Here’s a word that gets overused and dramatically overplayed. In the same way as transformation has been hijacked by minor change programs, visionary seems to be used to describe anyone with a good idea.
But surely visionary is something quite different. Something so much more that having a good idea.
I think that a visionary is someone who sees things that other people don’t. Things that are truly innovative. And, let’s call it out, things that are often risky.
But without risk, there can be no true transformation. At a time when all organisations have been challenged to a very significant degree, I think there is great risk in trying to return to something that approaches the pre-COVID normal. At this point in our lives and hopefully for the only time in our lives, we have a situation where trying to return to what was business as usual is probably as risky, if not riskier, than setting a new course forward.
In every organisation, there will be visionary thinkers who to this point of time have been ignored or potentially too afraid to even raise their truly innovative ideas for fear or ridicule or rejection.
But now is the time. Find those visionary thinkers in your organisation. Embrace their ideas. Be pushed well beyond your comfort zone. Seriously consider what they are saying because they might just have an idea that enables you to truly transform your business in a way that you never even imagined.