"Always have a vision"

As I reread Marc Benioff’s description of the Larry Ellison Playbook (see prior post), I thought more about his statement:  "Always have a vision."

What exactly is vision?  Why is it so important?  What makes something a good vision?

According to Jack Welch (former CEO of GE), "Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion."

What exactly is vision?  Marc Benioff defines vision as – What do you want the company to be?  

Why is it so important?  The right vision does three things:  1) it creates one future point for the company, 2) it aligns everyone within the company, and 3) it inspires everyone.  I find that a company can achieve amazing things when focused on a single destination with everyone aligned and inspired toward that destination.  I also find that the importance of this single vision grows exponentially with the number of employees.

What makes something a good vision?
-- Said in 10 words or less.  So, it is easy for everyone to memorize.  For example, Salesforce's original vision was 12 words:  "Rapidly create a world-class internet company/site for sales force automation."
-- Fully endorsed by the CEO, executive team and board.
-- Is inspirational and achievable

Related to developing a vision, I copied below a few paragraphs from Bates Communications on How Leaders Develop and Communicate a Vision:

"There is actually nothing mystical about vision.  A vision is a picture of what an organization could and should be.  

A hallmark of great leaders is that their vision includes big ideas.  Big ideas get people excited.  Nobody wants to do something small.  Leaders want to feel motivated about coming to work, because whey they do matters.

Some examples of big ideas that most of us are familiar with are Martin Luther King's 'I have a Dream' speech and President JFK's vision for the space program, 'We choose to go to the moon... not because it is easy, but because it is hard.'

Great business leaders also know how to paint a vivid picture of the future.  They make it look easy. However, most of them have worked hard to develop and articulate their powerful thoughts."