Vision Inflation
Ask three frontline workers: "How does your work this week connect to our vision?" Do they give a real answer or a rehearsed one?
“We need to think bigger,” Ravi said, pulling up the new slide deck. Three pillars. A flywheel diagram. The words GLOBAL IMPACT in 48-point type.
His mentor, Sundar, set down his chai. “Ravi, what did your factory floor team ship last week?”
“That’s not — I’m talking about the three-year vision. The board presentation.”
“I know what you’re talking about. I’m asking what Priya’s team in Pune actually delivered on Friday.”
Ravi hesitated. “A batch of the compliance module. Some bug fixes. Why?”
“Can Priya tell me how her bug fixes connect to —” Sundar gestured at the screen — “this? GLOBAL IMPACT?”
“She understands the big picture.”
“Ask her. I’ll wait.”
Ravi didn’t call Priya. He already knew the answer.
Sundar leaned forward. “Listen, da. I’ve watched three CTOs do this same thing. The vision gets bigger every board cycle. First it’s ‘make compliance simple.’ Then ‘transform regulatory technology.’ Then ‘reshape how industries govern themselves.’ Each version is grander. Each version is further from what anyone actually does on Monday morning.”
“That’s called ambition.”
“That’s called inflation. When the vision outgrows the operation, you haven’t inspired people. You’ve abandoned them. They can’t see themselves in a poster about reshaping industries. They can see themselves in ‘make compliance simple.’ One is a North Star. The other is a motivational poster in a lift that nobody reads.”
Ravi stared at the slide. GLOBAL IMPACT stared back.
“Thiruvalluvar had a line for this,” Sundar said quietly. “One who does not measure themselves will seem to exist but will vanish without trace. Your vision isn’t too big. It’s just too far away to matter to the people who do the actual work.”
“So what, we shrink the vision?”
“You close the gap. Ask three people on the floor: how does your work this week connect to our vision? If they give you a rehearsed answer or a blank stare, the vision isn’t landing. It’s floating.”
That vertigo has a name. Vision Inflation. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Untie The Knot
Uproot
The vision says “change the world.” The daily work is spreadsheets and status reports. The gap between the rhetoric and the reality is not motivating. It is demoralizing. Leaders confuse aspiration with inspiration. When the vision exceeds the organisation’s capacity to deliver on it, people stop believing. They perform enthusiasm in meetings and feel cynicism in the elevator.
Navigate
The vision connects to this quarter’s work in under one sentence. People can trace what they did today to why it matters. The vision is ambitious but credible: it stretches without breaking trust.
Tool
CORE / Calling: the distinction between an aspirational tagline and a lived purpose. Calling must be large enough to inspire and specific enough to direct daily behavior.
Implement
Ask three frontline workers: “How does your work this week connect to our vision?” If they laugh, deflect, or give a rehearsed answer, the vision is inflated. Rewrite it at the altitude where daily work can breathe.
Emerge
When the vision is right-sized, it becomes a compass instead of a poster. Teams self-organise toward it because the connection to their work is obvious. The gap between “what we say” and “what we do” closes without a program.