

Communicating a Vision - MediaSquirrel
http://www.metamorphblog.com/2010/10/vision-the-job-of-a-ceo.html

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waxman
In one of my favorite startup books, _Made to Stick_
(<http://amzn.to/ccF7X7>), the authors describe the genius of Southwest
airlines, which has been, by a long shot, the most successful airline company
ever (with something like 37 consecutive years of profit).

The Founder and CEO had an incredibly clear and actionable vision: "we are THE
low-cost airline."

This worked like magic both internally and externally. At the company, answers
to even the most complex questions could be rendered relatively obvious
through the lens of this mantra. _Does it increase costs or not?_ (e.g.
Halloween costumes for employees? Sure. Lunch on the Houston to Florida
flight? Nope - would raise costs).

And externally, customers know why to fly Southwest: it's cheaper.

If your vision isn't as succinct and actionable as Southwest's, then it's not
clear enough: both for employees and for potential customers.

~~~
lsc
yeah, but companies that compete on price have an unfair advantage when it
comes to differentiating. Price is something immediately obvious internally
and externally.

As far as marketing price, the key, really, is to make it clear you aren't
skimping on the really important things (like, say, flight safety) and the
best way, I think, to do that is to be open about what you _are_ skimping on.
we all want something for nothing, but most of us don't believe we can
actually get it.

But, my point is that any idiot (even me) can provide a "vision" for a company
that just wants to be the cheapest. Really, the only hard part is deciding
what to skimp on.

It gets a lot more complex if you have other goals, like say, Virgin, who I
would call the "apple of the sky" - I mean, for both companies, the mission is
to be comfortable and to appeal to "cool" people even if they might cost a few
more dollars than the competition.

(note, I actually fly Virgin sometimes, even though I don't buy Apple
products. For me, the in-flight wi-fi is worth around $50, so if the
difference between Virgin and the next carrier is less than that, the decision
is made. But, I think Virgin thinks of itself as more than just "the company
with WiFi" as more and more other airlines are adopting that perk.)

------
MediaSquirrel
When Carol Bartz couldn't even communicate a clear vision for Yahoo!, i knew
she had to go.

