Making Big Hairy Audacious Goals Real

How do we set long term audacious goals and execute them in the hustle and bustle of the day to day?

Having mentored entrepreneurial businesses for nearly 20 years, I have identified characteristics that drive strategy and culture to achieve extraordinary outcomes when adopted.

As a starting point, the direction and targets the organisation set must be daring and audacious but not beyond imagination. The people within the organisation must see that the outcomes, whilst challenging, could be realistic given time. In order to achieve this, the direction must be a linear story, where people can join the dots from today to tomorrow and ultimately to the new future.

The aspiration must be scalable. No organisation will likely grow in a daring way by doing more of the same. The processes, products, people and market reach must extend beyond today's limitations. This will require imagination, deep thought and innovation.

There must be investment. Investment in people capacity, investment in infrastructure and machines and most notably, investment in leadership. Without conscious thought about where to place scarce resources from the outset, even the best aspirations will wither on the vine.

The target must be purposeful and talk to the deep innate drivers which get our people out of bed. It must be collaborative to engage those drivers and garner the will and support to weather even the strongest headwinds.

The direction must have tactical clarity and target markets which play to our strengths, are profitable and give us the best chance of success. What can we excel at, what fuels our passion what can we win at.

Finally, the organisation must build a culture of learning and discovery. Actions and activities which create new organisational synapses and pathways to learn, grow and evolve. Michael Dell, in his book, “Play Fair but Win,” says that failure is a necessary component of any success.” Without the culture to allow this, no organisations ambition will likely survive much past the first punch.

Does your business environment have the characteristics to achieve bold, audacious goals?