I am a firm believer that clarity is a necessary ingredient for great leadership. I was first convinced of the importance of clarity to leaders by Marcus Buckingham in his article "The Clear Leader". Recently Tom Peters in his post "From BHAG to CCAG" discusses the importance of clarity….
"The book Built to Last made popular the concept of the "BHAG"—the "Big Hairy Audacious Goal."… You know what the problem is with BHAGs? They’re big and hairy…. I’m all for lofty goals and stretching, but I continually see a problem, in practice, with Built to Last’s BHAG. Instead of being excited and motivated by the BHAG, team members are often confused and disillusioned. BHAGs are often half-baked and poorly communicated.
What I often hear about BHAGs from employees in client companies are things like, "We can’t keep up with the workload now. What will happen if we achieve this growth?" or, "I’m not sure what this means to me. What am I supposed to do to help us reach this goal?" or, "I’m not really sure what the goal is. It sounds visionary, but I don’t get it."
I looked back at the article where Jim Collins and Jerry Porras first mentioned the BHAG ["Building Your Company’s Vision," Harvard Business Review, September-October 1996]. They defined that the BHAG must be ‘clear and compelling.’ Too bad these all-important words have been lost in translation.
I suggest we replace the idea of the Big Hairy Audacious Goal with the CCAG—the Clear and Compelling Audacious Goal.
The CCAG is just as lofty and just as much of a stretch as the BHAG. But it is more likely to be achieved, because more people will understand it and be motivated by it.
How clear and compelling are your organization’s goals to your team members? Are these goals ‘big and hairy’ or ‘clear and compelling’?"
I support Tom’s call to move from BHAGs to CCAGs… Clarity is of crucial importance considering the high volumes of information, media and marketing we’re bombarded with every day.
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Clarity, Vision, Communication, BHAG, CCAG, Strategy
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Tom clearly hits the issue right on, clarity is critical. This is one of the fundamentals of leadership being to articulate the mission. In considering the BHAG, I have come to the conclusion that a lot of the “hairy” part would be “shaved” down if leader were better at articulating their vision. Then it could be BIG, maybe seem audacious but atleast everyone would be clear on the objective of the goal.