Innovating in ambiguity: turning your moonshots into actionable goals
There is one thing that brings organization and people to inaction: uncertainty.
But here's the paradox: innovation, by its very nature, requires us to step into the unknown. We want to change behaviors, create impact, and push boundaries. We have hypotheses, but no guarantee of success. For companies with a legacy (and more to loose), this leap into the unknown can be especially daunting.
Looking back at my career, I've seen this happening countless times. Whenever we aimed for a significant leap, a bold new product, a game-changing feature, a new market, we had a vision, we had hypotheses, and we saw potential ROI. But we had no certainty about how it would be received.
So, how did we push past the hesitation and start executing?
We set aspirational goals. Moonshots.
And with those goals came raised eyebrows, a flood of questions, and, sometimes, a creeping disbelief in the whole effort. I believe much of this resistance comes down to one thing: uncertainty — the fear that we might be wrong.
I’ll say it directly: any innovation has a bit of a leap of faith baked into it. If you’re not somehow scared, you’re only evolving, not leaping forward. But how do you innovate when people are frozen by uncertainty?
It is precisely in these conditions that leaders need to step in and create motion, despite the unknown.
I’ve tried different techniques in my career, and I want to share a few, along with one example that made history. For real.
An historical example: the race to the moon
We are in the 60s, and America is committed to putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade, that famous Kennedy pledge. Nothing speaks innovation and leap of faith like that, right? The president set an aspirational goal, the nation rallied behind it, and big investments were allocated.
But there was a critical problem: scientists didn’t know what the moon's surface looked like. Without this knowledge, the mission could have stalled in endless debate.
Scientists had created three different scenarios but couldn’t decide which one to pick, simply because the unknown factors were too many. This is where aspiration met reality.
Now, replace president with CEO, the race to the moon with the next big thing at your company, and the situation might feel a lot more familiar.
Now we know how the moon story ended, so: how did NASA scientists overcome that ambiguity?
Enter Phyllis Buwalda, a scientist in charge of the project. She took an educated guess, creating a model of the lunar surface that wasn’t necessarily accurate, but good enough to get engineers moving. It gave them a problem they could work on, even if it wasn’t perfect.
The lesson here? Sometimes, the first step isn’t about being right. It’s about creating a problem that can be solved.
A real life example: turning innovation aspirations into action
I’ve been in similar situations, and yes, I’m guilty of setting my share of moonshot goals. But I’ve also learned that those bold aspirations only work if you break them down into hard, but solvable problems.
One concrete example: my team once launched a new product line that was meant to become a major growth engine for the company. It was high-stakes, high-pressure, and initially, it flopped. Conversions were in the single digits, far from the double-digit growth we’d promised. Teams were stuck, just like the NASA engineers, unsure how to move forward.
I remember clearly the PM in charge of that team telling me, “You are asking the impossible of us, it cannot be done.” They couldn’t see how to get there, they couldn’t see how to land on the moon without knowing its surface. What they needed were clear directions and support in their leap of faith.
So, we took three key steps:
Identified the needle movers: We picked two high-impact initiatives and put the whole company behind them.
Reframed success: We made it clear that while conversion numbers were directional, our main focus was proving market fit.
Supported the leap: I stood with my team, helping them navigate tough decisions and anxious stakeholders who wanted to see results yesterday.
Was it bold to take those steps? Absolutely.
Did we know they would work? Hello no.
We took a moonshot and as with NASA, we found a way to keep moving forward, and the results followed.
The lesson? When ambiguity is high, you don’t need perfect plans or aspirational speeches. You need clear direction, a manageable problem to solve, and the courage to act.
Because as you take steps forward, you either win or you learn.
How do you approach uncertainty in your team? I’d love to hear them.
