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Catalyzing
Super Achievement
By Michael Alan Hamlin
September 13, 1999
Those of you who have read Built
to Last by co-authors James Collins and Jerry Porras are familiar
with the notion of Big Hairy Audacious Goals, or BHAGs. In Built
to Last Messrs. Collins and Porras said that BHAGs are a quality
of enduring organizations that demonstrate the capacity to continually
recreate themselves as economic, market, and industry conditions
change.
In a recent article in the Harvard
Business Review, Mr. Collins elaborates on his earlier work with
Mr. Porras to suggest ways to transform lofty goals and aspirations
into reality. The transformation requires, he says, a catalytic
mechanism. A catalytic mechanism is intended to literally catalyze
people and organizations into action — action that contributes
meaningfully and fundamentally to achieving corporate BHAGs.
Admittedly, the credibility of these
notions suffers under the weight of Mr. Collins’ strained verbosity.
After all, the very notion that an idea or goal must be described
as hairy and audacious to be credible actually undermines the nobility
or worthiness of any idea or goal. Wouldn’t "great or
grand goal" work just as well? Wouldn’t that actually
better inspire, since the focus would be on the idea or goal rather
than the adjectives that describe it?
But working past Mr. Collins’
infatuation with oddball vocabulary it becomes apparent quite quickly
that he is in fact, and as usual, well grounded, and indeed shares
valuable insights into creating organizations that "achieve
greatness when people are allowed to do unexpected things —
to show initiative and creativity, to step outside the scripted
path. That is when delightful, interesting, and amazing results
occur," his research shows.
Mr. Collins has identified five characteristics
of catalytic mechanisms that contribute to achieving BHAGs. The
first is that catalytic mechanisms produce desired results in unpredictable
ways. Unpredictable ways often means undesirable ways or at least
uncomfortable ways, depending on one’s perspective. This means
that catalytic mechanisms are diametrically opposed to the notion
of order and predictability. Catalytic mechanisms tear down bureaucracies,
and are quite unfeeling if someone gets hurt in the process.
To demonstrate how this works, Mr.
Collins provides several examples, but one of the most interesting
is a personal experience that occurred when he was teaching Stanford
MBA students. He was concerned that discussion was dominated by
a regular set of students, some who had good reason to speak and
some that didn’t, and that quieter but bright students were
left sitting on the sidelines. On the rare occasions the quiet ones
did raise their hands, they had to compete with 20 or so other eager
students. "I sensed that I was frequently missing some students’
one best contribution for the entire quarter," he writes.
To bring them out, he presented each
student with a 8.5 X 11-inch red sheet of paper and told them, "This
is your red flag for the quarter. If you raise your hand with your
red flag, the classroom will stop for you. There are no restrictions
on when and how to use your red flag; the decision rests entirely
in your hands. You can use it to voice an observation, share a personal
experience, present an analysis, disagree with the professor, challenge
a CEO guest, respond to a fellow student, ask a question, make a
suggestion, or whatever. There is no penalty whatsoever for any
use of a red flag. Your red flag can be used only once during the
quarter. Your red flag is nontransferable; you cannot give or sell
it to another student."
The mechanism worked like a charm,
Mr. Collins relates. In fact, it worked almost too well: "A
student used her red flag to state, ‘Professor Collins, I think
you are doing a particularly ineffective job of running class today.
You are leading too much with your questions and stifling our independent
thinking. Let us think for ourselves.’"
Mr. Collins was understandably stunned,
but realized that his willingness to endure the indignity of being
rebuked by his student was making him a better professor, and his
class more meaningful. If Mr. Collins had chosen to keep his short-term
dignity in tact, long-term he would have been a much less effective
teacher. Introducing the red flag produced the results he wanted
— more even discussion and a better class — in an unexpected,
and uncomfortable, way.
The second characteristic closely
follows the first. Catalytic mechanisms distribute power for the
benefit of the overall system, which is quite discomforting to those
who have traditionally occupied the centers of power in organizations.
Put simply, an effective catalytic mechanism empowers people to
make organizational bureaucracy effective.
By way of example, Mr. Collins explains
how the U.S. government changed procedural rules to enable front-line
workers and executives to take initiatives without being second
guessed by the bureaucratic machinery. Two things were done. First,
when a front-line executive believes a regulation, for example,
should be waived in a particular case, he files a request that "must
be acted upon within 30 days. After 30 days, if no answer is forthcoming,
the party asking for the waiver can assume approval and implement
the waiver."
Second, "those officials who
have the authority to change regulations can approve waiver requests,
but only the head of an agency can deny a request." Mr. Collins
says this catalytic mechanism gives people the freedom to do the
right thing. Which brings us to characteristic three: a catalytic
mechanism has teeth, or accountability. If goals aren’t achieved,
things happen. Sometimes, bad things.
The fourth characteristic is that
catalytic mechanisms "eject viruses," or people who don’t
belong in the organization. Mr. Collins observes that people are
not the most important asset in an organization; instead, the right
people are. Finally, catalytic mechanisms should produce on-going
effects, or the capacity to continually reinvent the corporation,
rather than lurch from opportunity to opportunity or inspiration
to inspiration.
For those of us who wonder how continually
achieving organizations pull it off, Mr. Collins offers important
insights that I suspect are relevant to any growing company or entrepreneurship.
But in the end, his most important insight is the notion that we
may get what we wish for — our lofty aspirations and attainment
of big, hairy, audacious goals — but there will be a frequently
painful price which we must be willing to pay: the price of success.
Copyright © 1999 The Events
& Awards Managers of Asia and
Hamlin-Iturralde Corporation. All rights reserved.
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