BHAGs and Bigger Games - For the Sake of What?

If you've read my blog before, you know that I am a bit of a change agent (or at least I aspire to be) and an innovation catalyst. I am very focused on accelerating corporate and large scale economic and ecologic sustainability (gulp) through a process called co-creation or collaborative innovation. I firmly believe that it takes a committed cross-organizational effort to address some of the environmental and economic challenges that are now front and center globally. You could call this aspiration a "BHAG", thanks to James Collins and James Porras.

From Wikipedia - The term Big Hairy Audacious Goal ("BHAG") was proposed by James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1996 article entitled Building Your Company's Vision. A BHAG encourages companies to define visionary goals that are more strategic and emotionally compelling. In the article, the authors define a BHAG (pronounced BEE-hag) as a form of vision statement "...an audacious 10-to-30-year goal to progress towards an envisioned future."

A true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines. —Collins and Porras, 1996
Collins and Porras also used this concept in their book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.

Change and innovation requires human energy. It requires that we move beyond our automatic pilot, our comfort zones, and sometimes it requires us to consider entirely new ways of being or seeing! Change and innovation require work of all kinds. The work of attention. The work of planning, questioning, investing, building, and perhaps most importantly - the work of recovering and restarting after inevitable setbacks and failures that happen along the way!

So given that, why bother? Why do any of us take the time to set big hairy audacious goals? For the sake of what I say? It's clearly a lot of work! I can attest to this personally... as you'll see by the timestamp of this post - whenever I finally get it done!

Why bother? Well, do we really want the status quo, really??? Many of us don't want the status quo at all. We have gripes, concerns, worries, aspirations, dreams, ideas... Some of us are very vocal about these "hungers" for something to be different, and others bury the thoughts, perhaps because they feel helpless, or "too tired", or simply unqualified to drive change. Or perhaps because it's not considered socially acceptable to discuss such controversial (dare I say politically loaded) concerns?

One of the best and stickiest tools that I have used in my collaborative innovation efforts is the Bigger Game Model. I've written about the Bigger Game numerous times over the years, and I want you all to know that it is still foundational to how I approach "BHAGS". In fact, it's foundational to how I approach life as a whole. And, if you read my "integral business meshworks - part 1", I can tell you that I see some pretty interesting parallels here as well. Why would you bother to form such an integral business meshwork - whatever that really is? Probably because you are recognizing the need for wholistic systems level change - and you know that it will take a network of like minded yet diverse people (across multiple organizations) to help drive this change.

For the sake of what then? Well, the interesting thing is that we all come to the table with our own unique reasons. In the case of accelerating the move to enterprise sustainability - some may come to the table because of a concern about global warming. Others may be much more concerned about dependency on foreign oil. Others simply want to grow the market for their sustainability technologies or services. And yet, we can find a common "BHAG", a compelling purpose for working together, and a "Bigger Game". We can...

Now, it's not as simple as dreaming up this joint compelling purpose, BHAG or Bigger Game; not at all. Execution is crucial to any significant endeavor, and Bigger Games are particularly vulnerable - certainly during early days. Bigger Game players (a.k.a. leaders) must constantly re-assess their game, leveraging the left brain analytic "just the facts" skills that are so abundant in the business world. And they must also tap back into the right brain, compelling purpose places - and make sure that the work (remember that hard work???) is still compelling, for all the allies that are so crucial to achieving the BHAG (big hairy audacious goal). And over the course of 12 - 18 months, leaders should be prepared to change or "morph" the game -because the world in which the game is to be played will be shifting.

Why bother though? Because it feels good! Working toward something meaningful with other smart committed (and hopefully fun) people is the very best reason - and if you're really lucky, you will also get paid to do it!

Smarter Planet anyone? Green Buildings? Healthy schools? Healthy families? Clean and abundant water? What's your compelling purpose? What's the name of your game?

A child is born, christened "Promise"

A child is born
christened "Promise"
because she is

From labor to "WOW"
a mother rejoices
and gives Promise to the world

A village with loving hearts
afire with passion
will nurture the child

All new - raising Promise
hope and responsibility
shared by many
for she is special
(as all children are)

A Promise for our future
for what's possible
when passion aligns with purpose
Bigger than us all
Growing us all
Connecting us all

She's safe with us
The world watches and waits
for the first smile

Dedication: Charter members of the Green Sigma Coalition

P.S.
Tuesday in San Francisco, the world got just a little better, in my humble opinion. The vibration lifted, in a room of competitors aligned around a compelling purpose - to accelerate the move toward enterprise sustainability... I had the supreme honor of helping birth the Green Sigma Coalition. She now belongs to all of us. Delivering Promise, Delivering on the Promise.
http://www.silobreaker.com/ibm-forms-green-sigma-coalition-to-enable-firms-to-save-planet-16_2262406435138699273

Integral Business Meshworks Part 1 (and where I have been)

I haven't been blogging much lately, but I've been musing... Musing on death and rebirth, emergence from the abyss, intentional evolution, and the nature of change and innovation - collective and individual. (My views are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of IBM).

Clearly, we are in the midst of a breakdown of multiple sorts - economic, ecologic, and more subtly perhaps, a breakdown of belief systems, faith, political norms, and trust in the systems that we have perhaps previously taken for granted as being self-correcting or at least somewhat predictable. Now, nothing feels predictable. The future is more "up for grabs" than perhaps at any other time in human history. It feels (to me) like we are at a critical turning point, or perhaps better said, a choice point. Or, as my CEO Sam Palmissano has stated, it is time to co-create a smarter planet.... To which I say.... well - sort of...

The key word here is co-create. Not collaborate, not innovate, not evolve. Co-create. Forrester writes about their view of innovation co-creation - and the need for tech companies to form "customer-focused Innovation Networks (CFINs) in which they co-create innovation value with their corporate clients." I haven't read this entire article (but I will). I sense though, that this is only part of the co-creation equation - a good start. From what I've read, this is focused on creating technical solutions - externally focused.

So, I've been musing. I first learned of the term and concept of co-creation when becoming a certified professional life coach - in my training with The Coaches Training Institute. Actually, I am a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC). Learning and action is co-created by everyone in the room, everyone in the process. Wayne Dyer (whom I've never read) has a book called The Power of Intention: Learning to Co-create Your World Your Way . I believe the focus of this book (and many other spiritual & personal growth books and programs) is more on the individual internal will and how individuals can more effectively (intentionally) create clarity and "co-create" by aligning personal purpose with "source".

Then we have the works of Senge, Scharmer, Wilbur and other leading and bleeding edge thinkers & practitioners... that look at co-creation in a more wholistic or "integral" manner. That's where I'll go in my next post....