Shooting for the Moon

Aspirations -- like leadership skills -- aren't always enough. Leaders must do more than motivate; they must manage.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy said, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

That statement and plan was visionary. It was bold. And it illustrates the type of leadership we expect from entrepreneurs. We want them to motivate by setting unthinkably high aspirations, even in the face of tremendous uncertainties.

Aspirations are crucial because organizations never outperform their highest ambitions. Not setting a high aspiration is the same as making a commitment not to achieve anything grand.

Still, aspirations are not enough. Aspirations only motivate. And leaders must do more than motivate. They must manage.

One of the most fundamental questions that managers must address is "How are things going?" If things are going well, you keep doing what you are doing. If things are going poorly, you make changes.

The question of how things are going is always answered by comparing an outcome to a goal. And that is where the value of aspirations is limited. Aspirations represent very distant goals, and judging progress against them is very subjective.

When a management team is unable to clearly answer the basic question of how things are going, emotion takes over. This is common in new ventures, particularly when discussions about how things are going focus strictly on aspirations. As time passes, investments increase, pressure to deliver results rise, and emotions gather force.

Such emotions tend to be polarizing. Some team members will be driven by ambition. Others by fear. Some will focus on what can go right. Others will focus on what might go wrong. Suddenly, there are only two options on the table. In essence, the options are "full speed ahead" and "abandon ship."

You see it over and over again in business. A company dives into a new opportunity with full force. Then, when things do not go as well as hoped, the company pulls out just as aggressively. It is rather like a skittish race car driver bumping into the left guardrail, overreacting, steering hard to the right, and subsequently slamming into the opposite guardrail.

Avoiding this pattern of decision making requires that long-term aspirations are coupled with short-term expectations. The aspirations inspire, and the expectations guide.

In 1961, very few of the specifics of how to get to the moon were in place. President Kennedy set a goal, but did not say how to get there. In fact, at the time, nobody knew. That was part of what made the goal so motivating. It seemed just out of reach.

The entire program, like any innovative endeavor, could reasonably be called an experiment. As such, how could anyone set short-term expectations? Establishing an inspiring long-term goal is one thing, but how do you establish a map for getting there when so much is unknown?

Right or wrong, such a map is needed. The most important thing to recognize about plans in uncertain environments is that it is acceptable for them to be wrong. In fact, it is inevitable.

Setting short-term expectations requires guesswork -- and lots of it. Subsequently, when actual outcomes fall short of expectations, it does not mean that the experiment has failed. It means you have a useful, rational analysis to conduct that can lead directly to important lessons. On the basis of those lessons, the map for achieving the long-term aspiration can improve.

With aspirations alone, you get an emotional tug-of-war. With long-term aspirations plus short-term expectations, you get much more graceful guidance. And gradually, you zero in on a workable flight path to the moon.

Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble are the founding director and executive director of the William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Additional information about Govindarajan and Trimble -- as well as additional Strategy & Execution columns -- are available in Online Insights.