318. A Clear And Inspiring Vision For The Future
How can you exceed expectations if you don’t know what those expectations are? Here are three ways to create a clear and inspiring vision for your future.
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On the first day of class, Professor Zander tells his students they will each get an A grade.
But there’s a caveat.
To earn the grade, the students must write a letter to the professor during that first week.
The letter needs to describe the personal transformation they commit to make, and the resulting accomplishments from that personal growth that would justify their ‘A’ grade.
Interesting, right?
I thought so, too.
Now wait’ll you hear about Amazon’s product development team.
The Product Development Press Release
Before the development process begins for any new feature at Amazon, the product development team has to write a mock press release for the product idea.
This pretend press release needs to clearly identify the customer problem, describe how the product solves the problem, and explain why the product is exciting for Amazon’s customers.
If the press release proves that the product is worthy of development, it’s still not time to begin creating it. Instead, the team has to write an FAQ for the product - forcing themselves to enter further into the depths of the customer’s mind and guess all the questions they’d have about this proposed product.
Also interesting, right?
I know.
But you probably haven’t heard about Airbnb yet.
The 11-Star Experience
At one point in AirBnB’s growth, Brian Chesky, the company’s founder, began to wonder what would inspire a customer to proactively share their experience with every single person they know.
To figure this out, he created the 11-star experience (yup, these go to 11).
To complete the 11-star experience, he started by defining a 5-star experience, which is essentially what has to happen to just meet basic expectations. Then he dove down into describing a hellish 1-star experience.
In Airbnb’s world, this might include not getting a booking confirmation, having the rental be a bug-infested dump, and having nobody available to help.
He then imagined what the experience would be to justify a 2-star rating, then a 3-star rating, and he worked his way up the star chain until he eventually imagined what an experience would be to warrant an off-the-charts, tell-everyone-you-know 11-star experience.1
And this is the point where we come around to you.
The Importance of Exceeding Expectations In Your Life
No matter what your company does, I guarantee your customers want you to exceed their expectations.
We can all probably agree on that.
To exceed expectations, you need to first understand what the expectations are. After all, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never know when you get there.
It seems simple and obvious when I say it.
Unfortunately, getting this done is a rarity in the business world.
Most people simply don’t take the time to understand what it means to exceed expectations. This is why my most popular workshop is focused on helping leaders build a roadmap to where they’re going and how they’ll get there.
[Editor’s Note: I love me a good roadmap]
Exceeding expectations begins with your roadmap.
Maybe the roadmap is in the form of Zander’s letter, Amazon’s press release, or AirBnB’s 11 stars. Maybe it derives from one of my workshops, or maybe it’s created from some other fancy pants process. Either way, the end result must be a clear and inspiring vision of what the future could look like.
It starts with a little imagination.
Stretching Your Imagination
Most people live their lives trapped on a treadmill of to-do lists. They live in Survival Mode. It’s f-ing exhausting.
To break free means taking the time to step off the treadmill and imagine a better world. After all, you can’t see the problems you created by staying on the same treadmill that created the problems in the first place.
Imagining that future isn’t always easy. It takes intentional effort and more than a few minutes of discomfort. But meaningful growth - whether it’s personal, professional, or organizational - doesn’t happen in the comfort zone.
Professor Zander, Amazon, and Airbnb understood this. That’s why they made their imagination exercises a part of the path to success. Each of their exercises forces people to imagine a better world.
But imagination alone isn’t the answer.
Oh, if only it were.
Creating Clarity and Commitment
Imagination is simply a dream. Everybody dreams all the time.
Our goal, though, isn’t a dream; it’s a plan. And to create an actionable plan, you need clarity and commitment.
This is the critical part of Zander’s letter, Amazon’s releases, and Airbnb’s 11-star experience: each one of those exercises forces people not just to imagine a new future but to define it and articulate it. It requires people to build a roadmap for success.
Imagination matters. But without clarity and commitment, you’re stuck with a dream when you really need a plan.
Get Inside Their Head
There’s one more important lesson from Zander, Amazon, and Airbnb. It’s that real success requires you to step out of your own head and into someone else’s shoes.
Zander’s students have to envision their professor’s perspective, Amazon’s teams need to anticipate the end-users’ questions, and the Airbnb process pushes people to see the experience through their customers’ lives.
Figuring out what makes you happy is easy, but learning to understand, anticipate, and deliver what makes others happy is the skill that separates true insight from callous conjecture.
Your Own Clear And Inspiring Vision For The Future
What would happen if you clearly defined success and expectations for each of your employees?
Would your company be better if each department did its own 11-star experience exercise?
How would your job change if your goal was to exceed expectations?
I dare you to imagine a brighter future and be bold enough to map out the plan to get there.
In fact, here’s my challenge to you:
Grab a piece of paper. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Now write this at the top:
“I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations because…”
Then write out that 11-star vision of your success. Whether it’s for your business, your team, your job, or your life, I don’t care. Do whatever matters most. The point is that you do it. The point is that you should think bigger than you think you can think.
Write it all down with clarity, and commit to making it happen.
Remember, your success is contingent upon your ability to imagine it and strive to achieve it.
Your future is waiting.
Go create it.
I dare you.
I transform you and your team into the highest-performing people in your company.
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"Most people live their lives trapped on a treadmill of to-do lists" so true!