Vision
Vision. This is something a leader recently told me that I had which allowed me to get promoted to my current level. I was able to synthesize dots from disparate locations into one cohesive narrative and give leads a direction to run down.
Product Vision. This is when someone has a very clear narrative and experience they want a user of the product to have within a specific problem domain. I often read job descriptions, and when I see a large number of years of experience and what the role asks for, I can get a sense of the specific problem that the team is lacking.
When a company is big and has a product bet that gained demand but is losing direction, this is when I see the assumption of "needs more vision and experience" comes in. What often really happens is that there's only so much one can do when on the frontier based on past experience. Perhaps the experience helps with the fundamentals and having a proven track record of success, but a product bet, in my opinion, is much like creating a piece of art. You sometimes need to account for the people who aren't yet aware of the ecosystem or product. There needs to be a cool new feature that is built that innovates on an experience. One that solves a niche problem for a subset of users that either attracts new customers or retains existing ones.
A lot of this sometimes boils down to looking at what smaller businesses are doing and what the intuitive pain points of what the product's domain is. Not everything relies on existing user activity data because half of the time, your users do not know what they want. It's like when my friend who knows Chick-fil-A doesn't support the gays and still eats it anyways because their chicken sandwiches are good. This is the world that some companies are operating in. Make something that is so good that people reluctantly keep coming back anyways.
Another strong thing I see creatives do is take big risks. They do something out of the conviction that they know they'll create something novel. Even if it flops and doesn't gain traction. However, they'll do it well. And solely for that, they gain a small audience. It's not the outcome that they are attached to, but the journey of creating. I sometimes think about product in this way. I either want to make something that is the best experience for a small niche or I make something that is enough of a pain point for a known subset of the world that maybe the group outside of that subset comes to realize that they actually would like that pain point solved. I think back to the story of how roller luggage was created. People didn't believe that men would want it, but look at how pervasive rolling luggage is.
Contrary to companies, creatives regardless of size take risks. Companies sometimes grow into becoming risk averse– or maybe, they'll only accept risk from people they trust. At the end of the day, I think having vision is a creative process that requires synthesis. Artists do this, and so must those who create things that don't yet exist.