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What do great companies have in common? They all dare to be great. They all run their own race, so to speak. Their strategy is always to find a need and fill it. Many companies, very good companies, will go out and talk to their customers to ask them what they need and then provide the solution to that need.

But great companies, truly outstanding companies, go way beyond that. They are not particularly interested in what their customers need today or what their customers perceive they will need tomorrow, but rather they extend their vision to what their customer will need, nay, want, next year or the year after. That is the sign of a truly great company. A company that dares to be great; a company that is so committed to its vision that it is working on products that it customers cannot even fathom yet…yet. Products that, when introduced, their customers will ask, “Who needs this?” or “What am I supposed to do with this?”

This type of thinking has been going on for years. It has been going on even before Henry Ford said, “if I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have answered, ‘a faster horse.’” Or a few decades ago when Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment, stated ignominiously, “Only engineers need computers.” By the way, he was saying this at the same time that a young Northern Californian was talking about a computer in every home; the present status and Digital Equipment and Apple says it all. People said the same thing about the first copy machine, and first fax machine, and the early Internet. In more recent times, we have the iPhone, a device that was much awaited, but then somewhat of a disappointment when most people said that it was not a very good phone. And it really wasn’t a very good phone, and they had to work on that, but in the end being a “phone” was just one of its functions. In reality, it turns out that it is really a device to deliver APs, and they knew it all along, even when we were back there saying, “What’s an AP?” But Apple knew what an AP was all along and they knew that in a couple of years we would all not only know what an AP is but also would be demanding the new ones and talking about them and waiting impatiently for the new ones. In a few years (read right now!) our television and magazines would be plastered with advertisements for the latest APs. And they also knew, way before we even dreamt it, that there would be a thing called an iPad that would bring everything together and, once again, change everything.

Think about this, think about this honestly. If someone ten years ago had told you about the iPad, you would have believed that it could be done, but what you would not have understood is what it could possibly have been used for. You would have questioned the viability of the product based on its usefulness back then. You would have had a very hard time taking that leap of faith.

But ah, what Apple has done so well in recent times is created such a brand, such a beacon for the future for its loyal, such an avid, exhilarated tribe of users that it now has taken them along. It has made them willing to take that leap of faith. Apple customers are now so ready to trust them that they will buy just about any product they introduce…with the understanding that, in a while, they will be showing you some of the truly amazing things that this little gadget of the future is going to be able to provide, and that’s a great place for a company to be.

Now, what about your company? Are you working on products of the future? Are you developing products today that your customers do not even want, or rather, do not know they are going to want in a year? In five years? Are you looking around and thinking about the products you build today with an eyeball towards where these products will take you in the future? Or are you just going along doing whatever everyone else is doing, afraid to break out of your market’s mold, afraid to be outstanding?

Well, you can do that if you want, and you’ll go along okay…for a while, but it really will not get you anywhere in the long run, and eventually your market, and hence, the world will out run you. It’s really time for all of us to open our minds, to look towards the future with an understanding of how important it is for us to dream and plan and strategize and blue-sky and think and figure out new and exciting ways to produce new and exciting products of tomorrow, products that are so new, and revolutionary, and life changing that your customers won’t even want them…for a while. Are you ready? The dare to be great!