Reflections from a Reluctant Visionary

Several years ago, I went on a podcast cheekily titled “You’re Doing It Wrong.” In this lively discussion, I was clearly working through my imposter syndrome as a CEO. I was also struggling with the vision of the company and my role as the Visionary.  

I have been the leader of Net Friends since I became an owner back in 2009. The lack of a company vision is what made me want to be an owner in the first place. And yet after having more than 10 years at the helm of the company, I honestly had not really put forward a vision. At least, not one that was compelling, well-understood, and consistently followed.

Determining Our Vision

Setting a vision is no easy task. The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) sets out a pretty good formula about how to figure it out, with relatively straightforward steps to follow. I’d gone through these motions, read all the EOS books, hired EOS coaches... yet there still wasn’t the compelling Company Vision that I had been trying to create.  

At the time of the podcast interview in late 2020, I had a theory about why setting a vision was difficult. My thought was that I was a “Reluctant Visionary” – that I was forced into the role because no one else wanted it. I do not agree with that take anymore. What I think was really happening was that I was scared to be decisive. I was making up excuses to avoid having to pick a clear direction because it would also mean there are things we would have to stop doing.  

Picking a vision brings focus and clarity. But no one talks about the challenges of abandoning projects or investments that no longer align with the vision. Soon after the podcast, I chose the vision for the company: Be the Best MSP.  

A Managed Services Provider (MSP) is a clearly defined business model: an outsourced IT service provider, managing IT functions for businesses. While this might seem simple, it meant that we could no longer be a value-added reseller, a consultancy, a software development company, or even a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP).  

Vision Distractions  

A series of unfortunate events in 2023, forced my hand to refocus on our company vision. While I wish I had a heroic story of how I figured it all out and got ahead of the curve to make decisive changes…what really happened is one setback after another, after another. This series of setbacks helped me realize that we were spread out too far as a company, doing too many disparate things that were not harmonizing.  

For example, we thought that our MSP business would benefit from procurement and product resale activity. However, we ended up sinking hundreds of hours into vendor management, diverting sales staff’s attention to learning about specific parts and unique selling propositions, and ultimately watching our gross margins and our profits shrink even though our overall revenue was growing.

There are dozens of other similar examples. Activity and revenue were surging, we were hiring lots of great talented people…but we had vision confusion across the company regarding what our business model was and whether everyone was working towards the same goals. By failing to follow through on the vision I had chosen, I had allowed multiple competing visions to start to form. Settling on a company vision is one thing, but sticking to it through all the competing distractions is something else entirely.      

Focus, Focus, Focus

There’s a bunch of catchphrases out there about focus and prioritizing. “Do less, achieve more.” “Focus fuels results.” “Clarity breeds focus, focus breeds results.” “Single task your way to success.” And so many others. Easier said than done!  

What I discovered about myself, and I think this is true of many other leaders as well, is that we’re good at backfilling a narrative. I know I had all sorts of justifications for continuing to dabble and invest outside of our core, predominant business model of being the best MSP. I could weave a narrative about how we would get lower prices from our vendors that we could pass on to our customers by boosting part sales. It sounded so good to have a team of security analysts all available to help keep our cybersecurity awareness at the highest levels. And all these disparate business models allowed us to hire more people and create more career pathways. All of these are good things. However, all these good things also made the Company Vision a bit fuzzier, a bit less focused, looking more like it was being stretched to fit what we wanted to do.

While I self-identified as a Reluctant Visionary back in 2020, I have not yet earned the right to shed this title. I’m much closer to becoming “just” a Visionary now than ever before. Being a Visionary is committing to saying “Yes!” to a single thing.  I wish someone had told me earlier that the hardest part of the journey to being a Visionary was having to say “No” to a lot of very interesting and compelling things.  

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