We’ve all heard the stats that claim four out of every five businesses fail. That’s a lot of people’s dreams that are being thwarted every day. A big problem for many startups and smaller companies I work with is the void that exists between the founders’ vision and their capacity to make it a reality. 

As everyone’s favorite lightbulb inventor, Thomas Edison, said: Vision without execution is a hallucination, and he’s bang on the money with that one.

Between Vision and Hallucination stands your capacity to lead, motivate and execute on your idea. And you can be the best leader in the world, but without defining capacity you will fail. Operationally it just means to answer four questions;

•    Can you assign all the work to someone?
•    Can you set specific targets to be achieved?
•    Do you have the time to do it?
•    Do you have the money to pay for it?

It is simple but without this, you’re hallucinating and your company is doomed to failure.

For a very simple guide to putting an operational function in place for your business, take a read of the book I’ve just written with Elizabeth Sale, Journey to Profitability.