Chartering a Breakthrough

Chartering a Breakthrough

Move through a large organization, and you will likely find many dedicated people who are working hard on company priorities that are designed to add value, grow the business or innovate. These organizations are targeting big things, yet individuals and teams can find themselves stalled in their quest for accomplishing the extraordinary. So often, when our firm is invited in to work with such companies, we hear people say, “We have a history of lots of take-offs, but we have very few landings.” What this statement means is that a lot of projects get started, but few of them really deliver their intended results. Targeting, executing and delivering Breakthrough results are highly valued skills. It is not unusual for us to be invited to work in areas where there are both big opportunities and an insufficient structure in place to capture these gains.

We most often address this dilemma by suggesting that whatever extraordinary results an organization is committed to producing will require imaginative, breakthrough thinking in the company. A powerful way to trigger the imagination and stimulate breakthrough thinking is to write a charter. We assert that any project that is attempting to accomplish the unlikely or unpredictable needs a charter.