Comfort Zones and BHAG's

I am endeavouring to improve my typing skills by doing an online course. I am trying very hard to use all of my fingers and not to look at the keyboard. This takes me out of my normal two fingered approach with eyes glued to the keyboard but is starting to pay off as my hands begin to use “muscle memory” and get used to what I am asking of them.

It struck me that the same is potentially true when taking on a new and complex work task, especially with any associated time pressures. Or even going into a new social or workplace environment like after event drinks where you don’t know anyone. In other words (damn I have started to look at the keyboard again) being taken out of our natural comfort zones. And yet to learn and develop or meet and socialise with new people I propose we need to come out of or expand what we are familiar with.
Perhaps more of us than we realise find some challenge in breaking through a new frontier.

Some also may suffer from so called imposter syndrome which is “loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments.” This article discusses imposter syndrome and identifies 5 categories

• The Perfectionist.
• The Expert.
• The Natural Genius.
• The Soloist.
• The Superperson.

But I have realised over the years that there is more to new learning than overcoming some innate reluctance or fear. What I think matters is being prepared to contemplate a step into the unknown in the first place. Eleanoor Roosevelt said “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Set stretch targets and see where they take us (damn started using two fingers again!). I came across the term “BHAG” last week – Big Hairy Audacious Goals. This forces a company or an organization to think big and create a plan for long-term success.

It is a term coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.  They identified 3 elements:

• What you are passionate about,
• What drives your financial income,
• What is the thing you do best in the world

Jim Collins says:  A BHAG …… is a powerful way to stimulate progress. A BHAG is clear and compelling, needing little explanation; people get it right away. Think of the NASA moon mission of the 1960s. He cites the example of Boeing whose engineers in the early 1950’s have the idea to build a large jet aircraft for the commercial market. where they had virtually no presence. And says If you’re Boeing’s management, you defy the odds and commit to the audacious goal of establishing yourself as a major player in the commercial aircraft industry. You build the jet. You call it the 707. And you bring the commercial world into the jet age.

See also this article BHAG — Why The Most Successful Companies Set Ambitious, Long-Term Goals & Why Yours Should Too which cites Bill Gates “When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about software. We had dreams about the impact it could have. We talked about a computer on every desk and in every home." And “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years.”

This blog Get Started with Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG) Today – an Extensive Guide includes some good examples of organisations that have set and achieved BHAG’s including Amazon, Nike, Spotify, SpaceX and Starbucks. It also comments on the impact upon individual employees: First, you have to feel the excitement towards the goal, then your employees should feel it. Otherwise, it would just be an interesting idea that has no correspondence amongst your employees.

So corporate BHAG’s should be communicated and flowed down to individuals who at the end of the day have to buy in and implement them. I also suggest that this approach is not only relevant to organisations as a whole, but also to teams and can even operate on an individual basis pushing each of us to come out of our comfort zones, set BHAG’s and learn and develop as a result. See this blog How To Create Your Personal BHAG?  which says BHAG’s are not only for nations and companies but also applicable to individuals. To be successful as individuals, we need to set daring goals that captivate us and reflect our core values. A BHAG functions as your North Star and gives you direction and guidance.

This Forbes article What Is A BHAG? New Ideas On Goal-Setting - And How To Crush Your Goals does provide some balance and discusses the possible downside of having unrealistic goals, but concludes:
That’s where the power is: when your goals ignite possibility, and provide encouragement, you will do the do-able. And maybe, just maybe, doing the do-able is a way to achieve the impossible. Of course, it really just depends on your goals.

In practice I suggest it helps achieve big goals whether personal or corporate by breaking them down into a series of objectives – see the Harvard Business Review article Hey Boss — Enough with the Big, Hairy Goals which says A good boss lays out the path to a big goal, and works with people to break it down into objectives that more clearly imply the necessary actions. It then cites the American organizational theorist Karl Weick who points out that organizations tend to be stymied by big goals that have not been broken into bite-size pieces.

Hence while my hopefully improved typing is not of itself a strategic goal it does take me out of my personal comfort zone and very much contributes to more effective business and personal communication which in turn could be part of my personal BHAG.
​
I am indebted to my cousin for a concluding thought which comes from the American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
​

---