The Perils Of A Fuzzy Leadership Vision

Leadership Workshop (3 of 12) – Sharpen the Focus

Leading at Light Speed is a groundbreaking leadership book by Eric Douglas describing the 10 Quantum Leaps which build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization. Quantum Leap #2 is about how to Sharpen the Focus.

Some leaders prefer not to sharpen the focus, assuming it gives them increased flexibility to respond to opportunities. But when vision is fuzzy, trust goes in the tank. Burning issues remain ignored. Potentially, politics have the ability to replace output and results. Bureaucracy can trump innovation. There is a sense of alarm when people can feel ineffective leadership. Here’s one example:

For nearly 100 years, Sears Roebuck was the greatest catalog retailer in the world. The primary goals were the invention of new ideas and superb consumer service. As a result, its financial house was in order. Then in the early 1980s, Sears started to diversify into higher-margin, unrelated financial services in order to boost its stock price. Its vision became muddied. Was it going to be the pioneer of low price retailing? It has the potential to become a pioneer in catalog marketing – which will place it in a comfortable situation in e-commerce? No, money fueled the motivation more than anything.

Because its vision was primarily financial, Sears lost sight of its catalog and retail business. Wal-Mart and others came along and created retail alternatives in rural areas. Through innovations of their own, they found ways to improve margins and create greater profits. As soon as it happened, Sears’ boasted a mixture of service, quality, and pricing sharply declined. It became just another retailer – and in the process lost billions of dollars in shareholder value.

When the strategic focus is understood:

People embrace change and adapt their jobs accordingly.
People measure themselves by how well they and their teams perform.
People took it upon themselves to take action without being told to do so.
People raise uncomfortable issues and discuss them openly.
High morale is connected to low turnover rates.

When the strategic focus is not understood:

People lack energy or motivation to change.
People gauge their success by accomplishing goals – or lack thereof.
People are reactive.
People hold back on their opinions on pressing problems.
Morale tends to be low and turnover high.

Another example of fuzzy vision is America Online (AOL). Steve Case, the founder of AOL, initially wanted to change the way people accessed and absorbed information. In the early 1990s, the fight for dominance of the online information business were between AOL and its two main competitors Prodigy and CompuServe. The impending merge with Time-Warner was a distant seven years away. Over the next six years, AOL grew explosively. Case built partnerships with information providers, grew subscribers, and extolled the importance of “content communities.” At the pinnacle of the first dot com boom in 2000, AOL bought Time-Warner. Steve Case became a billionaire.

But then came the fall.Unintentionally with the unification with Time Warner, AOL lacked its edge and prominence as the best internet information provider. It instead tried to build shareholder value through marketing partnerships. Its strategy to be a prominent online advertiser backfired because the advertising packages irritated subscribers and showed negligible value to customers and potential ad buyers.

When the hoped-for synergies with time Warner ’s traditional content failed to materialize, AOL’s focus became very fuzzy indeed. In and out came talent. the internet hype dies. AOL relegated to the unscrupulous behavior of deceptive revenue reporting. the stock price declined dramatically. Case was forced out. The year 2009 marked the remaining chapter in one of history’s worst company mergers when Time-Warner detached from AOL – it served as a symbol of an ambiguous plan.

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