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Case in Point Steve Jobs
Starting in his parents’ garage,
Steve Jobs
co-founded Apple Computer, and began the personal
computer revolution.
But Jobs was ousted from Apple before the
company’s greatest successes in the mid-80s. He excelled in
creating and communicating an idealistic
vision of the future, but fell short in managing people,
developing a
corporate strategy, and steering the company toward
profitability. Jobs was a visionary, not a strategist. His
triumphant return to Apple in the late 1990s was possible only
because he had enhanced his skills as a strategist.
Steve
Jobs' 12 Rules of Success
Vision Alone Is
Not Enough
The example of Steve Jobs
illustrates the distinction between vision and strategy, and
highlights that lasting success comes from having a compelling
vision of what you want to achieve and developing a strategy for
making that vision a reality. Having only one or the other leads
to underachievement. In fact, many well-known
entrepreneurs suffered from the Jobs syndrome – being a
visionary and with relatively weak strategic skills – and
suffered the same fate of being cast out of the company they
founded.
 Many high-profile dot-com failures suffered from the
corporate equivalent of the Jobs syndrome, with lofty visions
(e.g., “the Internet will reshape the business world, and we’re
going to be a part it…”) but poor strategies (“… so let’s sell
dog food online!”).
On an individual level, the Jobs
syndrome underlies several types of psychological dysfunction;
perfectionists and procrastinators, for example, both tend to
have ideals so lofty or daunting that no strategy could possibly
be successful, leading to broader patterns of anxiety and
avoidance.
The same combination of high-minded ideas with the
inability to put them into action is seen from television
characters like Kramer on Seinfeld to social archetypes such as
“hopeless romantics” and “absent-minded professors.”
True success only
comes from a combination of vision and strategy.
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Henry Ford, for example,
not only had a vision of an America reshaped by affordable
automobiles, but also a highly successful strategy built
around mass production and mass marketing.
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Throughout history, successful
business ventures – from Ted Turner’s CNN to
Steve Case’s America OnLine to Bill Gates’
Microsoft to Oprah Winfrey’s inspirational empire –
have all been made possible by the combination of vision and
strategy, of insight and execution.
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Social and religious leaders
such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
had the same combination – an inspiring vision of what
society could be, and strategies based on civil disobedience
for helping make that vision a reality.
Vision and strategy are both required for success in daily
life as well, as illustrated in a study conducted by James
Pennebaker at Southern Methodist University. He identified three
kinds of people:
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“high-level thinkers”
who consistently focused on important issues of vision –
their lives, identities, expectations for the future, and so
on
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“low-level thinkers” who
consistently focused on mundane concerns and daily
obligations, and
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“flexible thinkers” who
engaged in both high-level and low-level thinking. Flexible
thinkers were found to have the best physical health and the
lowest rates drug and alcohol use.
Success and
good health result from both high-level thinking about
issues of vision, as well as more detailed, lower-level
planning about how to achieve that vision.
 To get the most out of
life, ask yourself if you have both a
vision and a strategy. Think about your vision for your
future – Do you really know what you want to achieve? Have you
really thought about who you want to become? And what about your
strategy for getting there – Have you set goals? Have your
written down your goals? Have you made plans for success?
Clarifying both your vision and strategy will help maximize your
motivation and your success, not to mention
your health and
happiness… |
