Is it wrong to “aim out of the ball park?”

Miles Nadal, the founder of MDC Partners, once shared this quote from David Ogilvy:

The quote really resonated with me because it is the type of gusto we don’t see all that often in the world of Consumer Packaged Goods. After all, when your sales are measured in $ Billions, Wall Street is going to reward you for consistency.

But with that said, I was still surprised by some of the responses that I received when I sent this retweet. I heard from one colleague that “if you always swing for the fences, you’re going to lose a lot of games.” And another said that in all but the rare situation, you should “bunt every time.”

So was Ogilvy wrong?

Should we stop aiming out of the ball park? Should we stop competing to make every idea great?

When I was in the middle of writing this post, I remembered an interesting take by Mark Suster at “Both Sides of the Table.” Mark wrote a series of posts on what makes an entrepreneur successful, including one about the need for competitiveness. As he puts it:

One attribute that I believe most VCs look for in entrepreneurs is competitiveness. I know I do. I like to work with people who hate to lose.

I feel that is the same point Ogilvy was trying to get across. From everything I have read, the man was ultra-competitive and his mind, if you weren’t swinging for the fences, you were destined to lose.

You see, it isn’t about the “act” of aiming out of the ball park, but instead the “intent” of aiming out of the ball park. Your intent is to go for it, to “force your heart and nerve and sinew” into winning.

And that is where the baseball aficionados who responded to me on Twitter missed the boat. Yes the act of aiming out of the park in baseball is going to cause you to strike out. And there are plenty of times where a bunt is the right strategic move. I am not going to deny that.

But for me, I want to surround myself with people who have the “intent” of aiming out of the ball park every time. Business isn’t an easy game, so if you want to win, I think you need to have the intent to “aim for the company of immortals.”

Originally published at www.hardknoxlife.com on February 1, 2010.