something you might want to think about. I said even individual contributors should do this. Why are you doing what you're doing and whatever your job is? Why does your job even exist? There's got to be a good reason. By the way, if the reason is, well, that's how I make a living, I make money, I get that, but that's not going to be motivational and that's not going to be energizing and it's certainly not the way superboss leaders think about either of those things. Very important. Everyone needs a vision no matter what your job is. Of course, superboss leaders are geniuses at communicating the vision. They get people excited, they get people energized around that. One of my interviews with someone who worked for Bill Sanders and he was a superboss in the real estate finance business he said, "Seeing Bill Sanders speak, you wish you could have joined the company last year. You didn't want to wait, there was a train moving and you wanted to be part of it." Think about that. That's the metaphor I heard time and time again. There's a train leaving the station. If I wasn't on that train, I would regret it for the rest of my life. How many of us are able to convey a vision so that the people around us would have even an inkling of the same type of reaction? We're talking about a high bar when it comes to vision, a compelling vision but that's what we have to do. That's certainly what superboss leaders do. You want people to say I got to be part of this, I want to be part of this and I will regret it if I'm not part of this. That's what you want. Alice Waters, her vision of teaching America how to eat differently and better respect ingredients, etc. That energize an entire generation of people. California cuisine as we talk, as it used to be called she was the one. It was her and her proteges that created it. Back to George Lucas. He created an environment where trust, collegiality, and collaboration all flourished. Central to making that happen is vision. A number of his former employees told me that Lucas's unique vision inspire them to work their hardest and unleash their imaginations to the fullest. Leaders today often articulate their visions publicly, acknowledging it as something a company needs to have, but a vision shouldn't be something you need to have. You can't focus group your way to crafting a vision. It's got to be authentic. It's got to be compelling. By all accounts, Lucas's vision was both of these things authentic and compelling as one of his proteges, pretty well-known, excitedly related to me. Another one of the people who worked for him, Michael Rubin, he actually wrote a book called Droid Maker, so all of you Star Wars fans get a kick out of that. He was a young member of Lucasfilms Graphics Group back in the 1880s, he recalled hearing George Lucas talk about his vision, a film technology that was transformational. Mike Rubin said to me, "I heard him explain what the future could be like and I was infected," what a word, "I was infected with that at age 22. I believed him and it totally changed my career." In his last quote is especially important. Lucas's vision wasn't something impersonal that appeared on the company website. It was something that Lucas himself communicated in-person, the old-fashioned way. Because he did so, his employees, his team members, they regarded it as undeniably authentic and absolutely urgent. Remembering his initial encounters with George Lucas, Phil Tippett said, another one of the proteges, "It wasn't a calculation on any level for Lucas. It was like, I'm going to do this stuff until somebody shoots me." Now, I don't want anybody to shoot anybody, but you get the picture. It's just so important, and it's so compelling, and it's so meaningful. Who doesn't want to be part of that? That's your challenge. How do you get people to want to buy into your world? What is that vision you're going to have? Whatever it is, we're not all George Lucas, that's for sure, but we're all doing whatever we're doing and it's important because we're doing it and we need to convey that and make it compelling and exciting. When we talk to someone about what we're doing, we want them to be looking at us and want to hear more. We want them to even be ready to say, how can I help? How can I join you? That's what we want and that's what superbosses do. I hope that's going to be your new target when it comes to vision, it's not just the word, it's a game changer.
