The target is the floor

The target is not the ceiling. It is the floor.

Every official target represents the minimum acceptable outcome. The point below which someone will notice. The line that separates performing from underperforming. It is not the point you aim for.

The leader who aims for the target will sometimes hit it and sometimes miss it. The leader who aims above the target will almost always exceed it and on a bad day will still meet it. The gap between the official target and your personal target is not arrogance. It is strategy. It is the buffer that lets your team live comfortably above the line while everyone else is struggling to reach it.

This applies at every level. If the official target is 85%, set the personal target at 90%. If the official target is 90%, set it at 93%. The number is not the point. The principle is. You always aim above what was asked for, because the space between the two is where your team wins even when things are not perfect.

Aiming above the target also creates something that no management initiative can manufacture. Natural competition. When one team consistently outperforms the others, the other teams notice. Standards rise across the whole environment. The leader who aimed higher did not just improve their own team. They raised the floor for everyone.

Key Takeaway: The official target is the minimum, not the goal. Set the personal target above it deliberately. The buffer between the two is the space where your team wins on bad days and dominates on good ones. Aim above the target and the target becomes easy.

The target is not the ceiling. It is the floor.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 1: The Individual · Philosophy 4: Aim High · Section: The target is the floor

MarvinPro | November 2025

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Start with the foundation

Before you plant the flag, fix what is broken.

There is no point announcing an ambitious target to a team that does not yet have the tools, the training or the confidence to reach it. Ambition without foundation is just pressure. And pressure on a broken system makes it break faster.

The first job is always the same. Understand what is not working. Not from a distance, not from a report, but from the work itself. The cases that take too long. The queries that create confusion. The training gaps that produce inconsistent output. The process steps that were never designed for the volume they now carry. Find every one of them. Fix them systematically.

This requires patience that most leaders underestimate. It requires the discipline to hold your personal target privately while the work happens. To know where you are going before you tell anyone else. To build the road before you announce the destination.

It also requires the willingness to slow down before you speed up. The temptation is to raise the flag immediately, to signal ambition from day one, to create urgency through visible targets. Resist it. A flag raised above a broken foundation does not motivate. It demoralises. The team that cannot reach the target because the system will not support them does not work harder. They lose faith in the target and in the leader who set it.

Fix the foundation. Wait for the numbers to move. Then raise the flag.

Key Takeaway: Ambition without foundation is pressure on a broken system. Fix what is not working before raising the target. The leader who builds the foundation first arrives at the flag-raising moment with a team that can already see they are capable of reaching it.

Set the target privately. Fix the foundation. Wait for the numbers to move. Then plant the flag.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 1: The Individual · Philosophy 4: Aim High · Section: Start with the foundation

MarvinPro | November 2025

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Plant the flag

When the foundation is solid and the numbers are moving, make the target visible. Not as a management instruction. As a rallying point. A shared destination that belongs to the team, not just to the leader.

Put it on the wall. Give it a name. Make it something the team can repeat to each other. Make it theirs. A goal that lives only in the leader's head is the leader's goal. A goal that the team can see, repeat and identify with becomes the team's goal. The difference in what those two versions of the same target produce is not small.

The shift from your goal to their goal happens gradually. Through consistency. Through keeping the flag up when others laugh at it. Through celebrating every step toward it publicly. Through making individual performance visible, not to create fear but to create ownership. When each person can see their own contribution to the team target, the goal belongs to everyone.

The leader's role changes at this point. You are no longer the carrier of the ambition. You are the keeper of the standard. The person who maintains the expectation, who holds the bar when pressure pushes toward lowering it, who reminds the team of the destination when the daily work makes it feel distant.

Letting the team own the goal is not abdication. It is the most sophisticated form of leadership available. The team that owns its goal will push further than the team that is pursuing the leader's goal. Not because the leader asked them to. Because it is theirs.

Key Takeaway: A goal the team owns produces more than a goal the leader holds. Make the target visible, give it a name, celebrate every step toward it and make individual contribution visible. The leader becomes the keeper of the standard. The team becomes the carrier of the ambition.

Make the target theirs. A goal the team repeats to each other is a goal the team will reach.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 1: The Individual · Philosophy 4: Aim High · Section: Plant the flag

MarvinPro | November 2025

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The experience advantage

Experience gives you something no training programme can provide. A reference point for what excellent looks like.

The leader who has seen 93% before knows it is possible. The leader who has only ever seen 85% believes it is the ceiling. The difference is not ability. It is reference. And reference changes what people attempt.

This is one of the most underused advantages available to experienced leaders. The knowledge that a standard is achievable — because you have achieved it or seen it achieved — changes the conversation entirely. You are not asking the team to attempt something unknown. You are asking them to reach something you have already seen.

Use this advantage deliberately. Not to dominate. Not to dismiss the energy and ideas of less experienced leaders around you. But to set the standard higher than anyone else thinks is realistic, and to hold it there with the confidence of someone who knows it is not unreasonable.

The people around you will catch up. They will reach the standard. And eventually they will set their own standards higher because they have seen what you showed them was possible. That is how excellence spreads. Not through instructions. Through reference points.

The most valuable thing an experienced leader can do for the people around them is to show them what high looks like. Then aim higher.

Key Takeaway: Experience provides reference points for what excellent looks like. The leader who has seen a high standard achieved can hold others to it with a confidence that no training or methodology can replicate. Use the advantage. Show people what high looks like. Then aim higher.

Show people what high looks like. Then aim higher.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 1: The Individual · Philosophy 4: Aim High · Section: The experience advantage

MarvinPro | November 2025

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A real example

In a large contact centre operating across multiple markets, one team was performing at 58% customer satisfaction. The lowest of all markets. The official target was 85%. Leadership and the client both considered 85% ambitious. It had never been reached.

The leader said nothing about their personal target. They fixed the foundation first.

New starters began with written cases only — lower stress, higher quality, room to learn before the pressure of live interaction arrived. Templates were created for the most common case types. A nesting period was established. Outbound calls came before inbound. A buddy system supported every transition from training to live operation. Every structural weakness that was producing inconsistent outcomes was identified and addressed before any flag was raised.

Within two months the team was winning free lunch almost every day for having the highest customer satisfaction scores across all markets.

That was when the flag went up.

Posters on the wall. A banner on the team page. A slogan that became the team's identity: One for All and All for 93. The personal target had been 93% from the beginning. Leadership laughed at the banner. The agents did not.

Six months after the flag went up the team reached 90%. Nine months after, the programme expanded to all markets using the same methodology, adapted for language by local team leaders. Every market reached 95%. It appeared in the quarterly business review. Leadership was proud.

The team had aimed for 93. They had gone further.

The methodology was documented. The training was transferable. The ownership cycle was completed before the leader handed it over. The standard survived the transition because everything that produced it had been written down, not kept in one person's head.

Most people aim for what they think is possible. The interesting results come from people who aim for what they think is not.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 1: The Individual · Philosophy 4: Aim High · A real example

MarvinPro | November 2025

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Aim High

Set the target above the target. Fix the foundation before you raise the flag. Make the goal visible and make it theirs. Build the buffer that lets your team live above the line on a bad day. Use the experience you have to show people what high looks like.

Complete the ownership cycle before you hand anything over. Document the methodology. Train the person who will maintain it. Make sure they aim as high as you did, or the standard will quietly drift back toward the floor.

The target is the floor. Aim above it. Always.

The target is not the ceiling. It is the floor. Aim above it.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 1: The Individual · Philosophy 4: Aim High · Chapter Outcome

MarvinPro | November 2025

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