“So…. what are you building?’

Starting a business feels routine and there is relief in getting some paid work but there is a nagging question of ‘what am I aiming for?’.

A recent discussion with a consultant veteran enlightened me in that you can never have too many plans for the future, if they are well-designed. The key, he said, is to bracket your ambitions into a set of pathways (comprised of small tasks) that run in parallel and then do the tasks in a methodical fashion along each pathway.

It does not mean start a million products within one business or jump from idea to idea, but set out your multiple ambitions for the business in 5 years and then break these down into pathways.

Say I want to launch a sustainable investment fund in 5 years (quite ambitious), I have outline what the elements of that launch would look like (focus, team, systems, marketing, network etc etc). Then I have to work backwards to understand what has to be done by when.

I might start with a key question like ‘what do I have know that makes me better positioned to invest money for sustainable returns and impact than others?’. It may not involve being an expert in money management or regulatory systems, it might be that I have made minor investments, experienced the process, generated returns and impact, and then learnt key lessons. I might have to join an existing fund or raise some friends and family money to do some investing.

Or I might say ‘who do I need to be in my team?’. Then I have to consult with people about fund teams and then start to build up profiles that enable me to keep my eyes open. When suitable people come along, I am well-placed to quickly approach them.

Or I might say ‘how much credibility within my target networks do I need? and work out how I am going to gain that credibility. I might have to develop a set of strong networks and target key people so that they can recommend me.

These questions create tasks that I can do in parallel to other tasks related to other ambitions. I can also create threshold questions like ‘What would it look like to be on track by year 2 for a year 5 launch?’ Now, most things in life are back-loaded, in that we do a lot more as we get to the end but there should be sufficient information collected and people talked to so that an idea of an on track year 2 or year 3 can be understood.

I can then pick another ambition – a major consulting firm or becoming a board member and executive advisor. They are all 5 year (or more) ambitions that I can break down into questions and then discrete tasks.

The consultant said that the more plans I complete, the better chance I will have of one coming to fruition (probability curves agree). He said that often, we look back and see that there was a thought like ‘oh… x,y,z would be a good idea’ and then we didn’t do the planning to develop a set of manageable, discrete tasks so it was left in the past. The key is to carry it into the future as a set of tasks that can be done over time.

So that is what I am doing now.