Our expectations are useless without action. Often times, especially in large organizations, we create a list of goals without spending enough time thinking about the necessary steps to get there. We simply establish objectives and break off into groups and departments and start hammering away.

Moonshots are all good and well. At ReminderMedia, we always set lofty goals that we might not reach because we would rather push ourselves to a higher level and fall short, having left it all on the field, than just shoot fish in a barrel and exchange pats on the back.

When we establish those goals, we never do it lightly. We set the bar high, but never impossibly high. We take it so seriously because it is, quite literally, the future of our company. So before we announce a plan, we spend a lot of time thinking about what the execution will look like. Setting a goal is pretty easy. Drawing up a realistic, efficient game plan is difficult. Successful completion takes vision and determination.

This is how we drive innovation, by looking at company-wide goals, not as black and white tasks, but as micro-organizations within the company. A goal or project should resemble a company within the company, complete with a top leader and secondary ones, all the way down to the folks who carry out the day-to-day operations. The way we create these systems is by taking a good hard look at the task before we set execution in motion. We take a step back and inspect what we expect.

When we inspect our goals from this vantage point, it makes the plan of action much clearer. Instead of having ten people all running around trying to accomplish the same task in ten different ways, we have a mini-company of ten different people all responsible for individual parts that come together to form a well-oiled machine that goes to the moon.