Business leaders need to deploy big, bold strategies to stay competitive and continue to take share from the competition. These strategies need to challenge conventional thinking and span multiple years. But to deploy such strategies, leaders often need to overcome institutionalized small-culture thinking, narrow-mindedness and aversion to risk that block accelerated growth. If you do manage to overcome such internal challenges, your reward is bold, doable strategies that excite your employees and leave your rivals behind.

So why is there a prevailing think-small culture in most companies? Here are a few reasons:

• Conventional wisdom considers historical performance and market growth rates vs. also including relative market share to develop annual objectives
• Most compensation plans are geared toward quarterly and annual performance, so there is a natural incentive to set realistic goals to ensure their achievement and exceed them Read more