When Your Team Says The Unthinkable, Don't Shrink Their Vision

We tell our teams to be ambitious, yet when a junior team member proposes a high-risk plan with no clear path, the immediate, almost robotic reaction is to impose caution. We ask for the strategic plan, a roadmap and a risk assessment. In doing so, we trade the pursuit of a breakthrough for the comfort of incremental progress.

By Michel Koopman

For Forbes

I recently asked my 17-year-old son what he wants to be. His answer was immediate: "A billionaire." Instinctively, I said, "That's not a job. How are you going to get there?" Yet as the words left my mouth, I recognized the same reflex I'd caught myself using in my own company—the impulse to shrink a bold vision into something safer and more "reasonable."

This reflex is costly. In my own observations advising leaders, I've seen many organizations struggle to move from strategy to execution, in part because the boldest ideas are filtered out by leaders who fear being accountable for an uncertain path or lack the confidence to translate vision into action.

It's a leadership paradox we all wrestle with. We tell our teams to be ambitious, yet when a junior team member proposes a high-risk plan with no clear path, the immediate, almost robotic reaction is to impose caution. We ask for the strategic plan, a roadmap and a risk assessment. In doing so, we trade the pursuit of a breakthrough for the comfort of incremental progress.

The problem wasn't the ambitious outcome—it was my gut reaction to protect him from disappointment. In business, this same reflex kills ambition. Leaders need to learn to manage the tension between encouraging growth mindsets and managing business risk.

Outcome Does Not Equal Path

My son was setting a goal, not outlining a path. As founders, we tend to mistake a massive, outcome-based vision for a poorly thought-out tactical plan. Instead of shutting down the "billionaire" idea, the leader's role should be to validate the ambition, then pivot the conversation from "Is this possible?" to "Who do we need to become to even try?"

I didn't fully understand this until I reflected on how we launched CxO Coaching. There was no five-year plan or certainty—just conviction that we could offer something exceptional to top C-level leaders. We weren't following a path, but creating one. We adapted and kept moving, guided by instinct, skill and belief. Eventually, we arrived.

The takeaway: Big goals like "billionaire" or "industry leader" spark transformation. When a bold vision surfaces, founders can make three key shifts to harness it.

Ask For Fuel, Not A Map

When faced with a radical idea, most leaders immediately ask, "How?" This is a path-focused question. It forces the team to immediately create a precise, safe route, which is impossible for a breakthrough idea. A better approach is to ask an outcome-focused question: "What capabilities do we need to develop to make this outcome possible?"

This reframing shifts the focus from managing risk to acquiring power. For my son, the "fuel" would be a deep understanding of his mission, business and leadership. For a team aiming for a major industry disruption, the "fuel" might be:

New Expertise

Do we need to hire a data science team or acquire a firm with advanced AI skills?

Organizational Resilience

How will we fund the initial failure points? What is our designated R&D budget for this experiment?

Mindset

Who on the team is best suited to own an objective with no clear playbook?

When someone proposed a new hire we'd never had before, I shifted from asking "What's the budget?" to "What capability would this give us?" That reframe validated the ambition while grounding us in what we needed to build.

Treat The First Pitch As A Deposit, Not The Final Product

The act of sharing a big, scary, "impossible" idea is an act of vulnerability. If a leader immediately critiques the plan's feasibility, they create a chilling effect. The next time, the team will bring a safer idea.

Instead, when an employee shares a bold goal, your primary task is to make an "emotional deposit" by validating the courage and the underlying ambition. Then you must specifically differentiate the target from the strategy.

When a colleague suggested we target a completely different type of client, I resisted the urge to dissect the business model. Instead, I validated the ambition and treated it as an experiment. We ran small tests. Some failed. One opened an unexpected revenue stream.

This approach lets the team keep the destination sacred while treating the strategy as an evolving hypothesis, reducing fear of failure and enabling flexibility.

Replace 'Plan B' With 'Contingent Capabilities'

The leadership world loves a Plan B. However, a true Plan B for a huge goal is often just a commitment to a smaller goal. Instead, replace the concept of a fallback plan with contingent capabilities gained.

If the core plan is to build a new platform, Plan B might be to just iterate on the old one. A contingent capability, however, is a tool or skill you acquire that is valuable no matter which path the team ultimately takes.

If the goal is "build a market-disrupting product," the contingent capability is "invest in a deep understanding of customer behavior analytics." This capability is valuable whether the first product succeeds, fails or requires a pivot.

By focusing on acquiring transferable knowledge, you mitigate the risk of a project failing without abandoning the ambition of the outcome. You are ensuring that even if the path is wrong, the pursuit itself becomes the true organizational asset.

Nurturing The Belief

My son wants to make a major positive impact on the world and might become a billionaire, but that's not the point. In parenting or in leadership, the point is whether he—and your team—will keep dreaming in billion-sized terms while building the skills and resilience to handle inevitable disappointments.

When an employee shares a goal that sounds impossible, your reaction defines your culture. Ask yourself: Am I protecting them, or am I shrinking them?

Your role as a leader is to nurture the belief that the destination is worth the risk of getting lost and to focus your team on the transformation required to get there.

Read the original article on Forbes.