Vision or Ego? Four Questions Every Visionary Should Ask
We celebrate stories of strong visionaries like James Dyson who had a single-minded commitment to a vision that seemingly only they could see. We’re familiar with this story and the glory that follows. But just as many would-be revolutionaries drive their companies into the ground remaining committed to their own vision in the face of evidence that a pivot is needed.
Where’s the line? When does vision become egocentrism that’s destined to sink the company?
It’s not an easy question because a visionary has to be able to stand firm in their convictions despite some pushback from doubters. The true innovations often sound a little crazy at first.
So if that’s true, how does a visionary know if they’re being passionate or foolish? I argue there are four concrete tests.
You’re passionate about the problem and pragmatic about the solution
James Dyson famously built over 5000 prototypes before he sold his first vacuum. He remained obsessed with the problem of inefficient vacuums (a problem that few others recognized), but flexible in his approach to solving it. Contrast that with a founder who builds a cool widget and falls in love with it for its own sake, refusing to see that it doesn’t solve a meaningful problem.
I’ve done both of these: years ago, I led us down a path of developing our own app to snag a restaurant table at the last minute called TableNabbr. I was very interested in developing a mobile app, and only somewhat interested in the “problem” of securing a table at a restaurant (I put that in quotes because it’s questionable how much of a true problem that is in many cities). Unsurprisingly, the product flopped. I hadn’t fallen in love with the problem at all; I was intrigued by this cool new trick we could do.
Flash forward almost 15 years, and we recently developed our own data reporting and dashboarding tool, Rover. Even in our first few months, I’m thrilled with the close rate of clients who purchase after being introduced to it. But that product followed a much different path: we were aware of the problem for years (reporting costs too much and takes too long), it bothered me for years, and so when we set out to solve it, we were keenly focused on the problem itself: what would truly matter in real-life situations, not what sounded cool in a pitch video.
You listen to those who experience the problem
There’s a myth that true visionaries pull brilliant ideas out of the ether. In reality, they observe carefully and see what’s hidden beneath people’s daily behaviors and preferences. However, sometimes leaders resist this impulse. There’s an apocryphal Henry Ford quote “If I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses,”, as I explore in my book. We hear this a lot in tech innovation, and there’s a kernel of it that’s true: it’s ill-advised to ask your users what to build.
But it’s crucial to ask your users about their pain (or their hopes or their fears). You have to understand what matters in order to build something that intersects with their lives in a meaningful way.
Visionaries often resist seeking that sort of feedback, because they think it’s going to steal their glory. Relax, it’s not tarnishing your shine. You’re just gathering information that can help you get ahead of the competition. You still get to have the final say in what you build. But understanding those who use your product is the core of making something meaningful, something that’s more than just a press release that’s forgotten in a month.
In our work in UX, we can get a lot of things right through best practices and industry experience. But there are not-infrequent moments where our experience would have led us astray. Maybe there’s some nuance we don’t realize right away, or a special circumstance that makes this time different. That’s why data from real users is so valuable—it’s an objective check on the times when your ego will sell you on the wrong answer.
These moments can sting a bit when they happen. I’ve been there. We can be so utterly convinced that our pet detail is The One that will make the whole thing go. And many times that instinct is right. But sometimes it’s not. When that happens, being humble enough to accept the feedback that a certain color of brown reminds people of adult diapers, or that asymmetrical data visualization, while very modern art, is confusing to users, is what separates the solutions that matter from those in the “well, we tried” pile.
You are humble enough to work within your limitations
Every leader has limitations, and so does every team and organization. The limitations may be budget, team size, technological competence, change readiness, culture, or any number of other things. Failing to recognize those constraints doesn’t make for a strong leader, it makes for an ineffective one.
You can’t act like a venture-funded company if you’re bootstrapped: you’ll exhaust your runway and be forced to make a tough decision. Don’t assume you’ll magically find a way to be more efficient than everyone else if your industry has a well-established pricing structure. Don’t count on volume to fix a profitability problem. Each of these is not a roadblock but a constraint to point you in the direction of the right solution.
Leaders get into trouble when they think that they can defeat these structural constraints through force of will. Impassioned speeches will only get you so far. Cult of personality only holds so much sway. At some point, the physics of the business world snap back into place. When that happens, any short-sighted plans that fail to account for constraints will melt into a puddle of goo like a papier-mâché float in a rainstorm.
Working within your limitations looks like:
Doing a few things well rather than a long list of things partway. Don’t do 20 features at 50%, do 12 features at 80%.
Choosing a targeted audience to launch with instead of everyone under the sun. Yes, that product probably could be adapted to work for all sorts of audiences. But trying to make all of those little adaptations will chew up your budget quickly.
Picking a sales strategy that works for your industry—don’t expect self-signup if it’s a large dollar amount and clients are used to consultative selling. Don’t choose consultative selling if it’s low-priced and people expect self-service.
Selecting achievable deadlines vs. thinking you can brute force your way to a shorter timeframe. If your team is telling you it can’t be done, at the risk of disappointing you—there’s probably a reason for that.
These behaviors may not seem as glorious as charging ahead fearlessly in the face of staggering odds—but remember, Braveheart was a great movie, but it doesn’t exactly end well for him. In real life, when there’s no movie to be filmed, a sane reckoning of your constraints can be the difference between success and failure.
You are self-aware enough to question yourself
We all have moments when we overestimate our own brilliance.
If you’re reading this article, that’s a strong start toward checking those tendencies. It shows you’re willing to question yourself and consider the idea that you may be letting your ego run away with the show.
Don’t be afraid to let others question you too. In a couple of decades of doing this work, the leaders who are the most curious rather than defensive are the ones who manage to weather the storms and create something meaningful.
The underlying truth is that being a visionary isn’t about magically knowing the answers like some sort of crystal ball-gazing eccentric. It’s about having the passion and the patience to step back, look at the big picture, and keep fighting to solve a problem you care about more than most.
And if you can only do one of these things, consider focusing on data. That unbiased check against your more audacious impulses can help keep you on the right side of the ego/vision line.