The Wisdom of Dumb Ideas
Some companies' visions can sound counterintuitive, impossible, or even dumb. You should strive for yours to be this way. Here's why.
I still remember my emotions when I first read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas as a teenager. It was so awe-inspiring, such a vivid depiction of a world that remains largely alien, even 150 years later. The same awe can be found in many other works of science fiction, fantasy, or even plain fiction.
But Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is not a realistic book by any means. The submarine's power system is very sketchy. At one point, it dives 16km¹ deep — way deeper than the deepest point in the ocean — and at another it reaches the south pole from underwater. And so on. If you were so inclined, you could make a long YouTube video listing these inaccuracies.
But, of course, that would be asinine because it's not the point. The book's goal wasn't to provide a workable blueprint for a submarine but to inspire generations by introducing them to a strange and fantastic new world.
Jules Verne wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas before James Cameron, before Cousteau, and indeed before the submarine itself was a practical vehicle. By inspiring its readers to contemplate the exploration of the underwater world, it contributed to making it ultimately possible.
But if amazing stories are inspiring for children of all ages, they should also be there to inspire professionals in their day-to-day duties. And indeed, there is such a thing as speculative fiction for a company: its vision. But many companies fail to embrace theirs.
A vision is an inspiration for a company
To start on the arduous path to exploring the oceans or simply creating a new product, you have to be able to imagine what doing so would achieve. You need to believe in the benefits doing so will bring. In short, you need to be inspired.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea served as an inspiration for generations of oceanographers and engineers who, over generations, solved the myriad technical challenges of operating in the depths. For a company's staff, that's what a vision is for: it inspires the team and helps align it toward a common goal. It motivates the team to move forward.
And that motivation is very much needed: any project will involve a lot of pedestrian work and a lot of boring problems to solve. Doing this can be a chore, but it ceases once it's clear how it will make a bright future possible. As a custodian for the Appollo program once said: “I'm not mopping floors; I'm putting a man on the moon.”² The vision, by presenting a compelling depiction of what is to be expected as an outcome, will motivate your staff for every hard step that needs to be taken to reach it.
But to be able to do that, you need to have a vision. And since the vision is a projection into the future, it will also, in most cases, be impractical or downright impossible.
How to derail a vision
Like a person pointing out “errors” in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, it is all too easy to poke holes into a vision. Microsoft wanted to put a computer on every desk. How easy would it have been to pooh-pooh that back in the 1980s? Google set out to organize the world's information. Why, that's impossible; it's downright stupid, isn't it?
If Microsoft or Google had fallen prey to the Cassandras who foretold their doom, they wouldn't have taken a step forward and made their “crazy” visions a reality. And yet, way too many visions get derailed by technicalities before they can get off the ground.
When brainstorming, it's common to hear people immediately pointing out technical challenges with any idea. Such comments can stall a conversation and turn it into a sterile engineering debate. And sterile it is because when discussing visions, the question should not be “How can we build this?” but “Would this future make sense”? If you answer the latter in the affirmative, you can start assessing whether it is possible.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas inspired generations by depicting a future where humanity ventures into the ocean's depths. This turned out to be something that did make sense—and we made it a reality, even though it could have sounded impossible at the time. If a vision is valid, if it is a compelling future, then it is worth investigating how to make it possible. However, the impracticality of a vision should not prevent it from being voiced.
Having a vision vs. making stuff up
When I encourage teams to entertain wild, far-future visions, someone will often ask whether it's worth “making stuff up.” But that's not what you're doing. The goal isn't to make random stuff up but to set a direction for the future.
Many people use the term BHAG, for Big Hairy Ambitious Goal, to refer to such long-term visions. As Bill Gurley wrote: “BHAGs serve as a rallying cry for the company culture, an ambitious target for the future, and a focusing tool for corporate decision-making.”³ Your BHAG may be out of reach when you are setting off. Did Bill Gates know how to “put a computer on every desk”? Of course not. Yet this bold ambition helped focus the attention of Microsoft’s employees in the right direction.
Dare to dream big
So, don't censor yourself when you imagine futuristic concepts that you don't know how to make reality yet. If you're creating a company or developing a new product, don't accept in your team anyone who would point to faults in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas but have people who can have strong dreams and the strength to work to make them a reality. This will push you further than you think is possible. As a side consequence, it will also make your life more enjoyable.
¹ That's ten miles, give or take, for my readers from across the pond.
³ https://abovethecrowd.com/2015/01/30/ubers-new-bhag-uberpool/
