From Leader to Visionary
What does it mean to be a visionary? Spoiler alert: You don’t need BHAGs
I recently spoke at ProductTank in Singapore and had a chance to meet with inspiring product leaders who are creating an impact in this region. Here’s an excerpt from my talk at the event.
What is a Visionary?
Think of an individual that you believe had an impact on the world. In all likelihood, that person was a famous public figure. Think of Elon Musk, Sal Khan, Bill or Melinda Gates. They’re labeled visionaries for setting monumental goals and creating an impact that affects millions of people. It can often seem that the only people who can change the world, are once-in-a-generation visionaries with an inborn gift.
But for every renowned visionary, there are many others who aren’t famous but they’re working to create a change that inspires them. By looking at a diverse range of visionaries, we’ve developed an actionable definition for what it means to be a visionary:
Visionaries are individuals who apply their unique skills or perspectives to engineer an impact that genuinely inspires them.
Defying the visionary stereotype
Here’s the story of 7 housewives who fit this definition of visionary. These women started without big, hairy or audacious goals (BHAGs). Their desired impact was modest: to earn a dignified living and not be financially dependent on their husbands. They wanted to supplement their household income and educate their kids.
But there was an obstacle — they were semi-literate and believed that their only skill was cooking. So they found a market need that they could address using that skill — consumers wanted pappadums (lentil crackers that you eat with Indian food) that tasted like they were homemade. But most people didn’t want to make them at home — making pappadums was labor intensive and required skills beyond everyday cooking.
The founders borrowed Rs. 80 (equivalent value of $150 today) and bought the necessary ingredients and the basic infrastructure to make pappadums. On 15 March 1959, they gathered on the terrace of their building and made 80 papads on first day and took them to a shopkeeper they knew. They expected to wait for many days till their experiment showed any result. Instead, the shopkeeper saw potential in the papads and asked for more batches the next day. By the 15th day they had repaid their seed capital.
Within 3 months they were 25 women rolling papads and sharing the profits. Within 3 years they had grown to over 300 women and they no longer fit on the terrace. They created an operational model where everyday the women would collect the dough for making pappadums in the morning and roll pappadums at home. All the women were equal partners, calling each other sisters, and would share in the profits and losses equally.
Today Lijjat has expanded to several other products including spices and soaps. Lijjat’s annual revenue is over $200 million and it owns over 60% market share in pappadums. But most importantly, Lijjat employs over 43,000 women who still work from home and share the profit/loss equally.
The founders didn’t become famous — in fact, the name of the 7th founder is unknown. Lijjat didn’t make them rich, but they gained financial independence and they were able to help other women earn a dignified living and educate their kids.
Being a visionary doesn’t require you to have big hairy or audacious goals — it just requires a desire to bring a change to the world. That impact you want to have, however big or small, must inspire you.
It must be in line with your values and principles. And it must be a change that you would want to see occur, whether or not you’re the one who brings it about. These 7 housewives were visionaries because they applied their unique skills and perspectives to engineer a change that genuinely inspired them.
In our next post we’ll look at how visionaries create change. In the meanwhile, if you want to learn more, you can:
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Written in collaboration with Nidhi Aggarwal.
A big thanks to yitch and Silvia Thom for organizing this ProductTank event, and to Zalora for hosting the event.
Product is a way of thinking. Radical Product is a movement that’s applying the best insights and techniques of product thinking throughout life and work. You can use the free and open source Radical Product Toolkit if you’d like a step-by-step guide to help you start applying Radical Product thinking today.
