The Power of YOUR BHAG!

Jim Collins (one of my favorite authors) introduced me to the concept of a BHAG - Big Hairy Audacious Goal - in his book Built to Last.  He identified it as a powerful way to stimulate progress through its clarity, its power, and its balanced approach to long-term vision coupled with short-term and relentless sense of urgency.  In doing so, Collins was particularly focused in on organizational success.  But can this concept be applied to circumstances other than the large companies that Collins writes about - Boeing, NASA, Sony, General Electric?  My answer is a clear yes (otherwise I would have nothing to write about).

I see immense power for both my coaching and consulting clients in defining their own BHAG's.  Let me give my own view of what a BHAG needs to look like - it should be truly BIG and AUDACIOUS.  So far that's got to be a disappointing expansion on Collins' concept.  However, a common challenge I see with too many of clients - individuals and organizations alike - is small thinking and (perhaps) an unconscious comfort in not straying too far from the familiar or reassuring realities of current state.  They are not willing and/or able to push the boundaries of their vision.  This can be expressed in a variety of ways - "We can't predict the future!", "That will never happen.", "We don't have the resources to do that.", or "I/we don't have the skills, abilities or talent to achieve ____________."  I'm sure you can come up with a variety of other challenges, barriers, and "reasons" you have either heard or made up yourself when trying to be bold.

Now I'm not saying to simply pursue some dream that is a function of seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses.  That can be a recipe for (rapid) failure.  A BHAG MUST BE grounded in some sense of reality and realistic self-assessment.  However, it must also PUSH you to the next level of possibility.  It must cause you to stretch your skills and abilities.  It must challenge your limiting beliefs and realities.  In my estimation it has to be equal parts exciting and terrifying.  It CAN'T be accomplished with your current way of thinking or doing things.  That's the equation for complacency and mediocrity.

Let me give you my personal examples to try to illustrate the power and benefits of BHAG thinking.  I'll start with my business example first.  Just over seven years ago I was involuntarily reintroduced to the job market through a reorganization.  A not uncommon experience for many these days.  That began my journey as a consultant (first) and coach (second and now strongest calling).  At the time, I set a target of $200,000+ in annual gross billings.  The intent and hope was to recapture what I had just lost through termination of employment.  My business plan at the time was predicated on that target, that BHAG.  In reality, I had NO IDEA how to be a successful consultant or coach having devoted the previous 25+ years of my life to an entirely different career path. While I may have had a BHAG in the form of a revenue target it was ungrounded in the reality of my skill set and knowledge at the time.  But having that target - and a need to continue to provide for my family - drove me to learn, network and develop a set of skills necessary to succeed. It drove me out of my comfort zone.

That's not where it stops, however.  One of the potential challenges with a BHAG is plateauing once that big goal is hit.  What next? The challenge, therefore, becomes setting the next BHAG and the next.  It's not to say you can't be happy with your achievements but there a couple of realities at play here from both a personal and business perspective.  First, standing pat is not a winning strategy in today's world.  There are always new competitors working to overtake you.  There are also new and evolving expectations on the part of your target market.  Unless you are close to retirement coasting is not an option.  In order to sustain success you must be continuously investing and reinvesting in what and who you are. Second, I believe we all need that creative edge and spark to keep our work engaging and fulfilling.  Simply engaging in the "routine" tasks loses its appeal after some time.  We can become disengaged from what and why we do things which I believe has a deleterious impact on the quality of work we produce for our clients.  Third, the establishment of the next BHAG stretches your thinking - what got you here won't get you to the next level.  The BHAG enforces self-evaluation and creativity.

For this reason I don't see BHAG as being singular.  Rather, there is and should be an evolutionary flavor to BHAG's - success lays the foundation for the next impossible goal.  This new stretch goal builds upon our learning in the first or previous round of achievement and can provide us with the confidence that the next impossible goal, while audacious, is achievable.  I've moved from $200,000+ revenue goal to multiples thereof and am now pushing myself to think differently about what a multi-million dollar venture might require of me.

BreakPoint...an intentional stopping point or place to pause, an opportunity to

derive new knowledge, establish commitment to a new direction in one's career or life...

allowing one to evaluate a current path, effort and results, inspect one's environment and

reset for future success

Now for the life/non-business example.  Over 10 years ago I set a goal to compete/participate in the Ironman Canada triathlon in Penticton.  Much like my start as a consultant/coach I really had no idea what this would take at the outset of my journey.  Just prior to this effort I could count on any number of limiting beliefs and barriers to my success - 230 pounds of weight to push/pull around over 225 km of course, a true phobia of water, asthmatic, 45 years of age, with multiple years of sedentary lifestyle to my credit.  And the BHAG at this time was not just finishing the Ironman - it was to do so in under 14 hours.  Not a podium finish to be sure but for the weekend warrior that I was a BHAG nonetheless.  The achievements along the way to Penticton in August 2010 were a significant loss of weight (30 pounds), completion of multiple open water swims, decent results in shorter races, and a significant change in health status.  End results in Ironman 2010 - incredibly deflating.  I finished in about 16 hours and engaged in a heavy bout of self-chastisement.  Upon reflection, however, if I hadn't set a BHAG of 14 hours I wonder if I might have made the cut off of 17 hours at all.

As of July 2019 I have set the next Ironman BHAG.  Ironman is returning to Penticton in August 2020 and I will be there.  And the BHAG's have been set - for from current 207 pounds to 165 pounds (month before the race start), marathon finishing time of less than 5 hours, and swim time for 3.8 km of just over an hour.  Outside of the weight goal (last seen in my 20's) I have never achieved any of these goals.  Putting those BHAG's out there, and reflecting on my past experiences, tells me that the tools, techniques, approaches, and intensity from before will be woefully insufficient to achieve my new goal.  I'll have to prepare differently and with a new level of commitment than at any other point in my life.  All the while managing feelings of self-doubt, reflecting on the fact that I will be 10 years older than in 2010, and with far more business and family obligations on my plate.  What might results be?  Can I breach the 14-hour finish time I have set for myself?

I don't know - but without my BHAG I can guarantee that the result will be even less exciting than if I never set my eyes high.  Shoot for the stars and hit the moon!

BreakPoint...an intentional stopping point or place to pause, an opportunity to

derive new knowledge, establish commitment to a new direction in one's career or life...

allowing one to evaluate a current path, effort and results, inspect one's environment and

reset for future success

_________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

What SHOULD You Expect from Your Coach?

In the past I have described factors to be used in selecting your executive coach and how an individual could make the most effective use of their coach.  A gap in this information relates to what YOU SHOULD EXPECT from your coach once selected and engaged.  Coaching is a partnership and like all partnerships is only as effective as the quality and commitment of the participants.  While I believe a coach can't work harder than their client it is just as clear that a coach should deliver on a number of expectations and obligations in order to support client success.

Why this topic at this present time?  Unfortunately, after having been at this work awhile,  I have heard several client experiences and circumstances where an acceptable standard of performance has not been achieved - to my way of thinking.  This reality might not be that different from a variety of other sectors where individuals/firms offer products/services for sale that really don't deliver on their promises.  High price and flashy marketing doesn't equate to quality of offering or results.

Much of the challenge, I believe, comes down to lack of client knowledge and awareness of what "good" or even "great" quality and performance for a coach should look like.  While I have talked about how you should go about selecting an executive coach that doesn't address what you should expect - and perhaps demand - from a coach.  What I offer below is informed by personal experience as a coach and feedback from my clients about what they have appreciated in our work together.

Clarity of Roles and Expectations.  This starts with actual documentation that serves to describe the partnership role between a client and coach.  This certainly doesn't have to be a form vetted by respective lawyers - a trust-based relationship, which coaching is, should not have to go down that path! However, there should be enough clarity between you and your coach to understand what each person is expected to bring to the work, the pattern of work, access between formal sessions and an emphasis on confidential nature of the work.

Confidentiality.  This should really go without saying...but I'll say it.  This is a particularly important consideration when an individual is being sponsored by an organization to utilize coaching, when a coach is involved in group/team coaching, or coaching multiple individuals in an organization.  There is no question that there is great value to me as a coach in having a greater understanding of organizational context through working with multiple clients or engaging with a client's executive sponsor.  However, it also requires the coach to confirm up-front - and subsequently DEMONSTRATE - how confidentiality between sponsor/client/coach or between team members will be maintained.  Just as important, the coach also has to actively guard against any risk of bias or triangulation in their coaching experience with any one individual.

Purposeful Process.  As the coaching client you drive the coaching agenda.  The coach should help you in confirm and clarify this agenda and then help hold you accountable to your goals.  Your coach should be able to balance the need for structure in a coaching engagement (e.g., consistent focus) while at the same time being agile and flexible as client learning and circumstances evolve.  Bottom line for me - no canned approach.  While I do have coaching agreements, intake forms, leadership and team assessments at my disposal, and other tested methodologies and processes, all of that takes a back seat to strongly understanding individual client challenges and opportunities and the organizational culture from which they arrive.  A coach's approach should be tailored to the client - not the other way around.

Challenge.  To be truly effective a coach must challenge your beliefs, assumptions, sacred cows and preconceived notions.  There is nothing I appreciate more than hearing clients say that our work together has made them uncomfortable (in the good way, not the creepy way...), expanded their frame of reference or possibility, and perhaps even radically altered their entire direction.  Paradoxically, if you are finding your coaching sessions to be lovely chats and highly validating you might not actually be getting real value from your coaching partnership.  Your coach needs to bring the right balance of compassion and courage to your work in pursuit of your goals.

Capacity Building.  Akin to Challenge noted above, your coach should be actively working to build your skills to the point of helping to dissolve the coaching partnership at some point in time. The goal is not to create dependency but rather capacity for the individual leader to soar on their own.  In this regard, I often work with my clients in the scheduled last month of our time together to confirm a decision to continue - if value from the client's standpoint is still being delivered - or to strongly transition out of coaching by using skills learned/developed/enhanced during coaching.  This can often mean creating structure on a go-forward basis (e.g., continued pattern of thinking time replacing coaching time) that replicates the successful elements of the coaching partnership.  It's why I share freely any and all of my coaching tools with my clients post-engagement.

Preparation, Continuity, Accessibility, Responsiveness.  I recently had the opportunity to interview a number of my current and former coaching clients for a developing video production.  Key elements of benefit identified by a number of them was their appreciation for how prepared I seemed to be for each coaching engagement, how I seemed to be able to retain the narrative string between formal coaching sessions and throughout the entirety of the coaching engagement, and the level of accessibility and responsiveness afforded to them between formal meetings.  None of this occurs by chance.  I have created processes for myself - and my clients - that strives to prepare us both for upcoming coaching sessions.  By the very nature of my work I am constantly scanning my environment for resources and tools relevant to my work and the success of my clients.  Despite being busy, my clients are my priority and quality and speed of response are foundational for me.  What would you expect from your thinking partner, your sounding board, your coach?

Coaching Presence and Trust.  Like confidentiality this seems to me to be an area that should not have to be emphasized.  How engaged and attentive do you find your coach?  Are they fully focused on you and your work - whether in-person or virtually?  Do they practice active listening?  Do they provide you all the space you need to think and work?  Are they talking more than you!?  Are they providing you a safe space to be vulnerable?  Do their (powerful) questions relate to the issues you are actually grappling with? Coaching - it is all about you!

Holds to Coaching.  Your coach is supposed to coach you.  Not advise and certainly not direct you.  Your coach is not there as mentor or consultant - these roles imply some level of superiority versus partnership.  The coach must continuously demonstrate a belief in your personal ability to tackle your challenges and opportunities.  The coach must understand their own boundaries and the boundaries of their profession - unless otherwise trained, we are not counsellors or therapists.  At times you may expect that your coach, acting in YOUR best interest, would connect you with other professionals or resources even if it meant personal financial loss to the coach.  The coach needs to be able to demonstrate an ability to act in your best interest, not theirs.

Drives Action - and Results.  At the end of day coaching has to be much more than active listening, powerful questioning, being a sounding board, a place of safety/vulnerability - something active and positive has to come out of the partnership.  Demonstrating a compassionate edge, your coach should help you design actions and deliver results.  You or your company are investing time, money and energy into this endeavor - there must be purpose to the endeavor.  Get pushed and get results.

I believe these are some of the qualities and experiences you should be looking for as you experience coaching.  Lofty goals perhaps and I admit to feeling some misgivings as I document these expectations - can I live up to these requirements in all circumstances?  I am constantly striving to do so!  It's About Leadership! And in the case of coaching - It's All About You!
_____________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.