Goal Core · Long term goals · Module
Direction of growth
Whether the ambition is reached through existing markets and offers, new offers, new markets, or genuinely new ground. Naming the direction is what makes the risk visible.
The idea
How it works
There are only a few directions growth can come from, and they differ enormously in risk. Selling more of what you have to who you already serve is the safest and the most quickly exhausted. New offers to new customers is the riskiest, because both halves are unproven at once.
Most growth plans are a mix, and the mix is usually implicit. Making it explicit tends to reveal that the plan depends far more on the riskiest quadrant than anyone intended.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Split the ambition by source
How much of the growth is expected from each direction? Rough percentages are enough to make the point.
- 02
Rate the risk honestly
Anything involving a new offer and a new market at the same time is a different kind of bet, and should be funded as one.
- 03
State what has to be learned
For each direction, what does the company not yet know that the plan assumes it does?
One level in
The components of direction of growth
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
A plan where most growth comes from the least proven direction is not automatically wrong. It just needs to be funded and staged as the bet it is.
The other modules in long term goals
Long-range ambition
The single stated destination: specific enough to recognise on arrival, distant enough that the route is not yet designed.
LearnGrowth horizons
Separating what defends today’s business from what builds the next one and what merely keeps an option open. Each needs different funding, measures and tolerance for failure.
LearnAssumptions and scenarios
What has to remain true for the goal to make sense, written down where it can be checked. A long goal is a claim about the future, and claims can be falsified.
Learn