Leaders are expected to move at a frantic pace, reacting to a flood of real-time data and capitalizing on opportunities that evaporate overnight. Under such complex conditions, it’s not surprising that vision gets cloudy and leaders are left lost and reeling.

“Complexity is exploding in today’s business world,” says Jared Navarre, founder of Keyni Consulting and CEO of Onnix. “AI is accelerating everything, leading to faster decisions, faster competition, and faster failures. Most business leaders are drowning in tools, data, and ideas, but starving for integration. They need someone who can weave their people, processes, technology, and goals into something coherent that acknowledges and aligns with their vision. That’s what I do. I help them see the entire ecosystem and then design a path through it.”

Navarre has consulted with more than 250 businesses worldwide, including global corporations such as Reebok, Capital One (News - Alert), and HCA Healthcare. He is a sought-after business guide because he brings an approach to consulting informed by a unique perspective. For Navarre, business leadership is not just something he coaches; it’s something he practices every day.

“I never planned on being a consultant — not once have I gone out soliciting work,” Navarre explains. “I’ve always oscillated between building companies and helping other founders who came asking for support when everything was going sideways. What makes my perspective valuable is that I’m still an owner myself. I walk in their shoes every day, operating companies of various sizes across multiple industries. So I’m not just teaching frameworks, but preaching what I practice on my own dime with my own reputation and payroll on the line.”

As both an active business leader and consultant, Navarre is keenly aware of how challenging it can be to keep vision in focus and how costly it can be when vision is lost. Consequently, he has made it a priority to give the leaders who seek him out the insights and support they need to activate vision in the modern business landscape.

Activating vision with design thinking

As the business arena and the problems it is forced to confront have become more complex, innovative business leaders are turning to new problem-solving techniques. Design thinking is one of those techniques, and one that Navarre recommends.

“Design thinking forces clarity,” Navarre asserts. “It makes leaders momentarily step out of the chaos and architect the system, addressing the customer journey, the operations, the experience, the incentives, and the internal scaffolding.”

Design thinking has the power to help leaders reclaim their vision by encouraging them to look forward, imagine innovative solutions, and commit to pursuing those solutions. It activates vision by forcing business leaders to define what the future should look like and then reverse-engineer the structure, processes, and behaviors that make it real.

Guiding vision with ecosystem fluency

Navarre also believes it is essential for modern leaders to develop ecosystem fluency if they are to shape vision in a way that resonates in both the workplace and the marketplace. He believes leaders who can’t see how all of the elements in the business ecosystem are interconnected lose context, leverage, and strategic foresight.

“Modern business is not linear,” Navarre says. “It’s a web of interconnected forces. If you don’t understand how your product fits into your customer’s world, how your partners influence your reach, and how your internal systems shape your external power, then you’re making decisions blindfolded. Ecosystem fluency is what separates leaders who react from leaders who shape the market.”

Ecosystem fluency is also critical for tracking down the issues that are knocking vision offline. The increased interconnectedness of business functions in today’s companies means that issues in one area often stem from somewhere else. Navarre has found that a marketing problem is usually an operations problem, while a revenue problem is frequently a product problem.

“If what you are getting from a consultant is siloed advice, you might as well burn the money,” Navarre warns. “Advice that isn’t tailored to the entire ecosystem is often worse than no advice at all.”

Strengthening vision from within

Most consultants can speak academically about the power of business vision. But when it comes to shaping vision with market-aware precision, they often lack the embedded, in-the-moment knowledge. Navarre brings the insider’s perspective that is critical for developing and activating a vision that succeeds.

“When consultants stay outside the fishbowl, they miss the people, the momentum, the misunderstandings, the hidden inefficiencies that undermine vision,” Navarre says. “You can’t fix what you don’t feel. You have to jump in with the team, get your hands dirty, and see the organism from the inside.”