The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson

Building A Vision That Guides Decisions And Inspires Action With Jennifer Ann Johnson

• Jennifer Ann Johnson • Season 4 • Episode 5

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Tired of vision statements that look good on paper but go nowhere? This episode unpacks how to create a vision that truly leads—guiding tough decisions, energizing teams, and inspiring customers. Jennifer Johnson reveals why most visions fail: top-down isolation, vague or narrow language, and a focus on status over impact.

Instead, we share a practical, people-first approach: start with real pain points, define the change you want to drive, and test it against hiring, products, and messaging. Hear how one company shifted from “market leadership” to making software feel effortless—and saw retention and clarity soar.

You'll learn how to embed vision into daily actions, celebrate purpose-aligned wins, and show customers real proof, not just slogans. Plus, we explore how to stay transparent when trade-offs hit.

Thank you to our generous sponsors for making this podcast possible!

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Visit us at jenniferannjohnson.com and learn how Jennifer can help you build the life you dream of with her online academy, blog, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other resources!

Jennifer Johnson:

Today we're diving into one of the most critical yet often overlooked aspects of leadership. And that is creating a vision that doesn't just sound good on paper but actually moves people to action. Now, I have seen countless organizations with beautiful mission statements that are hanging on their walls that nobody really believes in. I've watched teams go through the motions of strategic planning sessions that produce documents that everybody forgets about within a week. And I've been part of companies where leadership teams were passionate about the vision, but somehow that passion never translated to the people that were actually doing the work. Or for that matter, the customers who are actually buying the products. And here's what I've learned: there's a massive difference between having a vision and having a vision that people believe in. The first are just words on a page. The second is a magnetic force that aligns behavior. It drives decisions and creates momentum that compounds over time. So today I want to talk about bridging that gap and how do you create a vision that your team wakes up excited to work towards? And how do you craft something that your customers don't just buy into, but actually advocate for? And how do you ensure that vision becomes the invisible hand that guides every single thing that you do rather than just another corporate poster that everybody ignores? So let's start with why most organizational visions fail to inspire anybody. And I think there's really three fundamental problems that plague the majority of vision statements that I've seen. First, they're created in isolation. You get a small group of executives who lock themselves in a conference room for a day with the whiteboard. They've got some aspirational, inspirational language, and then they unveil it to the rest of the organization like it's some kind of divine revelation. The problem is if people weren't part of creating it, they're not going to feel ownership in it. I remember working in a company where the leadership team spent months crafting what they thought was an inspiring vision about transforming how people connect with technology. Sounded great in the boardroom, but when they shared it with their engineering team, the response was basically a collective who cares? Why? Because the engineers saw themselves as solving something specific, something technical, not transforming human technology relationships. The vision was too abstract and it really disconnected from what they did on a daily basis. Second, most visions are either too vague or they're too tactical. The vague ones sound like they could apply to any company in any industry. You know the ones, you've heard them. We strive to be the leading provider of innovative solutions on and on and on. That's not a vision. That's a corporate kind of mad lib. On the other hand, there's over tactical ones that go into specifics about products or our markets that they become too restrictive and they're not inspiring enough. And then finally, this is the big one. Most visions are really internally focused. They're about what the company wants to achieve rather than what the company exists for to create for others to begin with. They answer the question: what do we want to become? instead of what world do we want to create? And here's the thing: people aren't ultimately motivated by success. They're motivated by their contribution. That's something to something that's actually meaningful. So, what does a believable vision look like? What are the characteristics that make people say, yes, I actually want to be a part of that rather than sure, whatever. So the most powerful visions connect to something that people really care about beyond their paycheck. They tap into personal values, personal aspirations, and desires to actually make a difference. When somebody can see how their individual contributions fits into a larger story, then they actually care about what you're trying to create, the vision. And everything changes for them. You know, I had worked as a consultant with a software company that was struggling to retain their talent. And their original vision was all about market leadership and technical excellence. Those are great goals, but not particularly inspiring to a 25-year-old developer who was thinking about jumping ship to start up their own company. We spent time talking to their team about what they actually cared about. And what emerged was a shared frustration with how complex and hostile most business software was. The developers had friends and family members who really struggled with clunky interfaces and confusing workflows at their jobs. And that insight led to a vision about making software as intuitive as the apps that people use. Suddenly, every feature that they built, every design and decision that they made, connected to helping real people have better days at work. A good vision should be concrete enough that it actually helps you make choices. It should be a filter that makes some options really aligned with who you are and others that are clearly not aligned. And if your vision is so broad that any reasonable business decision could fit within it, then it's not doing its job. It's not specific enough. One of my favorite examples is Patagonia's vision around environmental responsibility. It's not just uh we care about the environment. It's specific enough that it led them to tell customers not to buy their products unless they really needed them. How's that? A company telling somebody not to buy their products unless they really needed them. And they told them to either create or they created a repair program that extends the life of their product and that they donate their annual profits to fighting climate change. Their vision isn't just something that sounds nice, it drives behavior that sometimes goes against their short-term business goals and interests. The most compelling visions aren't about the company really at all. They're about the change that the company exists to create in the world. They focus on the impact and not the organization. This shift in perspective changes everything about how people relate to their work. Instead of the we want to be the leading provider of XYZ, it becomes we want to create a world where XYZ is possible. And instead of we want to build the best XYZ, it becomes we want to eliminate the frustration that XYZ currently causes. The difference, I know, is really subtle, but it's really profound. And it's one is about company success, and the other one is about company's contribution. And creating a vision that people actually believe in is something, isn't something that you could knock out in one afternoon brainstorming in the conference room. It requires a process that's strategic and human. I'm going to walk you through the approach that works, has worked best in my experience, and it'll kind of give you a roadmap on how to follow this. Start with pain points and not aspirations. Most vision processes start with questions like, where do we want to be in five years, or what do we want to achieve? I found that it's a lot more effective to start with frustrations. What breaks people's hearts about the current state of your industry? What keeps customers up at night? And what makes your team members complain about things at work today. When you start with those genuine pain points, the problems that people actually experience and care about, you create a foundation for a vision that feels necessary. People rally around solving those problems much more than they're going to rally around abstract aspirations or inspirations. Then the next one is involving people who actually have to live it. Your vision creation process should include voices from every single level of your organization, not just the executive team. The people doing the day-to-day work often have an insight that the leadership misses because they're not in their day-to-day, because they have it from a different angle. They know what actually motivates them to do their best work. But it's best to not just ask them for input. Create a genuine collaboration using workshops, focus groups, one-on-one conversation. Ask them questions like what would have to be true about our industry for you to be really excited to work in it? Or what change would you want your kids to thank you for contributing to? What would make your customers become advocates rather than just satisfied users? That's great questions. It's things that get them engaged. Then next, test it against reality. Once you have that draft vision, test it and test it ruthlessly. Does it help you make specific decisions when you're choosing between two product features? Does your vision point you in a clear direction? When you're hiring, does it help you identify the right cultural fit when you're communicating with your customers? Does it give you a compelling story to tell? Also, test it against cynicism. If someone were to push back on your vision with, well, that's just marketing talking, how would you respond? Could you point to specific actions that your company has taken that demonstrates genuine commitments to that vision? If not, then you may need to revision the vision itself or your commitment to actually living out that vision. Then making it stick with your team. Having a great vision is really only half the battle. The other half is embedding it so deeply in your organization's DNA that it influences their behavior even when no one is watching. This is when most companies actually fail in this. They create the vision and then they assume somehow it's by osmosis, it's just going to permeate the culture, and that doesn't work. You need to connect the individual roles to the bigger picture. Every person on your team should be able to articulate how the specific role contributes to their overall vision. It's not about giving everybody the same generic answer, it's about helping each person understand their unique contribution to the larger story. Your customer service team isn't just resolving complaints, they're removing the friction from people's lives. Your finance team isn't just managing budgets. They're ensuring that resources are allocated in ways that maximize the impact as their business. And your marketing team, they're not just there generating leads. They're helping the right people discover the right solutions to their problems. And that's changing lives. Take the time to have these conversations with each team member. Help them see their connection between their daily tasks and the changes that you're trying to create in the world. When people understand their role in the larger story, they make different choices about how to spend their time and energy. And then you need to celebrate the vision-aligned wins. What you celebrate actually sends a really powerful signal about what you value. If your vision about becoming customer empowered, but you only celebrate revenue milestones, people are going to conclude that revenue is really what matters. If your vision is about innovation, but you only recognize people who hit their numbers, people are thinking that, you know, innovation is just a cool thing to have. So make sure your recognition and your storytelling and your internal communications consistently highlight examples of people living out that vision. Share stories of team members who made decisions that aligned with your vision, even if it wasn't the easiest path for them to take. Celebrate customers who've experienced that change that you're trying to create. And make the vision something visible in your day-to-day culture. Use it as a decision filter. The real test of a vision is whether it actually influences people to make the right decisions. Start using your vision as an explicit filter in meetings and planning sessions and strategic discussions. When evaluating new opportunities, ask, how does this advance our vision? When facing difficult trade-offs, you may ask yourself, which option aligns better with the change that we're trying to create? It's not about being rigid or turning over your vision to a checklist. It's about creating a habit of connecting daily decisions that you need to make every day to a long-term purpose. And over time, that practice is going to train your team on how to think and work a little bit more differently. Then making it resonate with customers, it shouldn't just inspire a team, like I said, it should also attract and retain the customers who share your values. The most successful companies today aren't just selling products, they're inviting customers to be part of a movement, much like Patagonia was doing. And show don't just tell. Customers are skeptical of corporate messaging, and they should be. They see it every single day. They've been burned by companies that talk a good game but then don't follow through. So if you want customers to believe in your vision, you have to demonstrate it through and through, day in, day out, and not just in your advertising. It means making decisions that sometimes prioritize vision alignment over short-term profits. It means being transparent about your challenges and mistakes. And it means involving customers in your journey rather than just presenting them with polished outcomes. Creating shared experiences. Look for ways to let customers experience your vision rather than just hear about it. If your vision is about empowering small businesses, create forums where small business owners can actually connect and learn from each other. If it's about sustainable living, then offer workshops workshops. You get the whole picture. It's about creating those shared experiences. Then making them a hero. Your customers a hero. The most powerful customer relationships happen when customers see themselves as the hero of their own story. With your company, yes, your company is still there and it's playing a supporting role, but your vision shouldn't position your customers, or really, it should position your customers as the ones creating the positive change with your products. Instead of look at how great we are as a company, the message becomes look how great you can be. We're changing the world. It becomes together, we're changing the world. That shift in perspective turns customers from passive consumers into active participants in your vision. Now I want to address the elephant in the room. What happened when your inspiring vision runs into messy reality? When market pressures, for example, force you to make decisions that don't perfectly align with your vision. And when you realize that some of your vision isn't realistic and it needs to evolve, first you need to recognize that this tension is normal. It's healthy. A vision that never creates any tension probably isn't ambitious enough, or, you know, inspiring for that matter. The goal isn't to eliminate these tensions, but to navigate it thoughtfully. Be transparent about your trade-offs. When you have to make decisions that seem to conflict with your vision, be honest about it with your team and your customers and explain that reasoning. Acknowledge the tension and share how you're working to minimize the compromise or the course correction in the future. That transparency actually builds trust rather than undermining it. People understand that business is complex and that perfect alignment's not always going to happen. What they can't tolerate is pretending that you're, you know, these compromises don't exist and hiding those things. And use the conflicts as learning opportunities. When reality challenges your vision, ask what it's teaching you. Maybe there's something that's more specific or more realistic that you need. Or maybe you just need to adjust your strategy or timeline. These conflicts, a lot of times, reveal blind spots or assumptions that need to be examined. They can make your vision stronger and more actionable instead of weaker. And then stay committed to the direction. Even when you think you can't perfectly execute your vision in every every decision that you make, stay committed to the goal and the general direction. Think of your vision as a true North Star. You might not be able to travel in a straight line towards it, but you can definitely use it to guide your overall trajectory. So when you get all of this right, when you create the vision that really inspires your team and resonates with your customers, something really magical happens. The vision starts to do the work for you that you could never thought of doing with marketing alone. Your team starts making better decisions without that supervision because they understand what you're trying to accomplish. Your customers become advocates who sell for you because they believe in what you represent. And your partners and vendors start bringing you opportunities that align with your vision because they actually understand what you care about. Most importantly, your vision becomes a source of resilience during difficult times. When you hit obstacles or setbacks, having a clear sense of purpose helps you persist through challenges that may otherwise send you off the train tracks. When you face difficult decisions, having a shared vision helps you maintain cohesion when the path forward isn't that obvious. Now, I've seen this play out in organizations across every single industry. And the companies that weather the storm best, that attract that top talent, that build lasting customer relationships and create that sustainable competitive advantage, they're almost always the ones with the visions that people really get behind and that people really believe in. So as we wrap up today's episode, I want to leave you with the challenge. Take a hard look at your current vision, mission, and purpose statement. Does it inspire you? Does it help you make decisions? Would your team members be able to explain how their work connects to it? And would your customers recognize it in your actions and not just your words? If the answer to any of these questions is no, my friends, you have an opportunity, not just to create a better marketing copy, but to align your organization around something that actually matters to the people you're trying to serve. Remember, a vision isn't about predicting the future. It's about creating the future that you want to see. It's not about perfection, it's about direction. It's not about having all the answers. It's about being clear on the questions that matter most to you. Your vision should be the thread that connects everything that you do, the story that gives meaning to the daily grind, and the North Star that keeps you oriented when the path gets really unclear. When you get it right, my friends, you don't just build a business, you build a movement.

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Jennifer Johnson

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