Inspiration - The Heart and Soul of Lasting Success

Inspire, create a vision, and stay successful in the long run

Over the years I've observed with a constantly increasing level of admiration the impact "inspiration" can have on both people and organizations. How inspiration can set off the creation of a powerful vision; and how vision itself can cause lasting success. The words – Inspiration – Vision – Lasting Success - seem to form a magical flow.

Innovation as the Starting Point

Originally "inspiration“ derives from the middle English word "divine guidance". It is defined as "the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.“

There exist different sources of inspiration for every one of us: a stimulating piece of music, an engaging and thought-provoking book, a beautifully built ancient temple somewhere in the nowhere of a tropical jungle, a deliciously tasting chocolate bar when you feel it melting on the tip of your tongue, the roaring sound of a sports car screaming its power into the world, the first warming heat of the spring sun when it touches like velvet your skin, the infectious laughter of children when they′re fooling around...

Each of those feelings and impressions can inspire us and can trigger thoughts, and sometimes eventually actions, which make us create something unique, something visionary, something lasting. To get yourself into an inspirational state of mind right now, may I suggest that – whilst you continue reading this article – you listen to and get enchanted by Anna Netrebko & Elina Garanca singing Offenbach′s Barcarola.

To further crasp the holistic concept of inspiration, and after having digested this article, you might want to read the stimulating book "Igniting Inspiration - A Persuasion Manual for Visionaries“ by communication expert John M. Roberts. In his book Roberts presents Inspiration in the context of systems theory, developmental psychology, and common sense. He also believes and explains that inspiration stimulates the creation of a Vision, i.e. it enables us to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.

The Relevance of Vision and Action

And only once this vision – which as we've just learned before stems from the concept of inspiration –results into concrete actions, there is the chance to build something successful and lasting. When talking with friends about the expression "Built to last“ some would probably refer with awe to the last studio album of the band Grateful Dead and its uniquely eclectic style which fused elements of various music styles. Influenced by an unbelievable degree of artistic inspiration.

When business professionals and academics hear the expression "Built to Last", their eyes might shine and they would speak passionately and with loud voices of one of the most influential and groundbreaking business books: "Built to last – Successful habits of visionary companies,“ written by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. It studies some of the most successful businesses, called leading companies, and the following companies, the non-leaders in an industry.

The most inspiring Companies

Business has never had more of an opportunity than today to do something inspiring. This is also, and especially, true for consumer goods and retail companies.

A new consumer survey conducted by the US consulting and training firm Performance Inspired aimed at finding a correlation between successful companies and those that inspire their consumers. After they had surveyed 2,175 consumers they identified America’s 25 most inspiring companies: Apple – what a surprise – topped the list for the second straight year. Followed by Wal-Mart (which is a kind of surprise), Target, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. Only on rank 16, there is with Ford the first company which is not from the consumer goods and retailing sector:

“According to our latest research, consumers are not only feeling inspired by certain businesses, but are acting inspired by spending more with these companies while evangelizing to others about their inspiring experience,” says Terry Barber, chief inspiration officer for Performance Inspired. “We now see there is a validated set of drivers to inspiration and when these drivers are activated, it elevates employee engagement that shows up in the customer experience.”

Reasons for being inspiring- A consumer′s Perspective

The key drivers of an inspiring and therefore successful company and/or brand as identified per the study are the following ones:

• Its ability to build a sense of community; the brand has become part of the consumer’s personal identity
• It makes consumers feel more creative, more entrepreneurial
• People were also inspired by certain companies' ability to permanently innovate
• Winning and insiring companies were seen as keeping their promises, following clear values and staying authentic
• Others were top ranked because of their global and/ or community imrovement projects, e.g. by donating a certain amount of profits, etc. to social community projects

However, the successful application of inspiring products and services does not only excite consumers. It also increases the engagement and performance of employees, keeps companies on the tips of their toes by staying agile and customer-focused, and causes ongoing organizational transformation processes resulting in permanent improvement and invention plans.

In summary: Inspiration, followed by vision and action, guarantees a company's long term growth and its lasting success!

What do you think? Please join the discussion by leaving a comment below.

Best regards,

Andreas von der Heydt

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Andreas von der Heydt is the Head and Director of Kindle Content at Amazon in Germany. Before that he hold various senior management positions at Amazon and L'Oréal. He's a leadership expert and management coach. He also founded Consumer Goods Club. Andreas worked and lived in Europe, Australia, the U.S. and Asia. Andreas enjoys blogging as a private person here on LinkedIn about various exciting topics. All statements made, opinions expressed, etc. in his articles only reflect his personal opinion.

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photo: istock.com