“If you're always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”

– Maya Angelou

We're starting this chapter in 1935, on the final day of the Augusta National Invitational golf tournament, which is now known as the Masters. Craig Wood, tournament leader, had finished his round three under par and was relaxing in the clubhouse, with what felt like a very comfortable lead.

Gene Sarazan heard the spectators cheer Wood's birdie on the final hole as he was teeing up for his shot on the 14th. At that point, he was three shots behind Wood. Walter Hagan, his playing partner, turned to him and said, “Well, Gene, that looks as if it's all over.” To which Sarazan replied, “Oh, I don't know, they might go in from anywhere.”

His prediction came true just one hole later. It was on the 15th hole, a par five, that Sarazen took what was later dubbed “the shot that was heard round the world.” He selected a No. 4 wood from his bag and carefully eyed the distance from the tee to the green. He knew he was going for the shot in two. His first shot put him opposite the green, with a small pond and a distance of 235 yards separating him from the hole.

Sarazen took one final look, breathed in, and hit the ball, which sailed across the pond, rolling neatly onto the green and down into the cup. A stunned silence was followed by cheers from the few spectators still watching. He had holed it in two.

In golf, an albatross is three under par. This score is only available on holes of par four, five, or six. The chance of hitting an albatross is at least one in a million. To put that in context, the chance of a hole in one is one in 2 500 if you're a pro and one in 12 000 if you're an amateur.

The boy who delivered the message of the albatross to the clubhouse that day in 1935 was greeted by considerable scepticism initially, with some of those present questioning whether he meant Sarazen had hit a two on the 16th hole, a par three.

Of course, the messenger had named the correct hole, and Sarazen had indeed hit an albatross. He went on to make par on the three remaining holes, tying with Wood and forcing a 36-hole playoff, which he won to take the 1935 Masters title. Sarazen used his considerable skill to follow the usual path to the green, but he did so in a way that pushed the limits and thereby enabled him to make up the ground he had lost to Wood.

Many would call this lucky, but as one of the greatest golf players ever, Gary Player, said, “The funny thing is, the more I practice, the luckier I get.”

To get an albatross you need two things: length and skill. Most par fives have a shot at an albatross, but the reality is that only 10% of golfers can hit a par five in two shots. That means 90% of people never even have a shot at an albatross. To get into that 10% you have to build your capability and your skill. When you do that, the better the length on your shot, and the better your chances.

The same is true in business. Essentially you're stacking the deck in your favour if you put into practice everything we have talked about so far in this book. What you're doing is laying the foundations to allow you to go for the albatross.

If the principal has played her role, you have clear purpose and direction. If you've developed autonomy within your teams, set clear measures and created alignment with what you need to do, your crew is in place and ready to support your organisation on its journey. If you've considered the external environment, understand your role within it, and how it affects your organisation, then you have effectively set yourself up to be an adaptive business.

If you are an adaptive business, you can not only afford to go for the albatross, but you're more likely to get it. What's more, having done everything we've talked about in this book, you might as well go for the albatross because even if you don't hit it, you have the skills required to course correct, navigate your way out of the rough, and probably still get down for par.

The quote from Gary Player referenced earlier makes another important point, in that the more you practice, the luckier you get. The same holds true in business, in that the more you work on developing your capabilities and skills, the easier it will become for you to spot the opportunities for your albatross and the more confident you will be at having a realistic chance of hitting it.

There is one golf shot that's even rarer than an albatross and that's a condor, which is four under par. When you go for an albatross, you need skill and length, but you typically still follow the fairway. However, to go for a condor you have to cut the corner, and essentially hit the ball from the tee onto the green by the hole. If you can hit your shot that far, and you manage to land it in a very small spot, you have a shot at a condor. This shot is so rare that the PGA doesn't even have odds for it and there have only been a handful recorded in the world.

The difference between going for an albatross and going for a condor is that, if you have put in the practice, you have a realistic chance of hitting an albatross. If you miss it, you will probably still get a birdie (one under par) because you will have the skills to navigate out of the rough you land in. Even with lots of practice, hitting a condor is nearly impossible. As this shot is only available on par five and par six holes, there are also fewer opportunities for you to even attempt one.

Knowing when to take the risk

Even if you are in a strong position, going for the albatross is still a decision that carries a certain degree of risk. A team principal may need to take a similar decision during a Formula 1 race if they are so far behind that the only way to close the gap is to opt for a risky strategy, like not coming into pit again to change the tyres. That 20 seconds can be the difference between making up the gap and falling farther behind.

The only way that a principal can make that decision is if they trust their car, their driver, and their crew. The team has invested in that technology and invested in that driver's training. It knows that it is operating well, and it is this knowledge that gives the principal the confidence to choose a risky strategy. Although this analogy only applies over the course of a single race, the principle is still the same in business.

You've earned the right to opt for the risky strategy by building up your confidence in the car, the driver, and the team. If you go for that strategy and it pays off, you have closed the gap, and now your job is to make sure you don't fall behind again.

This doesn't mean you should always choose the risky strategy simply because it gives you an opportunity to make up lost ground. There is a crucial difference between going for the albatross and cutting corners. While the act of going for the albatross might see you cut across part of the course, it is a calculated risk that is taken from a position of strength.

You have invested your time and effort in your training; you didn't cut corners when you were practicing, and you focused on continuously improving your skills and the length you could hit the ball. Therefore you know you have the skill and ability to potentially make the shot. As we have said earlier, even if you don't land where you want to, you also have the skills to course correct.

There is a fine line between bravery and naivety though. We recently saw a video of a pro golfer who hit a ball through a narrow gap between two trees and went on to get an albatross. Although both of us are keen golfers, we also know that we don't have the skill to make that shot. We would never manage to get our golf balls through that gap, and if either of us attempted that shot, it would be stupid.

However, that pro golfer could afford to be brave because he knew he had the experience and skills to give him a good chance of making the gap in the first place, and of being able to correct if it didn't go quite to plan. He had earned the right to go for the albatross.

Playing for the win, rather than the draw

When you go for the albatross, you're playing for the win. You're not aiming for a draw. This is all about recognising opportunities when they come along and seizing those opportunities when they appear.

In business, this might be in a type of David and Goliath scenario. Small organisations are often competing against much bigger businesses. While this might not quite have the drama of David stepping up to face the giant Goliath with just his slingshot and a few pebbles, the challenge can feel significant. However, a small organisation can be a disruptor and change its industry if it goes for the albatross at the right point in its journey. The small organisation can also use an albatross to gain an advantage over a much larger competitor. Think back to the brown rhino versus the elephant; small businesses can be the brown rhino in that scenario and surprise larger organisations that haven't seen them coming.

There is a similar battle between fast and slow. Large organisations can also become disruptors in their industry if they act quickly and decisively. The key is to make the right decisions and to make those decisions really count.

In 1996, in a football match between Manchester United and Wimbledon, a 21-year-old David Beckham put himself well and truly on the map. The decision he took towards the end of the match to go for goal from just within his own half led to not only one of the most memorable goals in Premier League history, but also put the young up-and-coming player firmly in the spotlight.

At that stage in his career, Beckham was one of a group of incredibly talented young players coming through the Manchester United ranks. He was quietly solid, but he didn't especially stand out from the likes of Neville, Scholes, Butt, Giggs, not to mention the huge personality of Cantona. That goal from just past the halfway line changed everything. It accelerated his career, his confidence levels went through the roof, and the rest, as they say, is history. In 2021, his net worth was estimated at $450 million. Of course, he has taken other decisions at other points that have continued to propel his career, both within and outside of football, but you could argue that his decision to go for that audacious goal in 1996 set him on that path.

Just as we discussed with the golfing examples, Beckham earned the right to go for that goal. He put in the hours of practice; he developed his skills, and that gave him the confidence to take the opportunity when he saw it.

We're sure you're familiar with the Chinese proverb: “A journey of 1 000 miles starts with a single step.” The single step for Beckham wasn't that goal against Wimbledon; it was the training and practice he put in years before he got there that gave him that opportunity. He laid his foundations so that when the opportunity arose, he could take it. He also knew that the worst that would happen was that the ball would go out for a goal kick or be picked up by Wimbledon's keeper.

What's the worst outcome you'll get?

When you are making the decision to go for an albatross, one of the most important questions to ask yourself is, “What's the worst outcome if I miss?” In 2009 at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Usain Bolt said exactly that.

Having won gold and set a new world record in the 100m final, he was lining up in the 200m final as a firm favourite to take home the gold. In a post-race interview, he said that he had told his team he was going to go for the world record, even though he wasn't sure he'd get it as he felt tired after his 100m race, because the worst-case scenario was that he'd still get the gold.

Of course, his run on that night has gone down as one of the most incredible in history, with Bolt running 200m in 19.19 seconds, breaking his own record of 19.30 seconds that he set just a year earlier at the Olympic Games in Beijing. Even if Bolt had missed out on the world record, he would still have won the race by a considerable margin. When that is your worst-case scenario, it is certainly worth going for the albatross.

However, businesses need to understand what the worst outcome could be so that they can assess whether that worst outcome is something they can come back from. At the beginning of 2019, Gillette launched a new advertising campaign called “The Best Men Can Be”, a play on its famous advertising slogan: “The Best a Man Can Get”, and one that referenced the #metoo movement.

At the time of this campaign, Gillette's market share among younger consumers was coming under significant pressure from disruptors in the sector such as Harry's and Dollar Shave Club. Gillette took a bold decision to focus on the diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) angle in its advertising and it got it wrong. There was considerable backlash against the brand's attempts to reposition itself. In its first 48 hours on YouTube, the advert was watched two million times and received 23 000 likes and 214 000 dislikes.¹

However, the strength of the brand allowed the company to course correct and make adjustments to its strategy. Even though Gillette took a hammering in 2019, two years later the business has launched its own direct-to-consumer operation. Gillette could afford to go for the albatross, and miss spectacularly, because it had laid the foundations for the business, it had brand equity, and although it temporarily lost market share, it knew it could regain it.

Gillette also chose to act early. DEI was gaining considerable traction at this time, and rightly so. Ethically, changing its advertising and branding was the right thing for Gillette to do, but because it was an early adopter, it wasn't executed quite as well as it could have been.

Contrast that to one of the disruptors in this space, Dollar Shave Club. As a Digitally Native Vertical Business (DNVB), it used a really strong, personally driven social campaign when it was building its brand and this pushed the company to the level that it is at now. That was its albatross, and the company made it. If it had missed the mark, like Gillette did, the business would likely have ceased to exist because it didn't have the same solidity as Gillette.

Do you have to go early to land an albatross?

The short answer is “No, you don't.” If you look at the Gillette example we just shared, you could argue that had the company waited a little longer, it might have had a better outcome from an updated campaign that was executed more smoothly.

There are also numerous business examples where being first doesn't equate to being successful. Myspace and Facebook illustrate this perfectly. Myspace was launched first, and at one point was the world's largest social networking site. Facebook was launched later and took a staggered approach to its launch, initially only making the platform available at Harvard, then universities, then later everyone else.

How many people do you know with an active Myspace account, compared to people with an active Facebook account?

Sometimes waiting longer can allow you to go for gold, especially if you watch the shots your competitors take and course correct based on their misses; think back to the pirate ship battle discussed in Chapter 4. By watching where their adversaries' cannonballs landed, pirates could adjust the angle and direction of their guns to improve the accuracy of their own shots.

In the business world, an example is how the iPod took over from the MP3 player. After the cassette-based Walkman and then portable CD players, MP3 players were a revelation. However, although they offered a much improved experience based on what was available before, they weren't always easy to use and they certainly had their limitations.

The Apple iPod was launched in 2001, several years after the first MP3 players came onto the market. One of the iPod's defining features was the wheel control you could use to scroll through your music. It was simple to use and it solved many of the issues consumers had with the early versions of MP3 players.² Apple waited, watched what its competitors were doing, saw where the competition missed its shots, and adjusted its trajectory accordingly. It took a little longer, but Apple went for the albatross and it got it. The company not only launched at the right time, but it also went for the big prize. While the decision itself is important, so too is the timing of that decision.

When to go for the albatross

Whether you go early or later, the key is knowing when you can afford to go for the albatross. The following matrix highlights at what stage a business can go for an albatross with some degree of confidence. The horizontal axis relates to an organisation's maturity (are you a spider or a starfish?), which is based around everything we've discussed to this point. The vertical axis relates to how you behave in business: Do you lead, follow, or hesitate?

As you can see, you can be an agile business but not be overly confident in your ability to lead. As an agile follower you can still be in a very good place. However, if you want to make it into that top right-hand corner where you're adaptive and leading, you need a healthy disregard for the impossible.

Industry leaders don't ask for permission, they simply go for the albatross. She simply goes for the albatross. Not every organisation will be in a position to do that, but what this demonstrates is that you can still do well if you move into that space of being an agile follower. However, if you are a traditional, hierarchical organisation and you're following, you are likely to be more dependent on what everyone around you is doing.

Businesses like Tesla are what we would describe as adaptive leaders. They are early adopters and first movers; they go for the albatross and, more often than not, they get it right. If you look at the Tesla electric cars as an example, the company knew that there was always going to be some criticism and backlash to this new technology, but it focused on getting certain elements absolutely spot on, such as the innovation in the battery design, the design of the cars themselves, and the fact that they made a lot of what they were doing open source.

By getting those elements right, Tesla was able to mask the negative surround sound that accompanied this new technology, which, in turn, has elevated its performance moving forward. Tesla used its first mover advantage to shoot for the albatross, but it lined up its shot in such a way that it increased its chances of getting it.

Go for 10× not 10%

Part of going for the albatross is having the courage to make bold decisions rather than playing it safe. Google co-founder and former CEO Larry Page runs his business on the principle of 10×. He believes that a business should focus on making a tenfold improvement, rather than a 10% improvement. The point here is that if you are going for a 10% improvement, you are choosing the safe option and you are doing what everyone else is doing. While you won't fail spectacularly, you also won't wildly succeed. Essentially, when you take this course you are choosing not to go for the albatross.

As Steven Levy put it, writing for Wired after interviewing Page about his approach: “Thousand-percent improvement requires rethinking problems entirely, exploring the edges of what's technically possible, and having a lot more fun in the process.”³

This is all about having a healthy disregard for the impossible. That means, as a business, you have to think about the best way to be able to solve a problem rather than thinking about the problem the same way everyone else is. When you have this healthy disregard for the impossible, you're in that top-right corner of the grid. You're shaping the future.

As one of Rich's energetic Peloton instructors says, “Shoot for the moon and, if you miss, you'll at least land in the stars.” While this isn't strictly correct in terms of astronomy since the moon is 239,000 miles away and the closest star is four light years away, the sentiment is still relevant for both businesses trying to get ahead and businesses that are looking to catch up. Whilst optimisation is good, disruption trumps optimisation.

The other important point about the 10× principle at Google is that Larry Page has embedded it within the organisation. He wants all people at Google to embrace that principle, regardless of the level they're working at in the business.

In this case, the principle has been set and is clear within the business. Autonomy is embedded in Google's teams and it's functioning well; people have the freedom to think creatively to aim for that 10×. This means that the idea of going for the albatross isn't just part of the mindset of an organisation's leaders, but is part of the mindset of anyone working for that organisation. Everyone at Google is looking for 10× rather than 10% and that means people are seeking out their own opportunities to go for their own albatrosses.

Wins aren't always short term

It's important to remember that, unlike in a game of golf where you can see whether you have landed a shot within seconds, in business your wins won't always be short term. Sometimes you won't see the results immediately. In some cases, it is more like a war of attrition, the outcome of which is based on a set of decisions that you take over a period of months or years.

When you start looking at wins on a long-term timeline, you also have to consider when you should tap out versus when you should continue. Take the longest tennis match in history, which took place at Wimbledon in 2010 between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut. It took 11 hours and five minutes for Isner to win a match that spanned three days with a final set score of 70–68.

In his next match, Isner lost in straight sets in just 74 minutes to Thiemmo de Bakker, which at the time was the shortest men's match in Wimbledon history. The effort of winning his previous match significantly affected Isner's performance in his subsequent match. Of course, he still achieved a world record and being part of that match was a phenomenal achievement; however, a similar business scenario may have required a different decision.

As a business, you need to be able to work out when it is worth putting the effort into that war of attrition and when it's time to pull back. This links back to what is talked about in Chapter 3 in relation to the process you use for strategising and decision making within your organisation.

You can't cut corners when you're building foundations

One place where you need to put in the time and effort is in building your foundations. This is a point we have mentioned before, but it is absolutely crucial if you want to have the opportunity to go for the albatross with the confidence that you could land it, or at the very least know that attempting it won't be the death of your business.

When it comes to building your foundations, you can't cut corners. You have to put in the work, but that doesn't mean you have to do what everyone else is doing. You can think creatively and look outside the box for solutions. You simply have to make sure that the foundations and learning you have are based on the outcomes you want.

This might mean following the well-beaten path at times; however, you can take a detour as long as you make sure that your focus is always on the outcomes. When your learnings support your outcomes, you can achieve them.

The Wright brothers are a great example of how you can take a shortcut by thinking creatively, without being detrimental to the learnings you have as your foundations. In 1901, they developed a wind tunnel to test the design of their aircraft wings after becoming frustrated by the results of their experiments with gliders.

At this time, everyone working to develop a plane was launching models off of cliffs and hills. The Wright brothers invented a wind tunnel, which was the most efficient way of gathering all the data (the learning) they needed to make changes to their designs and significantly accelerate their progress. They conducted tests in their wind tunnel between September and December of 1901, and at the end of that short period had the most detailed data available in the world at the time about the design of aircraft wings.

They made the process as simple as possible without over simplifying it. This shortcut put them ahead of everyone else working in their field. However, a shortcut doesn't always mean you'll get ahead, and this is certainly true if you haven't got the right foundations in place.

In golf there is a saying, “Focus on the par and the birdies will come.” A birdie is one shot under par, an eagle is two under par, and an albatross, as we've previously said, is three under par. The point is that par is actually pretty good, so if you can get par on a course, you've done well. Go for the par and occasionally you might get a birdie as well. When you've got enough birdies, you'll get an eagle. When you've got enough eagles, you can go for the albatross.

It's an incremental process. What you can't do is be hitting over par and then go for the albatross because then you're cutting corners. If you do that, you're just going to end up in the bush and be facing an almighty challenge to even get back on course.

In the context of business, when you go for the albatross, the purpose is clear but it's very unlikely that you will get there on your own. You need your crew to support you and you need to evaluate the conditions when you are ready to take the shot. This is a journey, and it's important to lay the foundations, get the knowledge, and have the awareness to hit that shot with confidence.

Once the destination is set by the principal, and the crew is aligned behind that outcome, the next step is to find the most efficient way to get there.

Keep things simple

When it comes to creating a focused strategy, it's important that it focuses on customer needs. “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler,” is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein and one that is very apt in this context.

Simplicity boils down to two steps: Identify the essential and eliminate everything else. In the context of going for the albatross, this is about identifying the best route to the green or acknowledging that this might be a time when you instead chip away and reach the hole over a series of more incremental shots.

Knowing when to take that bold decision and go for the albatross is, as we've already said, about understanding your abilities and having confidence in them. It is important to admit when you don't have the ability to go for the albatross because then you will start to look for another way that carries less risk for your organisation.

This concept of making things as simple as possible, but not simpler is also about making sure your priorities lie in the right place. There is an urban myth that in the 1960s NASA invested millions of dollars into developing a pen that could write in space, while the Russians just used a pencil.

Although that is a myth, it is a great example of avoiding innovation for innovation's sake. There is a real-world example of this too, in that Fischer spent $1 million developing a pen that could be used under freezing conditions. However, this is a very niche market, so you have to question decisions to innovate at times if the use of that innovation will be very limited.

Businesses also struggle with this concept when trying to reach the holy grail of personalisation. One of the challenges is that personalisation has different definitions within the business that firstly need to be aligned. After that, there is an ongoing programme of work for “more personalisation.” The two things that businesses often neglect, however, is what is the value to the customer? And when does the value saturate for the business? It's crucial to consider these questions because personalisation is only valuable if there is an improvement to both.

What does your customer need?

Innovation for innovation's sake is an issue we commonly see in tech projects. Technicians will often focus on building the core functionality that they want in their product without thinking about it in the context of what's important to the customer.

This comes back to the concept of “Does it make the boat go faster?” that is talked about in Chapter 2. You will be able to make an infinite number of tweaks to your product or service, but you always have to measure the impact of those tweaks. Your measure is “Does it make the boat go faster?” and if the answer to that question is “No,” then spending time and money on that change is not a wise investment.

Sometimes you have to strip back to go forwards

It can be easy to get carried away with adding functionality, as Rich just explained, and to introduce more and more layers of complexity to products or services. For businesses that have been around longer, this is likely to be particularly relevant.

However, sometimes you have to strip everything back to help you move forwards. You have to drop that deadweight because all of these things can slow you down. The key to doing this right is making sure that you strip back your technology or offering based on the need.

Trust yourself, but apply the logic test

That question from Jurassic Park is an important part of the logic test, but there comes a point when you have the right foundations in place that you need to trust in your abilities and believe in your ideas to go for the albatross. US astronomer Carl Sagan once said, “They laughed at Columbus and the Wright brothers, but they also laughed at Bozo the clown.”

People laughed at Columbus because the idea of finding a piece of land way across what they thought was a flat Earth didn't seem very logical. People also laughed at the Wright brothers because putting a piece of timber into the sky and flying it seemed ridiculous. But those people also laughed at Bozo the clown. Two out of those three things turned out to not be laughable at all.

There is a point with these daring albatross ideas where nobody knows if it will be a success. If you have laid the foundations we've talked about in this book then you have earned the right to trust what you believe in and to do it. Remember that until Columbus discovered America or the Wright brothers launched the first plane, there was no difference between them and Bozo the clown in the eyes of the public. The only difference was their own belief.

However, there has to be an element of logic to anything you are trying to achieve. If you compare the first plane, the Wright Flyer, with the rocket belt that was developed in the 1960s, you can immediately see how the first idea could logically evolve but the second could not.

When the Wright brothers launched their first plane, it only flew 200 yards; however, the laws of aerodynamics existed and were understood, so all they had to do to go from flying a plane 200 yards to flying it across the ocean was redesign the plane to change how those laws of aerodynamics applied.

When the rocket belt was first demonstrated, it flew for 21 seconds. However, the rocket belt needed one litre of fuel per second it was in the air. That meant if it was to fly for half an hour, it would need two tonnes of fuel. There was no way to make that better without changing the laws of physics.⁴

Some ideas can evolve to be successful and other ideas are waiting for bigger inventions in order for them to become practical. In business, you need to be able to make that distinction because your foundations will only take you so far.

This comes back to understanding your outputs versus your outcomes. If you launch something that can't be optimised thereafter, you have hit your limit. If that doesn't succeed on its first run it's never going to because you haven't given yourself enough runway to take off again.

There are many examples within the world of business where huge sums of money have been invested in ideas that, from the outside, are clearly destined to fail. When you look at those ideas, they typically all have one thing in common: Motion wasn't transformed into progress. However, everyone at that organisation got hyped up and excited so they didn't apply that logic test to what they were doing, and by the time they realised it wasn't going to work they had invested time and budget into a project that arguably should never have started in the first place.

Go back to first principles

First principle thinking is incredibly useful in this context. This is where you slow down, take something back to its simplest level, and build it from there. When you do this, you are much more likely to challenge an inefficient process and find a better way of doing things.

We see this happening a lot within startups and disruptors, particularly in traditional sectors like banking. Take the likes of Monzo and Starling as an example; from those apps, you can disable your credit cards at a touch of a button. You can pause them if you think you've lost them and you can cancel them if you know you've lost them. That functionality was built in from the start at those businesses.

However, the traditional banks, many of which offer that kind of functionality through their apps, took two years to get there. The reason being that their processes were so configured around the old way of doing things that they couldn't make quick decisions, even when they knew that those decisions were the right ones. The challenge for an organisation in this position is to take that step back and break the way you do things to enable you to make the change. If you're not able to do this, you're never going to lead, you will always be following others.

The following are just two examples of how a business that has been around for decades can benefit from taking a completely new approach to its customers. Both Zwilling Group and Volkswagen are well-established businesses that saw great improvements by viewing their challenges from a new angle and choosing to do things differently.

Highlights

If you want your business to be a leader in its industry, sometimes you have to go for the albatross. However, you have to make sure that if you take that shot, you have put all the foundations in place to give you the best possible chance of making it.

These foundations are everything we have explored in this book: the principal setting a clear direction, the crew that is aligned and operating autonomously to deliver its best work, and an appreciation for the season and what is happening that's outside of your control. When you have laid these foundations, you have earned the right to go for the albatross.

The other key is to think about the possible outcomes. What is the worst that will happen if you miss wildly? Think back to Chapter 3, which talks about classifying decisions and identifying the ones that could kill your business. As we've said in this chapter, there is a fine line between bravery and naivety, and you need to know which side of that line you are on before you go for your albatross.

An albatross can mean different things for different businesses too. The kinds of decisions an agile startup will be making are very different to those of a long-standing legacy business, but just because your business is larger, that doesn't mean it can't find its own albatrosses and use them to make up some of the ground it may have lost over the years, or use it as an opportunity to get ahead of the competition. This journey of transformation will be different for every business, and it is up to you to embed the principles we've explained in this book and take the right decisions at the right time to not only help your business catch up, but to also ensure it never falls behind again and consistently hits that podium position.