On the Importance of Target Decomposition

We know that it is very important for individuals and companies to define and set goals. But in my opinion, perhaps more important than setting goals is the ability to break them down.

First, elon musk is great.

As the founder of the famous Tesla and Space Exploration Technology Company, elon musk is famous all over the world. It is said that there is an extremely grand goal in life, that is, to achieve 1 10,000 people to immigrate to Mars! In fact, at the beginning of his grand goal, most people thought he was a "madman": how is this possible? Not to mention that 1 10,000 people immigrated to Mars, it would cost tens of billions of dollars to send 1 10,000 people back and forth from the earth to Mars, and 1 10,000 people immigrated. Isn't this a fable?

Indeed, I am afraid that any rational person will find it incredible when he first hears elon musk's "grand" goal. But the key point is that elon musk didn't just put forward this goal. The most powerful thing is that he decomposed and implemented this grand goal. For example, he founded Tesla not to make money, but because only electric cars can be used on Mars, so Tesla is one of the maps of his Mars immigration plan; In addition, Musk founded Sun City, a photovoltaic power generation company, because photovoltaic power generation is one of the effective ways to generate electricity on Mars; Of course, since Mars immigration is to be realized, Space Exploration Technology Company (Space Exploration Technology Company) is of course the most important puzzle in Musk's immigration plan.

Of course, the most difficult problem to turn the migration of Mars into reality is the cost mentioned above. According to the traditional rocket launch cost, it takes tens of billions of dollars to transport a person to Mars. According to this cost, it is estimated that it is difficult for all mankind to achieve 1% of this plan. So if we want to realize this plan, we need to reduce the cost by at least 50,000 times.

At this point, elon musk once again demonstrated his powerful goal decomposition ability. Since the ultimate goal is to significantly reduce costs, it is enough to decompose this overall goal and then implement it. First of all, he thought that the repeated use of rockets can greatly reduce the cost of rocket launch (reducing the cost by 98%); Secondly, if the rocket carries all the fuel from the earth to Mars, it will be very heavy, because a large part of its own weight is fuel weight, which will greatly increase the launch cost. So Musk thought of the idea of refueling the spacecraft in space, so that the rocket can only carry enough fuel to send the rocket into space when it is launched, which can reduce the cost of going to Mars by nearly 100 times! Third, fuel can be made on Mars, so that it is not necessary to carry the fuel for the return journey, which greatly reduces the re-fuel of the rocket and reduces the cost by nearly 100 times; Fourth, choose to use the most easily manufactured fuel on Mars: methane.

So you see, it seems impossible to reduce the cost by 50 thousand times, but after Musk's goal decomposition, everything becomes suddenly clear.

Second, the necessary ability of professional managers

In the workplace, goal decomposition is also one of the necessary abilities for every professional manager. Really excellent leaders have strong goal decomposition ability. Imagine that a sales manager gets the sales target of 50 million yuan that needs to be completed in one year. What he should do is not to divide the 50 million yuan into 50 parts, that is, 654.38+0 million, and distribute it to his 50 employees. Instead, it should be broken down into goals, such as how many customers to visit; How many offline product promotion activities should be planned; How much market data should be investigated ... this is the "target decomposition" ability that professional managers should have.

So you see, a person's ability to solve problems is very important, but often we may ignore it. To achieve a great event, a strong goal decomposition ability is essential.