The 'Add A Zero' Heuristic

"If you want to improve the speed of a company, then make faster decisions." — Brian Chesky

What It Is

A mental model for goal setting where leaders arbitrarily increase the target by 10x (add a zero) to force the team to abandon current processes and use first-principles thinking.

When To Use

• Annual planning or kick-offs for major initiatives
• Team is defaulting to safe, low-impact optimization work
• Current processes mathematically cannot achieve the required scale
• Need to break incrementalism and inspire breakthrough thinking

Core Principles

1. Force a Process Break

If the goal is 10x higher, the current way of working is mathematically impossible. The team must invent a new way.