The managing editor of Bloomberg Politics, Mark Halperin, suggested during a conversation the other day on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Hillary Clinton lacked “a big strategic vision on how to deal with the world.”  Same for President Obama.  Both, he observed, tend to look on the world episodically rather than strategically:

“We’re still dealing with the fallout of the end of the Cold War. We’re still dealing with the fallout of a post-9/11 world. And I think a lot of people are able to question (Mrs. Clinton's) role in the president’s record on the question of where is the grand strategy? Where is the vision of how to take America into a situation where we’re not dealing episodically with lots of crises without an overall sense of how to bring things together?”

Where is the vision, indeed! 

How do we “position” ourselves in the world?   How do we want to be perceived – generally and in light of tectonic shifts in geo-politics?  Where are we going?  How will we get there?   And how does all this impact my world, my country and me? 

The political parties and their presidential aspirants could do well to figure that out.

“The vision thing,” as George H. W. Bush famously called it back in 1987, has tripped up many a politician – and business leader.  Vision is not something you brainstorm for a couple of hours during a weekend retreat, tack on the office wall and forget about (although I have seen that happen many a time).  A well-grounded vision should arise from the core of your business with the vigor of Jack’s beanstalk because it wraps competency, focus and future into a single commanding insight about who you are and what you bring to the world.  Vision fuses who you are with what you want to become.  It propels you into tomorrow and next year and the year after that -- whether company or country. Decisions no longer get made piecemeal but are considered within the context of a well understood, well accepted and forward-looking strategic framework.

My definition of vision is a dream with a goal.

Too simple?  Vision is simple.  Making vision complicated is make-work.  And a disservice to your organization and the people who will help imagine and fashion your future.

All too often, however, we give little more than lip service to vision.  As Halperin noted, we react episodically.  We may solve some immediate problem with clever footwork but, in the long run, not get much more than a rim shot in return.   

The Obama administration appears to lack vision.  The president and his frequently flying secretary of state seem to react to foreign policy situations while fostering the impression of acting deliberately.  It seems true in their Middle East decision-making and when dealing with the seemingly indomitable Mr. Putin -- unless, of course, the administration’s actions are being guided by a strategy that simply isn’t apparent to the rest of us.  Either way, the perceived result is the same: geo-political muddle.

Our leaders do the country a disservice by not connecting the dots, by refusing (or neglecting) to meld the people’s dreams and goals into a clear and compelling vision, whether they’re talking about “rebuilding the middle class” or how government plays out its foreign policy on their behalf.  Historian and diplomat George F. Kennan once stated that, as an agent of the people (but not a principal unto itself), the primary obligation of government is to the “interests of the national society it represents … military security, the integrity of its political life and the well-being of its people.”    

Considered in that light, is it clear that President Obama has a vision for America – for all Americans?  Is he serving the interests of the national society he represents?  Or is he working his own agenda?  And are we in for more of the same if the Democrats’ leading contender is elected president in 2016?

On CNN this weekend, geo-political commentator and author Fareed Zakaria asked Hillary Clinton about the upcoming presidential campaign, to which she responded, in part, with her view about visioning:  

“Every election is sui generis.  I think it starts with where we are in the country at this time, with what Americans are thinking, feeling and hoping, and it proceeds from there.  And it is always about the future.  …  The questions for somebody running for president are not, you know, will you run and can you win … you have an election, not about a candidate, but you have an election about an agenda.”

The comment suggests that one day Mrs. Clinton actually may come up with a vision that helps the American people discern whether her view of our country and its place in the world earns their vote.  Meanwhile, even NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson says that Hillary lacks “a big idea.”  Clinton’s early-bet, very liberal opponent, Elizabeth Warren (who says she’s not running in the primary), already has posted a list of 11 Progressive Commandments that leaves no doubt about her vision for the country, at least regarding domestic issues.  I admire her specificity if not her politics.

What about your business?  Do you have a vision?  Does it reflect your present and illuminate your future?  

• Perhaps your business strategy is concerned with protecting what you’ve already built.   
• Maybe your company banks on its ability to respond with agility to present and emerging customer needs – faster and with greater innovation than its competitors.  
• Or you’re a groundbreaker, with that rare ability to see beyond the horizon, make new things happen and change the world. 

In each case, your business should be guided by a strategic vision that your people understand and buy into, a vision that reflects both its dream for the future and a concrete goal somewhere out there in time.  Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) says “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” They also are apt to react to situations episodically (interestingly, a more up-to-date translation of the Proverbs verse suggests that things tend to fall apart without having first acceded to God’s guidance). 

Content © by Brian E. Faulkner

Tags: vision, strategic vision, Bloomberg Politics, Mark Halperin, Hillary Clinton, Morning Joe, President Obama, Cold War, George H. W. Bush, George F. Kennan, Fareed Zakaria, Elizabeth Warren, 11 Progressive Commandments, Proverbs 29:18  

Brian Faulkner is a content writer and Key Message expert.  He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most.  His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies over many years.  His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage:

>  blogs to establish you as the thought leader / authority in your business category
>  case stories that communicate your sales successes and invite prospect inquiry
>  testimonials that showcase customer / client satisfaction in 1-2 short sentences
>  positioning statements to guide business development & marketing
>  landing page copy to set your business or brand apart in a compelling way
>  tagline development to attract the interest of your most qualified prospects

Brian also is a three-time Emmy award-winning Public Television writer / narrator and is principal writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular "Our State" magazine series, on the air since 2003.  His distinctive sound has been heard on many hundreds of radio spots and client videos since the 1970s.  People say he has a “Mercedes voice” and sounds a bit like Charles Kuralt, which Brian considers a welcome ... but happy ... illusion.

Several months ago, after walking through our local Sears store, it occurred to me that Amazon.com should buy the American department store pioneer.  There would be two obvious advantages:

1)  It would give Amazon.com an immediate foot on the ground by way of 900+ "Sears" branded stores.

2)  It would give Sears (if it even survived the transaction) a badly needed marketing leg up – taking it back to its roots, so to speak, by providing a ready-made online “catalog” with ever-fresh new shopping options.

Then, today, I came across an article by retail commentator Robin Lewis, of The Roberts Report, that suggested that very thing, although his headline made it sound like the deal had already been struck.   (http://therobinreport.com/amazon-acquires-sears/)

It was with great relish that my parents took me to Sears in the 1950s -- I can still “feel” the place.  There were displays that caught your attention as soon as you walked through the door (always different, always fun).  And the wonderful aroma of freshly made buttered popcorn.

The Sears of my youth was the big box of its time.  It was a retail wonderland where you could buy just about anything, from clothes to bulky black-and-white TV sets (and the rooftop antennas you needed to make them work).  There were also Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools  -- Mom would have no other washer, and Dad practically idealized Craftsman products.  

My birthday present one year was a shiny maroon J.C. Higgins two-wheel bicycle with wide fenders that actually kept rainwater off your back, coaster brakes and fat tires.  It was the real thing, not a sissy bike like we kids perceived the European “racing bikes” to be.

The same vast selection – and infinitely more – could be ordered from the Sears Wish Book, a printed catalog with many hundreds of pages, some of which found a liberal secondary use in rural outhouses during its early days.  Up through the early ‘40s you could even order a kit house through the Sears catalog – and have all 25 tons and 30-thousand+  parts of it delivered to your building site.  I ended up living in one during the 1970s.

My recent visit to a Sears store was just that: a visit.  Our little granddaughter wanted to ride up and down the escalator with Grandpa while her mother shopped at the Whole Foods next door (housed in what used to be the other half of the Sears store).  My brothers and I also loved the “moving stairs” in Sears all those years ago – and if truth be told, probably would have a go at them today were we fortunate enough to find ourselves together in a Sears store any time soon.     

The Sears store we visited with our granddaughter (in an otherwise bustling shopping center) was a sad shadow of the one that lives in my memory.   There were large expanses of empty floor space.   Prices posted on a spare display of clothing clearly were too high.   There weren’t many people around, save a few bored sales clerks gazing at rows of chattering big-screens, one of whom tried (somewhat desperately, it seemed) to sell us a mattress we had zero interest in buying.   

The store was well-kept (lots of time to sweep up) but appeared on the edge of abandonment, which inspired me to craft a variation on their  2009 tagline (Life. Well Spent).   Sears … Just About Spent. 

Back in the early ‘90s I had a conversation with a client who recently had left a high level Sears position --  just about the time the folks from Bentonville were beginning to make good on their notion to rise up and eat America.  The general drift of our discussion was that Sears had, indeed, lost its way – and that was years before Walmart got awesome big and before the Internet started chomping away at the retail space.  Amazon.com didn't launch until 1995!   So, could the tide finally be about to turn for the one-time American retail stalwart, thanks to one of its most voracious competitors?  

If so, I say “Go get ‘em!” Jeff Bezos.  And don’t forget the freshly made buttered popcorn.

TakeAway:   Resting on the tried and true may blind you to new ways of doing things and shut you out of a future you truly might have prospered in. 

© Brian E. Faulkner

Tags:  Sears, tagline, Amazon.com, The Lewis Report, Kenmore, Craftsman, J.C. Higgins, Sears Wish Book, Sears catalog, Whole Foods, Walmart, key message, wishy-washy taglines. 

Brian Faulkner is a Key Message expert.  He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most.  His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies over many years.  He thrives on strategic communication problem solving, complex subjects, new ideas, concepts-as-products, challenging marketing situations and demanding deadlines.  His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage.

Brian also is a three-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular Our State magazine series, on the air since 2003.  

Went shopping for a new laptop last weekend at Best Buy.  Over the years, I have avoided Best Buy because it’s too big and sometimes too loud and because the help doesn’t always know what they’re talking about.  Truth is I don’t like big box stores in general.  I miss the small, more specialized, more personable shops (and shopkeepers) that used to populate our towns and cities. 

But if I want a wide variety of laptops to select from – at least in Piedmont North Carolina, there is no choice other than to frequent Best Buy, or one of the office boxes. 

So there we were, two somewhat older, would-be Best Buy customers wandering around trying to figure which laptop from a mind-numbing array of choices would best suit my wife.  Within minutes, a young guy in a blue Best Buy shirt appeared, briefly inquired about our needs and said he’d find someone to help us out – a positive start!  Then he (and apparently his helper) … disappeared.   Later, after having selected an HP laptop totally on our own, he approached us again as we sauntered over to the camera department and went through the same routine again, not realizing that he had spoken to us fifteen minutes earlier.

In the camera department, I asked another blue-shirt about a specific Canon product that they were likely to have in stock considering the price range of cameras already on display.  “No,” the clerk said.  “We don’t have that one.”  He wandered off.

Hmmm …

Then I turned around, and there – at eye level on an end cap display – was the camera I’d inquired about in all its promotional glory!

The clerk came back.  I pointed out the display.  He seemed genuinely shocked.  Then said that the camera department “expert” would be back from lunch in a few minutes and that we should hang around and talk to him.   We did.   He didn’t.   After a while, the clerk returned with news that the expert wasn’t actually working that day and that we should come back during the week.

Hmmm …

So on to checkout.  Only one register open, and there was a line.   After a while, it was our turn.   The young woman behind the register acted bored beyond hope and asked far too many pre-programmed questions, which was one reason the line moved so slowly.   After completing our single-item transaction, her final note of disdain was to mutter “Thank you, have a great day” in a tone that made me want to dope-slap her (or her manager, or his/her manager, or the president of the company).

One miscue I can handle, but five?

1.  The disappearing greeter, Part I.

2.  The disappearing greeter, Part II.

3.  The uninformed camera clerk.

4.  The missing expert.

5.  The disappointing checkout.

Best Buy had five chances to shine but muffed them all.   Sure, the company is having trouble finding its way in a world that’s getting more expansive on one hand (think Amazon.com) and more specialized on the other (think Apple stores).   If they don’t reinvent themselves – and soon, upstart competitors, including those yet to emerge, will eat their lunch and their dinner.

The Best Buy merchandising concept emerged in the late ‘70s after the owner of a small chain of Minnesota stereo shops discovered the power of discounting following a store fire.  Five years later, the enterprise was renamed Best Buy and took off like it was being chased by the future, with innovative store formats and ever more product categories, including appliances.   By 1992 they were a billion dollar company and expanding nationally as more and more personal technology came on line to sell.  With more than 600 stores in the U.S., Best Buy glided into the Millennium as if nothing could slow their inevitability.  By 2007, they were in China – with eyes on other international locations. 

But pervasive market change had begun chewing away at their success, including online gaming, music streaming, online merchandising and (of late) software migration to the cloud.   Strategic disruptor Amazon.com sold their first book online in 1995.  And reached a billion dollars by 2001.  Today, they’re busily selling the everything from A-Z that Jeff Bezos envisioned from the start.  

Years ago -- centuries in terms of business change, Wachovia Bank rolled out their Personal Banker concept.  It paired customers with a branch banker who stuck around instead of rotating into the next training slot, as seemed the usual banking custom.  “You Have a Personal Banker at Wachovia,” proclaimed their tagline.  It was true.  And it worked!   For a long time.

There were two keys to the success of Personal Banker:

(1)  It maximized (and managed) the customer experience: created value by creating valuable relationships. 

(2)  It was authentic.  Wachovia delivered on their promise, day in and day out.

But what about Best Buy?  They clearly need a fresh approach, perhaps one as bold and innovative as the concept that first set them apart.  However, instead of looking to selection, scope and scale (even price) for differentiation, there may be strategic ground to be gained in activating their sales culture.

Like Wachovia Bank did so effectively with Personal Bankers, people power can be let loose relatively quickly and provide an enduring source of competitive advantage.   Under this scenario, Best Buy would hire (and retain) a top tier of professional sales consultants whose primary mission is to create valuable customer relationships, product knowledge experts who have been granted the autonomy to give their loyal customers set-apart service (essentially an expansion of Best Buy’s Geek Squad concept).   The consultants would be amply rewarded, based on metrics like better conversion, more frequent purchases by “their” customers, increased average transactions, time in grade, etc., and newer employees would aspire to join their ranks.  Customer satisfaction and repeat business would skyrocket.  Service complaints would begin fading away. 

Transforming Best Buy’s sales culture into a high performance human asset may sound like a stretch.  But even if the idea were only moderately successful, it beats the heck out of the errors, ignorance and indifference that pervaded our recent Best Buy laptop shopping experience.  And it certainly would give the company a long-term competitive advantage worth shouting about.

To be fair, Renew Blue, a Best Buy performance improvement initiative designed (in part) to “reinvigorate and rejuvenate the customer experience” has been underway for just over a year.  But for the moment, these two Best Buy shoppers are in no hurry to come back -- although when the new laptop breaks, we’ll be first in line to check out the Geek Squad.

TakeAway:   Differentiate your business, brand or product in a meaningful and enduring way.  Create value by creating valuable relationships.  Reward the people who make it happen.   Then tell the marketplace about your success – instead of letting it shape you.   People will want to be your customers.   And will return again and again.

© Brian E. Faulkner.

Related posts: 
www.brianefaulkner.com/1/post/2014/01/minimum-wage-should-be-stricken-from-our-business-vocabulary.html
www.brianefaulkner.com/1/post/2014/02/mr-grumpy-gets-his-due.html

Brian Faulkner is a Key Message expert.  He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most.  His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies.  He thrives on strategic communication problem solving, complex subjects, new ideas, concepts-as-products, challenging marketing situations and demanding deadlines.  His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage.

Brian also is a three-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular Our State magazine series, on the air since 2003. 

The future needs a tagline.   I’m not talking about the “seeable” future, the readily predictable one where life doesn’t change that much and we raise our kids best we know how and continue spoiling our grandchildren – that’s easy to visualize.  It’s the vague, fuzzy one I’m talking about, the future that's been struggling to break out and declare itself for so many years, the slightly discomfiting one we can’t quite put our collective fingers on, the one the yammering class discusses so endlessly, sometimes without a clue.  When that future finally knocks on our door, how will we describe it?

Clearly, the future of personal flying craft swooping through soaring cities, as illustrated in Popular Science years ago, did not happen.  Nor did a world free of pollution, war and hate, bad germs, disease, distasteful hairdos, foul breath and other toxic things.  But who could have imagined a “personal” computer of such incredible power?  Or a “smart” phone that that (almost) works everywhere, as Issac Asimov predicted in 1964 (http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/isaac-asimov-predicts-what-the-world-will-look-in-2014.html) – and takes pictures of astonishing quality that you can send to friends down the block or around the world on something called the Internet.  Arthur C. Clarke also nailed that prediction 50 years ago.  (http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/arthur_c_clarke_looks_into_the_future_1964.html)

I recall consulting to a firm 25 years or so ago whose business it was to predict the future.  My assignment was helping them describe their benefits to corporate prospects.  They had quite the impressive place, with lots of marble, glass, sneaky lighting, far-out sculptures and minimalist appointments. They also had a clutch of Ph.D.s hard at work (it seemed) trying to out think one another – in hope of impressing prospective clients who had the curiosity (and the cash) to pony up for the firm’s take on the future.

Their main product was something called scenario planning, a technique developed by Royal Dutch Shell to consider how a small handful of alternative futures might affect their business.  Scenarios included the most predictable one (more of the same, just incremental change), one based on crisis-level fuel shortages or some other hugely disruptive event, another featuring global chaos created by the bad guys of the moment (9-11 was years in the future) and finally a wild card, anything goes scenario. It was a good way to get clients thinking that the future is likely to be unpredictable and they’d better get busy planning for something different than what they’ve got.  In other words, allow yourself to wonder over your company’s far horizon in a disciplined (and expensive) sort of way.

Of course, their predictions were all made before the Internet (which likely helped drive them out of business), during a time when the future appeared a whole lot less threatening and didn’t seem to advance as relentlessly as it does now. 

Consider changes happening today, at least as I note them:

• rising geopolitical uncertainty around the world (maybe even including the Arctic)
• our country in decline (some say) especially in military preparedness and space exploration
  
• a burgeoning -- and increasingly more competitive -- China
• China and North Korea intentionally stirring the East Asian pot
• a restive Russia, led by the relentless Mr. Putin
• the sadness and human tragedy that is Syria
• continuing unrest in the Mideast, driven by religious extremism and restless youth
  
• the rise of non-nation state actors with peace in mind -- but only on their terms
• immigration indigestion in Western Europe and North America
  
• the fear of terrorism still lurking in our bones
• cyber-warfare, including potential electrical grid sabotage and loss of our food distribution system
• pervasive refusal to consider both the short- and long-term impact of petroleum-driven “progress”
• economic uncertainty, especially ramifications of a declining U.S. dollar
• a schizophrenic economy (the market way up but without much street level growth)
• disruptive and discouraging political bifurcation, at both the state and national levels
• tepid leadership that seems to lack a constructive vision cut from whole cloth
• the refusal of both left and right to release climate change from its political bondage
• a dramatically shifting workforce, with more losers than winners
• a public education system that often  appears more focused on survival than success
• capitalism that too frequently seems un-anchored from the common good
• too much super-scale retailing at the expense of small businesses and their communities
• the idolatry of celebrity worship, while occupations with greater potential value are devalued
• the bottomless pit of "popular" entertainment and runaway consumerism
• increased personal isolation brought on by the rapid growth of social media
• creeping societal change, ever lapping at the shores of our minds
• a sometimes notion that we in the U.S. are largely isolated from it all.

The countless good news stories (mostly personal, largely local) pale by comparison to the big overarching issues.  Even at everyday level, the treasured notion of apple-pie-red-white-and-blue-opportunity-for-all in the US of A seems to have vanished in so much doubt and haze, witness the ascent of an ultra-class of high achievers while the middle class contracts and whole swaths of society become marginalized as technology and indifference kick them to the curb.  In the face of all that, it sometimes seems as if God himself has taken more time off than we might prefer.

So how might we gaze into such a perilous future and – with our limited vision, come up with a tagline to describe it, enlarge our thinking and help guide our progress as the years unfold?  I have a couple of suggestions – for example, the concept I came up with for the scenario planning firm a generation ago was, “The future: a moving target that changes as you act on it.”  It still is, and it still does. 

Consider these two taglines -- do they even begin to put a finger on the magnitude of change we are facing?

The Future: More Surprising Than You Can Even Imagine! 

The Future: Dream Big … Plan for Disruption and Opportunity!

Usually I’m not much on exclamation points, but using them here seems appropriate when contemplating the future we face these days.  What do you think?    Your thoughts and criticism welcome.

Takeaway:  The future is always different than you imagine, so approach it imaginatively.  Expect significant, unanticipated change when planning business strategy and turn it into opportunity.