Procter & Gamble, known as one of the most conservative of all companies, has a history of committing to risky goals. For example, in the early 1900s, P&G established an internal mission: to reach a point where it could provide steady employment for its workers, rather than the hire and fire swings forced by seasonal demands.
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To achieve the mission, P&G took the audacious step of setting up a sales force to sell directly to retailersāa move that at the time was thought by industry observers to be insane. But CEO Richard Deupree had a simple philosophy about bold, audacious moves:
We like to try the impractical and impossible and prove it to be both practical and possible. You do something you think is right. If it clicks, you give it a ride. If you hit, mortgage the farm and go for broke.
Common to each of these companies was 1) a belief that they could fulfill the mission, and 2) a willingness to go for it. This willingness to put it on the line is part of the vision-setting process. Your task is to pick a mission that falls in a zone of discomfortāwhere itās not a sure bet, yet you believe deep down the company can do it.
You set a mission not by pure analysis, but by analysis plus intuition. Youāll never be able to prove ahead of time that an audacious mission is going to be 100% achievable. You have to know in your gut that it can be done, recognizing this simple truth: once committed to a bold challenge, the probabilities of success change.
When considering whether to lead with context or control, the second key question to ask is whether your goal is error prevention or innovationā¦ But if, like Target, your goal is innovation, making a mistake is not the primary risk. The big risk is becoming irrelevant because your employees arenāt coming up with great ideas to reinvent the business. Although many brick-and-mortar retailers have gone out of business as increasing numbers of people shop online, Target has made a priority of imagining fresh ways to get customers into the stores.
Lots of companies try to win and still canāt do it. So imagine, then, the likelihood of winning without explicitly setting out to do so. When a company sets out to participate, rather than win, it will inevitably fail to make the tough choices and the significant investments that would make winning even a remote possibility. A too-modest aspiration is far more dangerous than a too-lofty one. Too many companies eventually die a death of modest aspirations.
I fear becoming a commodity,ā he says. ā[In IT] you need to be distinctive to avoid commoditization. We have been on a quest to deliver unique value to P&G. Whatever is distinctive and unique, we focus on; whatever is commodity, because there is not competitive advantage in doing it inside, we outsource.
So, given that P&G needs retailers to stock Gain, the company needs to offer a compelling value proposition to retailers, or the end consumer will never see the product. Wherever there is an intermediary channel between the firm and the end consumer, that
intermediate customer and what it values must be understood.