Purpose over Process

One of my favorite quotes about articulating and pursuing goals is from climber and author Todd Skinner: “To stick to the plan instead of the summit can make you fail to climb the mountain.”

In marketing as in mountaineering, being able to separate the purpose of our actions from the process of our actions is imperative for success. As marketing has wisely moved increasingly toward using analytics to quantify its contribution to the organization, often we can get caught up in the analysis over the objective. It isn’t enough to celebrate the sales directly correlated to a promotion, or the movement of a new product’s valuation from an analyst review following a presentation. These are useful metrics and benchmarks, not the overall objective.

Instead it is important to recognize how those results impact broader corporate goals. The clear articulation of easily understood goals is critical not only in gaining support for your actions, but in identifying when those actions deviate from the intended effect so corrective action can be swift.

The objective is a constant, so be careful that you do not use numbers to defend your actions, but rather to define them. You want to clearly articulate and get support toward the shared organizational objective, not the steps in the process.

No one ever asked Sir Edmund Hillary how many steps he took to reach the summit of Everest.

Sir Edmund Hillary, RIP

Sir Edmund Hillary, who in 1953 was the first Western man to summit Everest (his Nepalese Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, should never go unrecognized) died today.

Many might suggest that he wasn’t the first person to summit Everest, that that honor arguably belongs to George Leigh Mallory, who died in the attempt in 1924. But as significant as Mallory’s attempt was, it is important to remember that the rule for summiting is that a successful effort is measured less by reaching the summit as by the safe return afterward. So it is in mountaineering as in business, the greatest leaders are trailblazers known as much for their own accomplishments as the opportunities they create for others, the imagination they spark in us, and the possibilities they inspire among us all.

It is hard to imagine that the tallest peak on earth was conquered only as recently as just 55 years ago. But almost as proof of the impact of Hillary's pioneering spirit on others, it is perhaps even more difficult to comprehend that the moon was conquered a mere 15 years after Hillary’s summit here on terra firma. I would suggest that the indomitable spirit of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay certainly fed the spirit of our space program as much - as if not more - than the competition we felt from the Russian launch of Sputnik.

Just as Hillary had his moment, business leaders today have an opportunity to leave their mark on history – but they should also learn from that humble New Zealand beekeeper that the larger impact they can make is through leading by example, taking risks and inspiring their team toward their own, as Jim Collins (Built To Last) would have it, “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”.

As George Mallory proved, driven men are remembered for the risks they take and the accomplishments the master. But it was Sir Edmund Hillary who proved that leadership is not only about reaching the peak, but about coming down off the mountain, and by doing so, showing others the way and encouraging them toward their own personal summits.