Why I Signed a Waiver to Test My Strategy: Part One Vision

What 300 Miles in the Desert Taught Me About Vision, Strategy and Execution

TL;DR:

• Vision must precede Strategy, and Vision must be so bold that it demands a different way of working.

• The Arizona 300 was a test of mental capacity and disciplined commitment.

• This is Part 1 of a 3-part series on Vision, Strategy, and Execution — using my experience in ultra-endurance as a metaphor for my business strategy model.

• Be careful who you hang around, that means you, Kevin.

At some point, someone says something so ridiculous it bypasses logic and plugs straight into your ego.

For me, that someone was Kevin Crowe, and it wasn't the first time he had done it.

He said, "Let's run 300 miles across the Arizona desert."

And for reasons I still can't fully explain, I said yes.

The Monster 300 is a 309-mile (497 km) trail race in the Sonoran Desert. You have 170 hours to traverse the full distance with over 40,000 feet (12,000 M) of elevation gain.

Four of us, Kevin, Freddie, Johan and I, committed to the challenge.

The race wasn't a lifelong goal. I wasn't running for a cause. There was no movie montage moment.

It was the challenge!

It was so audacious, so out of scale with anything I'd done before, that I couldn't stop thinking about it.

But a funny thing happened after I committed: the why started to emerge.

It was a test of two things:

1. Could I commit to the Vision, develop a strategy, and an execution plan that I could stick to, unfolding over a year? And;

   
   

2. Could I develop the mental will and capacity to navigate the inevitable uncertainty of the event?

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Those are similar themes I explore with executive teams when we're building Strategy.

The Vision Parallel:

In my consulting practice, I use a model called the Edge OS. The model stands on the shoulders of greats like Jim Collins, Roger Martin and Verne Harnish. 

It purposefully differentiates between Vision, Strategy, and execution, each informing the other in sequence. Importantly, Vision informs Strategy, which in turn informs the Execution plan. 

The essence of the process is the importance of context-aware decision-making. 

Strategy follows the definition of a clear vision, and the execution plan is only relevant in the context of your Strategy. 

As Lewis Carol wrote, "If you don't know where you are going, any road can take you there."

The Arizona 300 created a very personal context to establish the Vision, Strategy, and execution plan.

My Vision:

The BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal): 300 miles in less than 170 hours across the Sonoran desert. No backup plan.

The Flywheel: A year of small, repeated actions: hydration tests, night runs, mental cues, gear experiments.

The Vision was clear; now it was time to make strategic choices about how to achieve it. We will explore that in part two of the three-part newsletter series.

What Leaders Can Steal from This:

If your business vision doesn't scare you even a little, it's not a vision — it's a comfort zone.

You can't build a flywheel around vague aspirations. You need a clear "north star" that forces better questions:

• What changes will we need to make to make this a reality?

  
  

• What will we stop doing?

  
  

• Where do we need discipline, not just ambition?

  
  

When companies get stuck, it's often because they haven't committed to a bold enough outcome to change how they work.

Closing Thought:

Before we started the race, we had to take a pledge:

"If I get lost, hurt, or die, it's my own damn fault."

Brutal, but also a perfect metaphor for vision work.

The act of choosing your desired direction and outcomes and owning the consequences is what separates Vision from wishful thinking.

Next up in the series: Strategy

What did I learn about building a business strategy from designing my training and race plan?