Building Moonshots

WAY 22Adopt Bold Metrics: Using real numbers in your goals helps you to choose what you will measure.

About the Way

As moonshot teams convert loose thinking into action steps, they should attach metrics to estimate their next deliverables and timelines. Some people feel the work of moonshots defies measurement because moonshot results typically take a long time to achieve, and expectations on quick results dampen true breakthrough innovation. Both perceptions are partly true, which means that moonshot leaders must balance the types of metrics used by their teams from start to finish. Leaders should resist the pressure to extrapolate from current business. Often the lazy response within an existing organization is to model future financial health from current profit‐and‐loss statements or classify investments into R&D prototypes and next‐gen talent as losses. Instead, leaders should adopt bold metrics to motivate moonshot teams to aim high and ensure a moonshot is really moonshot worthy, separate from business as usual.

The roots of modern measurement go back to the 1920s when an employee at global chemical company DuPont—behind the inventions of Lycra, Teflon, Kevlar, nylon, and more—first introduced a formula for calculating return on investment. This financial innovation spread to other major companies such as GM and Ford.¹ By the 1950s, Peter Drucker established the concept of management by objectives (MBO).² (See more on Drucker's list in Way 7: Filter the Noise.) A more ...