In the innovation journey — the one Compass, Team, Fuel describes as a desert crossing — the vision is the first of the three tools: the compass. Try crossing the Sahara without one: the terrain shifts, the dunes force constant detours, the wind erases every trace behind you. After days of walking you might discover you've been following the opposite bearing, or going in circles. An innovation project without a vision does exactly that: it scatters into tactical decisions that contradict each other, circling without ever reaching a meaningful destination.
The vision does not trace the path; it offers a stable point of reference.
An objective is concrete, with a deadline and measurement criteria; the vision defines the why of the innovation, the long-term transformation. And here is a conviction I hold dearly: the democratization of vision. A vision is no luxury reserved for big brands — Tesla, Nike, Apple — but a tool for every operational level. Every project, every team should have one. No working group is too small to benefit from the exercise of defining and communicating its own great purpose.
How do you recognize a good vision? It must have five characteristics.
1. Clear — even upwards
A good vision should be grasped intuitively, with no deciphering required. If explaining it takes a long argument, it's too complex; if understanding it requires subject-matter expertise, it will never build consensus. A complex vision is a weak vision. In government the risk doubles, because institutional language leans towards bureaucratization: "implementing administrative procedures by optimizing synergies among stakeholders" says little and says it badly. "We want every citizen to access public services simply, quickly and without pointless bureaucracy" is understood at first glance.
Then there's an aspect that's almost always underestimated: upward comprehensibility. Executives and decision-makers are often the least technical people in an organization, because their role is strategic. If the vision is too specialized, the people who must authorize and back the project won't grasp it — and if top management doesn't understand it, it won't support it. Simplicity here isn't shallowness: it's essentiality, and it makes the message more powerful.
2. Ambitious yet realistic: "just beyond the horizon"
Too cautious, and it generates no change at all; too unrealistic, and it becomes a fantasy nobody takes seriously. The best visions identify a goal that sits "just beyond the horizon": you can glimpse it without being able to reach it right away. Storytelling has used this technique forever. In The Lord of the Rings, Mordor is always there: Frodo and Sam know where they must go, yet they know nothing of the route or the obstacles. In Breath of the Wild, the player sees the castle to reach in the distance, and the road is full of detours. In Interstellar, the mission's true objective is revealed only at the end, but the direction is clear from the first minute.
Too close. "Digitize form X": an operational task, with no larger direction.
Too far. "Automate the entire public system and overcome bureaucracy": a utopia impossible to translate into action.
Just beyond the horizon. "Make interacting with public services so simple that citizens never need to understand the bureaucracy": clear direction, room for the journey.
A good vision is like a lighthouse in the distance: clear enough to be recognizable, far enough to demand a real journey.
3. Anchored to a concrete need
Nobody uses a compass to wander aimlessly in the desert: you consult it to find an oasis, a city, a point of rescue. In the same way, a vision detached from a real problem shrinks into a rhetorical exercise. "Streamlining internal processes" is a means; "being a leader in the digital innovation of government" is a self-referential declaration that says nothing about the problems to solve. Compare with: "make sure no citizen ever loses a right for lack of clear information". Here there are real people and problems that exist — and it's this anchoring that gives the direction its motivational force. On why government starts this exercise with an edge, holding the rare privilege of being able to tell the truth about its own purpose, I devote a separate piece to it: Government's Secret Advantage.
4. Engaging: the three stonecutters
A vision that sparks no emotional participation remains a dead letter. The most powerful visions work like great stories: they speak to universal values. The vision I would ideally attribute to SpaceX — "enable human life on other planets" — mentions neither rockets nor aerospace engineering: it speaks of survival and the destiny of our species, instantly reconnecting us to whole shelves of science fiction we've all daydreamed over.
The parable of the three stonecutters says it all. A wayfarer asks three stonecutters what they are doing. The first, wearily: "I'm breaking stones." The second: "I'm earning a living." The third, eyes shining: "I'm building a cathedral." The work is identical; the perception changes radically. People mobilize for a sense of purpose far more than for material incentives — and innovating is exhausting: if the project is perceived merely as a pile of problems to solve, frustration and disengagement are around the corner. The test I use: could I explain why this project matters without mentioning budget, technology or procedures? If yes, the vision is genuinely engaging.
5. Resistant: true north doesn't move
A strong vision is resistant. A compass points north in any condition: you can stop, detour, set off again, and north stays where it is. You can change strategy and operational plans; the direction must remain the same. A vision that changes along the way is a confused idea, and without stability the project falls apart under the weight of operational difficulties. Two measures make it resistant: a solid formulation (all the previous characteristics work towards this) and enough breadth to absorb operational detours without needing a rewrite.
And then it must be protected. Sooner or later the temptation to modify it will come — under pressure, for a stakeholder, after a setback. Giving in is the biggest mistake you can make: you are abandoning your compass in the middle of the desert, and the project risks morphing into something entirely different, stripped of the coherence it started with.
Telling it: the four techniques
Defining the vision is half the work; the other half is getting it accepted, and here the tool is narrative. People follow stories, far more than abstract statements hung on a wall. Four techniques always work:
Create a before and after. Use concrete cases to show how complicated accessing services is today, and what it will look like once the vision is reached.
Use people's language. Simple words that speak to citizens rather than bureaucrats: "digital innovation" and "process optimization" are cold and distant.
Make people the protagonists. Instead of "the administration will become more efficient": "we will finally be able to answer citizens faster".
Repeat, repeat, repeat. You don't check the compass once at the start of the journey and stow it in your backpack: you consult it constantly. Meetings, documents, conversations — every occasion is a chance to restate the same direction.
One question remains: does the leader write the vision alone, or do you build it with the team? And how do vision and objectives relate? I come back to it in Objectives Are Not Tools — because collaboration too, as I tell in another piece, only works inside a clear frame.