Page 39 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

Building a Unifying Vision 29

into the numbers, however, he realized that the current business model
wasn’t working and that Eagle Star was surviving only because it was
understating its reserves and was covered from market pressures by its
parent company, British American Tobacco. As a result, O’Sullivan spent
his first few months meeting with his direct reports, other managers, and
groups of employees to help them appreciate the so-called burning plat-
form. As people began to realize the gravity of the business situation, he
was able to discuss with them a fresh vision for the company around the
concept of “winning through customer service.” Eventually this led to a
major turnaround of Eagle Star and its subsequent sale to Zurich Financial
Services.
Another trap to avoid is what Collins and Porras call the “we’ve ar-
rived syndrome.” This is when your unit or team has had a spectacular
achievement—you’ve really accomplished your aspirational goal, but you
haven’t replaced it with something new. The temptation for the team (and
for you) in this situation can be to look backward at how exciting things
were rather than looking forward. If you’re not careful, a sense of compla-
cency can set in, and you miss the next threat or the next competitor on the
horizon. Overcoming this syndrome requires the development of a next
new challenge, a new vision and aspiration.
For example, Intuit spent twenty years achieving the vision of chang-
ing the way people managed their personal finances and, in the process,
became a software powerhouse, with Quicken as its flagship product. Once
it got to the summit, however, other companies started to copy its success,
moving into the market and finding new ways of attracting customers.
When Brad Smith became CEO in 2008, he recognized that the company
had become so focused on adding incremental features to improve usabil-
ity that it had no big aspiration for the future. So he worked with his team
to develop a new vision of becoming “one of the most design-driven compa-
nies in the world,” moving the organization toward thinking about delight-
ing customers. This new vision led Intuit to design products differently,
incorporate new skills, sell off legacy products (including Quicken), and
rethink many of its ways of working.