The Way

My first employer, Young & Rubicam, the largest advertising agency in the world at the time, provided us with an internal promotional piece one day. It said, “You can really fly when you know where you’re going.”

I’m fairly certain Y&R was communicating that a clear path can help us be more creative. When you’re clear on your destination you are able to unleash a variety of possibilities in how to get there.

I think much of what is wrong today is we don’t articulate a precise and powerful vision on where we want to go. While we have tools that give us guidance and information we don’t do so well when it comes to laying out a clear and comprehensive path toward our goals. We rely on things like GPS systems to tell us, quite literally, how to get places. And information systems that highlight what data to pay attention to.

Imagine if we could create a roadmap for ourselves and our businesses — a roadmap that  would map out the ways to get where you want to go?

Imagine if we had a roadmap that clearly delineated our various routes to value. It would be a roadmap that articulated the finite opportunities to create value along with the things you need to do in order to capture those opportunities. It might even be a roadmap that tells you the kinds of tools you should bring along or ever the skills you should have in order to get the most value, reward, even fun from your path to value.

If we had such a roadmap, we would certainly know the way. Then we could really fly.

Thomas Butta