Where Does Vision Come From?

Think for a moment about visionary leaders from U. S. and world history. How did General Patton decide during World War II which battles to fight and how many troops to commit? How did NASA settle upon a plan to put a person on the moon? How did Gandhi determine that his hunger strike and passive resistance would change the course of his nation’s history? How did Volkswagen executives decide to build and market a retro version of the original VW bug? With the advantage of hindsight, these leadership visions seem just the right thing at just the right time.

But at the decision-making moment, the leaders involved in these decisions did not know with absolute certainty that their visions—where they wanted to go and ...

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