How to Make Your Vision Infectious

Every business that succeeds is built around a

vision. That is the reason they do business. Steve

Jobs made Apple what it is today because he had a

vision that any person—old or young—could pick

up a computer and use it. His vision drove the

company to create products that did nothing less

than just that.

He explained his vision in such a way that it became

infectious. It spread around the engineers and

product designers. Their new ideas surrounded the idea of making something that was

excessively user-friendly. Their product reflected their reason.

The vision spread around the public like a contagious disease. Their iPods took over the mp3

market. Their computers are taking over the laptop market in college settings. They’ve become a

leader in computer technology because they spread their motivation.

Strength of vision and infectiousness

Businesses succeed and fail every day based on 2 things: the strength of their vision, and how

infectious they make it. Assuming that a strong vision already exists, how can that business

communicate it to the core of their employees? How do they make it infectious? To figure that

out, you have to understand the chemical makeup that created it in the first place.

Daniel Pink discussed at length the importance of the real motivation behind every creative

endeavor. It’s not what you produce that people latch onto, but the why. HP and Gateway make

great computers just like Apple, and yet you don’t see hoards of people lining up outside their

stores for a product release. That’s because consumers aren’t connecting to what HP and

Gateway are doing.

There are plenty of other people who make a computer. The product isn’t unique enough for

people to latch onto the “what.” Daniel goes on to say that showing them how it will help their

lives isn’t the real motivation either. The product is intuitive in and of itself.

What?

Saying that the computer will do word processing, let you check your email, and burn a Blu-ray

disk at the same time isn’t compelling. Consumers scoff and think that there’s probably someone

else who can do it better, for cheaper. So why is it that when Apple develops a product that has a

slightly larger screen, people go crazy and clean the stores of iPhones for the first 2 months of

launch? It’s because Apple unveiled its true motivation to the public. They showed the public

the “why” they do things. Their motivation

caught like the flu.

They told the public that the whole reason

they existed was to make computers—

which already existed—usable to the

general public. They assured the public that

they will always make the product easier to

use than any other computer product,

through word and example. Why do they

do this? They do it because they care about

improving the experience. Apple based its

products around a reason. People could get behind that reason, because it was about improving

the world.

Creators, employees, and customers can stand firmly behind this principle. Employees solve

incredibly difficult problems to make it possible. Customers go to extreme lengths to get their

hands on your products. Had their motivation been to make money, they wouldn’t have been

nearly as successful.

No one respects that motivation. It has no real value to anyone. Money doesn’t have that kind

of effect on people. If you’re telling your employees to work just for money, they won’t go

above and beyond for you, and consumers won’t come near you.

You need to create a motivator that improves the world. People and employees catch onto that

when you present it during compliance training. At that point, you can tell employees in a large

auditorium or a tiny office and they will catch it. Present a compelling reason why behind what

you do in compliance training, and the vision will spread itself.

Photo credit: Dunechaser, Joi