I was sitting across from a business owner recently. He was a sharp guy with a successful business and a lot of confidence in the future. When I asked him where he wanted the company to be in ten years, he leaned back and said something I’ve heard more times than I can count:
“I don’t really think that far ahead. The market will dictate where we get to.”
He wasn’t being dismissive. He honestly believed it. His business was doing great, he had a solid one-year plan, a decent budget, and a team that was executing. Why mess with a good thing?
But the thing I’ve noticed after working with dozens of leadership teams is this: when you don’t have a long-term vision, you aren’t really leading. You’re just reacting. And there is a world of difference between the two.
Finding Your North Star
In the EOS world, we talk a lot about the 10-Year Target (sometimes called the Core Target). It’s not a 40-page strategic roadmap. It’s just a singular, vivid, slightly audacious statement of where you want your business to be down the road.
I like to think of it as your North Star.
You might have heard Jim Collins’ term “BHAG” (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal). Same energy. It’s the kind of goal that makes everyone sit up a little straighter. It feels just far enough out of reach to be exciting and uncomfortable, but real enough that you actually believe you can get there.
Think back to JFK in 1961: “We choose to go to the Moon.” That was it. No corporate jargon, no endless committee recommendations. Just a clear, bold declaration. And it mobilized an entire country.
Your business and your team deserve that same kind of clarity.
What Happens When It’s Missing?
Let’s go back to that client for a second. As we kept talking, I gently pointed out something he hadn’t noticed. His team was delivering. They were hitting quarterly goals and keeping the lights on, sure. But underneath it all, there was this quiet undercurrent of uncertainty.
People were secretly wondering: Where are we actually going? Is there a future for me here?
Without a North Star, your people will fill in the blanks themselves, and they don’t always fill them with optimism. Your top performers, the ones you absolutely cannot afford to lose, start to wonder if there’s a horizon worth running toward. They don’t usually quit because the job is bad. They leave because they just can’t see where they fit into the future.
A clear 10-Year Target changes that.
More Than a Tool—It’s a Rallying Cry
I often see leaders treating the long-term vision like a dry planning exercise. It’s not. It’s a leadership tool.
And it’s not even really for you. It’s for your people.
When your team knows exactly what you’re building to, whether that’s becoming the dominant player in your region, serving 10,000 families, or hitting a major milestone, they can put themselves in the picture. They start asking better questions, like, “What do I need to learn to be a part of that future?” and “If we are going to do that, we are going to need to…”
That is where the magic happens. You move your culture from compliance to true commitment. From “I’m just doing my job” to “I’m part of something big.”
Getting Clear on Yours
When I work with leadership teams, I like to keep the question simple: If everything goes right, if we execute well, make good decisions, and the market cooperates, what does this business look like in ten years?
Try not to anchor yourself to today’s headaches or constraints. Try not to get hung up on the challenges that might happen. Think bigger. Then, try to write it down in one clear, simple sentence.
A great 10-Year Target is:
- Specific enough to actually mean something.
- Ambitious enough to push you to grow.
- Simple enough that every single person on your team gets it instantly.
- Might be based on a revenue target, but is articulated for everyone.
My client eventually got there. We hashed it out with his leadership team over a couple of sessions, and when they finally landed on their target, the energy in the room completely changed. His Integrator looked up and said, “Okay. Now I actually know what we’re building.”
That’s the moment you’re looking for.
Don’t wait around for the market to tell you where to go. Decide. Declare it. Then link arms and lead your people toward it.
To the moon.