Visionary Overload
Gino Wickman writes about the Visionary and the Integrator in his book Rocket fuel. Before reading this I never really had verbiage for these two roles. Intuitively I knew that there needed to be a balance in the leadership of a company.
After reading it however, it all made sense and I began to see examples of that perfect balance in businesses I was associated with. But furthermore, what the understanding of these two roles did for me was highlight when things were OFF balance. These situations become blatantly obvious. And almost undesirable.
I fall into the Visionary category. By the very nature of bootstrapping a business, I also can relate to and give off a fair amount of Integrator characteristics, but in my heart of hearts, I’m a Visionary. Recently I connected with another like-minded guy at a conference I went to. We hit it off immediately. Talking about ideas, dreams, businesses, aspirations, goals, books, quotes, you name it. We talked for hours and hours on all this. Very much in alignment.
After the conference, we reconnected and started to talk about partnering up on projects. We scheduled weekend calls to touch base and figure out the next steps. A 1hr call turned into a 2.5 hour call and BOOM, that’s when I realized that he was also a Visionary like me. But even more so.
My weekends are extremely valuable. I work full time during the week and when weekends roll around I have every minute accounted for to spend with my family and work on my projects.
That means zoom calls need to be structured. Ideas need to be tangible. Action items need to be attainable.
Within the first 15 minutes of talking, 15 new ideas were brought up. The Visionary in me was salivating, but the Integrator was fuming. It was too much. I found myself always bringing us back to “ok that’s great, but what’s the first step?”
His ideas are fantastic and we were able to meet on a level unlike anyone else with a passion to build amazing things… But there was too much Visionary. Too many ideas. Too many shiny objects. It was an entrepreneur overload and I found myself getting frustrated.
Ideas are nothing without action and integration. It’s awesome to find someone on your same wavelength to jam with and brainstorm, but they’re not always going to be your perfect partner. If your head is in the clouds, you need someone to help you keep your feet on the ground.