The more difficult the challenge, the more reason to do it

Perhaps its just human nature, or perhaps it's a function of American culture maturing, but I continually shake my head when I hear "we can't do that because it's hard", "that takes a lot of effort", "man, that's a lot of work." Of course it is! Don't we love a good challenge? Don't we love to solve difficult problems for the market?

Forget the personal challenge and ego component of this. From a business perspective, I continually cite a study referenced in the book Platform Leadership that, paraphrasing, states that projects with the highest ROI. Given that piece of very actionable data, it tells me if it's hard, it's worth doing!

The corollary to that is, if it's easy, anyone and everyone can and will do it.

Toyota, in the mid-40s, post-WWII, was given a challenge by its CEO (Toyota himself): beat the productivity of Ford Motor Company. Given the size and strength of Ford, their leadership position in a high-barrier space, and the small size of the Japanese market, such a challenge ranks up there among one of the greatest business challenges of all time.