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It is centered on the problem you want to see solved in the world.It is a tangible end state you can visualize.It is meaningful to you and the people you intend to impact.
Whose world are you trying to change?Who are the people who have the problem you’re inspired to solve?What does their world look like today?What are they trying to accomplish and how are they doing it today?Why is the status quo unacceptable? (Keep in mind that maybe it’s not.)When will you know that you’ve achieved your vision?How will you bring about this change?
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Chapter 3. Vision
Envisioning change
Your product is your mechanism to create the change you envision for your users. This means that before you can build your product, you need to define your vision for the change you want to bring about.
Your product is your mechanism to create that change—it’s not the end goal in itself.
The characteristics of a good vision
What are the characteristics of a vision that finds its way into the hearts and minds of employees rather than the filing cabinet?
Drawing from research through my work with a large number of organizations and teams on vision statements, I’ve found that a good vision has three important traits:
Center your vision on the problem you want to solve
Vision statements often declare the management team’s aspirations, such as “To be a billion-dollar company,” “To be number one in our industry,” or “To deliver shareholder value.” Sometimes those aspirations are about revolutionizing, disrupting, or reinventing an industry.
Your vision shouldn’t be about your aspirations for your organization at all. Instead, your vision should be centered on the change you want to create in the world, your impact. One sign of a good vision is that even if you were to take yourself and your organization out of the picture, you would still want the problem to be solved. If your vision is about your business goals, you’re less focused on solving the customer’s problem and are creating an opportunity for a competitor with a clearer focus on the customer’s problem to beat you at your game.
When your vision articulates the problem clearly, your team can more easily understand the problem intuitively, and everyone has a clear purpose in solving it.
Visualize the end state you want to bring about
When you’re creating change, you’re creating something that doesn’t exist today. To do this, you and your team must be able to clearly picture that world in your mind—you must have a shared vision of the world you want to create together. When your goal is a tangible, visualizable end state instead of something abstract, people can internalize it and make it their own dream. To create such a shared picture, your vision must be detailed—a short slogan fails to paint such a clear picture of the world that you want to bring about.
A descriptive vision helps you recognize when you’re getting closer to your vision or straying from it. Your picture of the end state serves as a guidepost for you and your team to help you decide if you’re on the right path to creating the world that you intended or if course corrections are necessary.
Galvanize both your team and your customers
Often the sole focus of a vision statement is to create internal alignment. In reality, however, while your vision acts as a guide for your team, it will also form the foundation of your external messaging. Your vision must resonate with the people whose lives you want to impact, since you want them alongside you on this journey.
When you share your vision with your customers for the change you want to bring about for them, they should be nodding along with you. This is why you should steer away from vision statements like “To be a leader in our industry”—your customers don’t care who the leader is! They just care that they have a product that solves their problem.
How do you know if your current vision meets these criteria? You can ask team members and some of your customers to share what they think your vision is. If your vision is clear on the problem you’re setting out to solve and it resonates with them, they’ll be able to state your vision in their own words—that’s the true sign of a shared vision. If it doesn’t resonate with them and they haven’t internalized it, they may repeat back your slogan or feel embarrassed that they don’t remember the vision statement.
Before you begin working on a vision statement, a word of caution. Studies have repeatedly shown that people are more motivated when they’re solving a problem that’s bigger than them—so it’s tempting to write a vision statement that sounds righteous, even if you’re solving a different problem.1 But you must resist this temptation; be authentic.
In our conversation, Anne Griffin shared her experience as lead product manager at a blockchain startup: “We said that our vision was to make justice more accessible to people. But in reality, our customers were mostly law firms and we were continuing to build features to grow that customer base. So the vision wasn’t really making justice accessible to people.”
What Griffin describes is a symptom of Hero Syndrome, a product disease that happens when we try to concoct a vision that sounds bigger or more inspiring. Your impact doesn’t have to sound big and it doesn’t have to change the world for everyone. Your vision should be authentic so your team clearly understands the problem you’re setting out to solve.
Crafting your vision statement
Starting with an empty sheet of paper creates pressure to find the perfect words that merit contaminating the pristine white.
To alleviate that problem and to make it easier for you to iterate on a vision without getting attached to the words, you can use the Radical Vision Statement written in a Mad Libs format:
Today, when [identified group] want to [desirable outcome], they have to [current solution]. This is unacceptable because [shortcomings of current solutions]. We envision a world where [shortcomings resolved]. We are bringing this world about through [basic technology/approach]
Below is this vision statement filled out for Lijjat:
Today, when [underprivileged women from poor households] want to [run the household and educate their kids], they have to [depend on their husband’s income, borrow from relatives, or take charity]. This is unacceptable because [in a patriarchal society they have little influence on household spending, and without a sustainable source of income their children’s educational prospects are limited, thus repeating the cycle of poverty]. We envision a world where [women gain self-employment and thereby become self-reliant, leading to their socioeconomic progress]. We are bringing this world about through [manufacturing high-quality, fast-moving consumer goods that meet consumer needs without ever taking charity].
Common advice on vision statements has created a confusion between brand taglines and visions. A detailed vision makes the end state clear to your team so your vision is actionable and your team can use it to build the product.
Your vision must be detailed enough that it is able to exclude certain actions—that is, not all actions or activities should be compatible with your vision. This too is a radical departure from the conventional wisdom that your vision should be broad and aspirational.
Even if your end goal is utterly audacious, your near-term goal should be more achievable. You can use the Mad Libs statement above for your near-term vision and the following vision evolution statement to help you lay out the end goal:
We started by changing the way that [customer segment] did [activity/outcome] through [basic technology/approach]. We’ve learned and grown since then, and now believe that the next big step is [end state].
What your vision statement must answer
The Radical Vision Statement is designed to align teams on the who, what, why, when, and how. To craft your vision using the Mad Libs statement, you may find it helpful to think through the following questions:
Whose world are you trying to change?
The who question helps you identify the group of people you intend to impact. Your answer should be as specific as possible. For example, it cannot be as broad as “consumers” or “businesses.” It must be a group distinguishable from others so you can identify their problem specifically.
What does their world look like today?
Put yourself in the shoes of the people you want to help and ask, “What is the problem they face today? What are they trying to accomplish and how are they going about it today?”
Why is the status quo unacceptable?
The next question gets to the why of your vision. You’ve articulated the problem, but why is it imperative that it be solved? What are the consequences if it’s not solved?
approach. When we’re vision-driven, we don’t disrupt for the sake of disrupting—we ask, “Is the status quo unacceptable?” In asking this question, it’s important to recognize that while you may see the status quo as unacceptable, the people you intend to impact may not.
Your vision may be meaningful to you, but it must also be meaningful to the people you want to impact.
When will you know that you’ve achieved your vision?
The when question should describe a visualizable end state and what success looks like.
In answering these questions, you create signposts so you know if you’re making progress or if you need to course correct.
How will you bring about this change?
In answering the how question, you can finally talk about the product, technology, or approach that helps you to bring about the change you envision.
By describing the mechanism for bringing about your desired change, you make your vision actionable for the team. As you execute on your vision, you may discover that your mechanism needs refinement—in fact, this is why RPT defines product as a constantly improvable mechanism for bringing about the change you desire.
Spreading your vision
It’s important to note that keeping buy-in and alignment requires revisiting your vision statement periodically. The questions of who, what, why, when, and how are existential questions and your answers may change. You may find that the landscape has shifted, and the answer to “What does their world look like today?” may have changed.
You’ll want to review your vision statement as a group regularly. In a more mature market, your cadence might be once in six months.
Give other people the visionary moment when they can see the impact of the vision. Because then they are going to drive the vision.
One technique you can use to create visionary moments is to get team members to observe users struggling with the status quo.
You can create visionary moments across the company by helping individuals see users’ problem firsthand and how your solution can make their lives better. In addition to creating visionary moments, it’s important to help all individuals see how their role contributes to the vision.
You can talk to all individuals on the team on how their role contributes toward the team vision.
To build vision-driven products, we need to have a clear vision for the world we want to bring about. A good vision must act like a signpost so we know if we’re making progress or if we need to course correct. It sets the direction so that the success of our iterative execution is not measured merely by moving financial KPI up and to the right but by whether we’re bringing about the world we set out to in the first place.
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