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Imagine the following situation: you are the CEO of a furniture company and you are experiencing a moment of great uncertainty in the business market because at the same time that the sector is increasingly migrating to e-commerce and the customer is changing, so is the cost of wood. Let's face it, you still don't know how to respond to all of this in the best way. Therefore, you reflect on which of the following 3 approaches is best to engage a team that is quite lost and confused: 

1 - you make it very clear what next emergency steps are going to take place in order to get out of this crisis, focusing on the short term and without giving a clear vision of the future (because you have no idea what that future will look like): cuts of costs, operational efficiency, crisis committee, etc.

2 - you give a very specific vision about the future. A future where you think everything will migrate through e-commerce and where you no longer believe that there will be physical interactions with the customer in stores. This vision is clear but very specific and narrow, and some teams do not engage with this idea;

3 - you pass on a broad and flexible vision of the future, where you promise to focus on taking care of the customer's home comfort, no exceptions, or anything like that. Whether it's online or offline, you will be there to deliver. At the same time you leave a clear and comprehensive vision for teams to engage with. 

Which option do you choose?

Well, first you have to consider that there is no right or wrong answer here, but rather just a mental exercise to introduce the topic of today's article, which brings Eric Schmidt back as the protagonist. I believe that the best option has to be number 3, because it is the only one that brings a broad enough vision to make teams engage in a process of change and transformation.

But, who is Eric Schmidt after all? He is best known for his role as CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011 and Executive Chairman from 2011 to 2015, and CEO of Alphabet Inc (which controls Google) from 2015 to 2017. He is one of the richest man in the world, with an estimated fortune of US$ 24 billion. He is the author of a wonderful book called "How Google Works", on which Jonathan Rosenberg co-wrote and is considered to be like a bible on company culture and good leadership. Speaking of leadership and vision, in a famous interview he gave the following statement, which is the inspiration for today's article:

"I don't agree with the fact that you have to have a very specific focus. What I think is that you get the best result when you have the most appeal in terms of leadership, engagement and so on, and we work really hard to make that happen. But there were other things too: we refused to make exclusive deals with specific people. And I would explain it like this: "well, we don't really make exclusive deals with people, but we have the ability to work with only one, and that will be you." Correct? There are other ways to achieve these kinds of things. So I would be careful in concluding that you should do one small thing. All success starts from doing one thing really, really well, but you'll recruit better with a broad vision that you can trust and that you can articulate. But go back to that, sell a dream. What you're doing is selling a dream. If you don't know how to sell the dream, then you won't be successful."

Eric Schmidt

Imagine that you are the president of a university. You are aware that online teaching will be an important part of your institution's future and that it will be anchored in new models that seamlessly blend online and offline. This future - which was already flourishing before the COVID crisis and is now a reality - has accelerated. Now, take a step back from the mad rush to migrate this year's courses online (an admirable mark, no doubt) and imagine what you're going to do at the start of the new academic year in the fall of 2022.

Next, ask yourself what should be done and when, so that this migration goes as smoothly as possible. The systems will have to be in place, the curriculum closed, the integration with the class model resolved, people trained and hired. Maybe you can meet all your benchmarks if you build the program in-house, or maybe you need to partner with a developer or buy some off-the-shelf software. The fall semester of 2021, starting in a few months from now, will indeed be an excellent opportunity to test the key elements of the planned program.

In other words, it all started from the vision of a new teaching model, and then the rest had to be worked backwards, and the actions taken were a reflection of this vision. Working backwards, chart a path starting from your long-term vision to the medium term (your post-crisis focal point) and from there to today. Reverse engineer a series of benchmarks and milestones at regular intervals along the way. The reason for starting in the future and “walking” backwards is that (1) it allows you to make a “blank slate” of what you could become, without being overly limited by the way things are today; (2) it forces you to think concretely and in terms of dollars and cents, which (3) helps you decide which investments to prioritize.

Well, that's one of the big reasons why having a long-term vision is essential for you to be clear about what short-term actions you need to take. At the same time, however, it is important that it be flexible, and particularly broad, to sufficiently engage teams, as Eric Schmidt said in the sentence above.

Let me explain this a little further.

Right at the beginning of the pandemic, I read a very interesting article from the Harvard Business Review, entitled: "Leaders, do you have a clear vision for the post-crisis future?". It was written at the very beginning of the pandemic, in April, and it caught my attention because it states the importance of a broad and clear vision, even more so in times of crisis. 

The author argues that visionary leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela not only reacted to the more imminent threats that confronted them, but they also looked beyond the dark horizon. They were guided - and guided in turn - by their vision of a better future, after these challenges had been overcome. Think about it: to have a vision is an especially urgent feature that you must have during a crisis as global and systematic as this one. Emerging trends such as telecommuting, telemedicine, online shopping and digital media consumption challenge any traditional business, and broken global supply chains such as semiconductors and commodity prices skyrocketing make us zoom in on the problems of today, and forget about the long-term vision.

You need to start preparing for this right now. And to do this right, you need to have a long-term vision of what you aspire to become in five or even ten years – a plan that will focus and help shape your thinking about the short and medium term. It may be hard to see it right now, but the seeds of the next high growth opportunities are taking root this very moment. Try to think about Apple 20 years ago, who conceived and began planning the iPod and iPhone when their computer business faced a huge challenge during the dot-com crash of the 2000s.

Of course, no one has a crystal ball (not even Steve Jobs did); if such a thing existed, we would not be in this situation. But while you can't predict what's to come with perfect certainty, you can develop much more clarity than you can imagine about what you can and should become, create a plan for living in it, and then put it into practice, on the move right away.

But again, NOT EVERY VISION WILL CATCH ON: if it's too focused, the risk is that it's not flexible enough, or not engaging enough. Why? Possibly because not everyone identifies with it. When you have a broad enough ambition, and communicate it the right way, you have a huge impact in return.

In 2019, the Innosight company listed the 20 global companies that achieved the most impactful transformations of the decade. What was discovered back then was that a broad vision and a sense of purpose was the common denominator. Siemens, for example, recently embraced an explicit mission to serve society. China's Tencent announced a quest to create “technology for social good”; while Denmark's Ørsted has transformed from a crisis-ridden natural gas company into a cutting-edge wind power company, increasing its net profits by around $3 billion a year. Ørsted's long-term vision of itself as a sustainable company not only inspires its people to perform, but helps its leaders keep its strategy right.

And there's more: it's not just the CEO who inspires through vision, but each and every one of you. There are at least three vision-building opportunities that you can take advantage of, even if you are not the CEO: contributing to the CEO's vision work, translating the company's vision for your team, and developing a new line team vision front that can be disseminated throughout the company. Each of them can boost your professional development, leading to greater responsibilities over time.

In the first case, (contributing to the creation of the CEO's vision), we have a clear example in the construction of the World Bank's vision: In 1995, when President James Wolfensohn saw the need to reinvent the institution after his post-WWII reconstruction role, he envisioned a new, more philanthropic direction, something about poverty alleviation. But to flesh out that vision, he convened several working sessions with clients, government officials, and many other junior executives and employees across the bank. Throughout the process, a broader team of stakeholders progressively articulated a more complete vision for the institution - "pursuing a dream of a world without poverty".

Now, in the second case of translating the CEO's vision for the teams, we have yet another example from the World Bank: Dennis Whittle, head of a small strategy team, brainstormed with his colleagues on how to translate the concept of the organization's "poverty-free world" into something tangible and practical for its staff. They had the vision that new poverty reduction strategies could come from anywhere in the world, not just from Bank experts, and this idea led to a series of “development markets” where thousands of people around the world could present innovative ideas for economic development and compete for funding.

Now, just to be extremely clear: this vision has to be complemented with action! It is useless to have a clear, broad and ambitious vision if our day-to-day actions do not correspond with it. This is where we need Ambidexterity, which is a term I introduced quickly in the previous episode of my podcast. Organizational ambidexterity is this ability to maintain a balance between delivering efficiency in short term while generating long term value with an effective and broad vision. The leader who manages to balance these two fronts is the ambidextrous leader that the future needs.

That's why I want to leave you with a practical challenge: think about a broad vision for the sector you are working in, for example if you are an electrical distribution company, you can already imagine a totally deregulated market where the consumer can choose from who consume freely and transparently. From that vision, try to go backwards: what mid-term and short-term actions do you have to take to make this vision of the future come true? 

Keywords Soft Skills: Eric Schmidt, Google, Alphabet Inc, How Google Works,  Leadership, What are Soft Skills in Business, Example of Technical Skill, Technical Skill Examples, Soft Skill Development, Soft Skills for a Job, Business Soft Skills, Soft and Hard Skills, Why Are Soft Skills Important, Necessary Soft Skills, Necessary Soft Skills, Human Skills, Entrepreneurship, Andrea Iorio, Metanoia Lab, Metanoia Club, Meta Leadership, Podcast

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Com mais de 200 palestras online e offline em 2021 para clientes no Brasil, América Latina, Estados Unidos e Europa, o Andrea é hoje um dos palestrantes sobre Transformação Digital, Liderança, Inovação e Soft Skills mais requisitados a nível nacional e internacional. Ele já foi diretor do Tinder na América Latina por 5 anos, e Chief Digital Officer na L’Oréal, e hoje é também escritor best-seller e professor do MBA Executivo da Fundação Dom Cabral

With more than 200 keynotes delivered (online and offline) in 2021 to clients across Brazil, Latin America, the United States and Europe, Andrea is today one of the most requested speakers on Digital Transformation, Leadership, Innovation and Soft Skills in Brazil and globally. He has been the head of Tinder in Latin America for 5 years, and Chief Digital Officer at L’Oréal. Today he is also a best-selling author, and a professor at the Executive MBA at Fundação Dom Cabral.

Con más de 150 conferencias online y offline en 2022 para clientes en Brasil, América Latina, Estados Unidos y Europa, Andrea es hoy una de los conferencistas más solicitados sobre Transformación Digital, Liderazgo, Innovación y Soft Skills a nivel nacional e internacional. Fue director de Tinder en América Latina durante 5 años y Chief Digital Officer de L’Oréal Brasil. Es autor de best-sellers y profesor del Executive MBA de La Fundación Dom Cabral, una de las instituciones de mayor prestigio en Brasil.

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