On Big Hair Audacious Goals
In his seminal work on how good companies find great success, From Good to Great, Jim Collins writes about the value in setting grand, long term objectives - Big Hairy Audacious Goals. A former boss of mine, who I much admired, also believed strongly in the value of setting such goals, even if it was recognized that they were unlikely to ever be achieved.
I've been thinking about setting BHAGs in my personal life lately. This thinking was inspired by a confluence of events, including the re-airing of Ken Burn's War, about the valiant actions of WWII soldiers, and the landing of an SUV-sized rover on Mars by NASA (what could be a better, more crowning career achievement than landing a rover on Mars?!). I went back and looked at my resume for themes or accomplishments that suggested past or future BHAGs, but came away fairly empty-handed. Much of my career to date, it seems, has been about pursuing more money and responsibility, regardless of whether those promotions were merited based on my body of work.
This is not to suggest that I have not added value to the organizations where I worked. I have. But, many of the highlights on my resume seem steeped in serendipity and the work of my teammates, as much as based on my own hard work, persistence, and follow-through. For example, when I say I raised $15 million for nonprofits, I have; however, much of that figure represents proposals that I wrote and submitted after someone else had developed a relationship with a funder and received an OK to go ahead and submit the solicitation. Does this mean that my role was inconsequential? Hardly. Still, I don't value these types of successes as much as I value those in which I was the driving force behind each step of the work. In this way, it seems misleading of me to say I secured $15 million in grants for nonprofits, when some fraction of each success was built on the work of my teammates.
I use to think that a good long term career objective was to become the President and CEO of a nonprofit. Lately, though, I am not convinced that this is a worthy objective. Maybe that's because I see how one can have nice stats (e.g., $15 million raised), without making a lasting and meaningful impact on society or human history. Landing a rover on Mars or defeating the Nazis? That's good stuff. Toiling in an office for your entire life to bring a paltry sum of resources to town? Eh. I need a BAHG - something that I can relentlessly pursue and that I know, at the end of my career, I will be able to look back on as a worthwhile endeavor, whether I achieved it or not.
In the interim, I feel sort of stuck professionally. What good is working hard in a career that you have only for the pay and benefits, especially when, in the short term anyways, working less-hard doesn't affect your pay and benefits? One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, coined the phrase "quit-and-stay" to describe women who plan to take time off of work to raise their children, but stay on the job, working lightly (if at all), until they either get fired or ignored altogether; this sort of feels like an appealing option for someone without a BHAG - just come in and leave work whenever you want, doing very little when you are on the clock, with an assumption that momentum alone will keep you receiving a great big paycheck. It's immoral and unethical, yes, but its also the cost of bad supervision and management by any company that lets it persist.
I had lunch with a former supervisor last week and she said she had enjoyed every day at her job of the last 18 years - so much so that she didn't consider it work. This sentiment was echoed by Steve Jobs in his now famous Stanford commencement speech; it was also copied and pasted widely on the internet after that speech. Is this just misguided and false community knowledge? Is it a self-replicating belief (using the logic, "if I am not happy at work, then I must not have found my passion")? I told my former supervisor that I had never found any activity, of any sort, that I awoke for with infinite expectation of each morning. She said to keep looking.
I guess that's all there is to do, really.
d
I've been thinking about setting BHAGs in my personal life lately. This thinking was inspired by a confluence of events, including the re-airing of Ken Burn's War, about the valiant actions of WWII soldiers, and the landing of an SUV-sized rover on Mars by NASA (what could be a better, more crowning career achievement than landing a rover on Mars?!). I went back and looked at my resume for themes or accomplishments that suggested past or future BHAGs, but came away fairly empty-handed. Much of my career to date, it seems, has been about pursuing more money and responsibility, regardless of whether those promotions were merited based on my body of work.
This is not to suggest that I have not added value to the organizations where I worked. I have. But, many of the highlights on my resume seem steeped in serendipity and the work of my teammates, as much as based on my own hard work, persistence, and follow-through. For example, when I say I raised $15 million for nonprofits, I have; however, much of that figure represents proposals that I wrote and submitted after someone else had developed a relationship with a funder and received an OK to go ahead and submit the solicitation. Does this mean that my role was inconsequential? Hardly. Still, I don't value these types of successes as much as I value those in which I was the driving force behind each step of the work. In this way, it seems misleading of me to say I secured $15 million in grants for nonprofits, when some fraction of each success was built on the work of my teammates.
I use to think that a good long term career objective was to become the President and CEO of a nonprofit. Lately, though, I am not convinced that this is a worthy objective. Maybe that's because I see how one can have nice stats (e.g., $15 million raised), without making a lasting and meaningful impact on society or human history. Landing a rover on Mars or defeating the Nazis? That's good stuff. Toiling in an office for your entire life to bring a paltry sum of resources to town? Eh. I need a BAHG - something that I can relentlessly pursue and that I know, at the end of my career, I will be able to look back on as a worthwhile endeavor, whether I achieved it or not.
In the interim, I feel sort of stuck professionally. What good is working hard in a career that you have only for the pay and benefits, especially when, in the short term anyways, working less-hard doesn't affect your pay and benefits? One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, coined the phrase "quit-and-stay" to describe women who plan to take time off of work to raise their children, but stay on the job, working lightly (if at all), until they either get fired or ignored altogether; this sort of feels like an appealing option for someone without a BHAG - just come in and leave work whenever you want, doing very little when you are on the clock, with an assumption that momentum alone will keep you receiving a great big paycheck. It's immoral and unethical, yes, but its also the cost of bad supervision and management by any company that lets it persist.
I had lunch with a former supervisor last week and she said she had enjoyed every day at her job of the last 18 years - so much so that she didn't consider it work. This sentiment was echoed by Steve Jobs in his now famous Stanford commencement speech; it was also copied and pasted widely on the internet after that speech. Is this just misguided and false community knowledge? Is it a self-replicating belief (using the logic, "if I am not happy at work, then I must not have found my passion")? I told my former supervisor that I had never found any activity, of any sort, that I awoke for with infinite expectation of each morning. She said to keep looking.
I guess that's all there is to do, really.
d