“What if you don’t make it?” asked a delegate at a recent strategy summit I led. It was a room of over 50 business owners in Athens, Greece, and we were discussing the concept of a BHAG (A Big Hairy Audacious Goal). A BHAG is that north star objective, 10-15 years in the future, that inspires you and your team to reach higher, push harder, think bigger. It’s Microsoft putting a computer on every desk in America, it’s JFK putting a man on the moon, it's, for that matter, Elon Musk needing to put a man on Mars… and keep him there.
Good question, I thought. Will it demotivate the team? Will they lose faith, focus and heart if the goal is too ambitious and they don’t get there by the deadline? Apt discussion, as I have conflicting emotions as I reflect on this past year. We have an aggressive BHAG for Classic Escapes (a $1m in conservation funds raised by 2030) and the team are well on their way to nailing that target. My stated target for PG Tops is vaguer, bringing 100,000 leaders into our community by 2030. But our progress is painstakingly slow, and we missed our medium-term markers this year.
What does that mean? Personally, I hate it. I don’t like missing the target. Nobody does. But then I suppose the question is this – it’s easy to hit the centre if you set the target at 50 paces. At 100 paces, it becomes a lot harder. It requires dedication, patience, skill, practice.
The research by good old Jim Collins suggests a BHAG does not do well in isolation. There are other things needed, like culture, alignment and rigour. It’s all in the Boks playbook too, as I illustrated in Boks to Business. So, it can demotivate… but often, it keeps on inspiring action.
Part of the work I do as a coach, trainer and facilitator requires me to get comfortable in front of a room and deliver a particular message in a certain amount of time. It requires me to moderate the flow, engage the audience, be well prepared and master my content but also to be able to adapt to unexpected questions or hurdles. It’s tricky but rewarding stuff, and it has required me to put in an excess amount of effort and preparation to hone my craft.
And there’s the rub. Taking a leaf out of ubercoach Rassie Erasmus’s playbook, stretch goals are ok. In fact, you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ve not just won one but two World Cups, and you now get to look forward to an unprecedented triple. The question is not what happens if you fail… rather, what happens when you win? The melancholy of success is a much more dangerous pill to swallow. And that’s when you double down, work even harder, innovate even more, and keep on trucking. In theory.
It's the home stretch to the holidays. Get your copy of Boks to Business limited edition here before they sell out, and thanks for playing with us in 2024. In 2025, the theme will be boundaries: Choosing carefully who and where we play, and how each decision fits into our bigger long-term goals. And having the faith that I’d rather take the view of aiming high and missing the shot than do a half-hearted half-five for hitting an easy target.
PG’s Pro Tip:
A reminder. People are like rubber bands. They need to be stretched to be effective.
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