How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins Part 1 of 6: Introduction
August 28, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
I love Jim Collins. His first two books Built to Last and Good to Great have been inspirational sources for much of my business and which I have referenced in my talks on leadership. Accordingly, I quickly bought his newest book, How the Might Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In, a worthy sequel to his more positively bent monographs. I always get something out of reading Collins, and I look forward very much to a 4-hour lecture that I am attending in Dallas that Collins is giving for my Entrepreneur’s Organization this coming October.
This blog is not going to talk about his book but about the man. I read a fascinating article on Mr. Collins on the May 24, 2009 edition of the New York Times about how Collins conducts his business practices. He spends 53% of the time being creative, 28% of the time teaching, and the remaining time of 19% he allocates toward other pursuits to get the job done. In fact, he is relentless with his time mangement, keeping a stopwatch to make sure that he lives up to his word of how he budgets his time. He commands a whopping $65,000 per lecture but consciously limits his speaking engagements to only 18 per year (hence I am quite fortunate to hear him talk this year).
What I got out of this article was that Collins at 51 is on a relentless pursuit of self improvement and nurturing his business through creativity, pushing away lucrative speaking engagements that compromise his vision. Collins’ guru is the famed Peter F. Drucker. To quote the New York Times: “Do you want to build ideas first and foremost?” he recalls Mr. Drucker asking him, trying to capture his mentor’s Austrian accent. “Zen you must not build a big organization, because zen you will end up managing zat organization.” Therefore, in Jim Collins’s world, small is beautiful.
I also like Collins’ commitment to creativity, to push and to contribute to society. I really like the relentless pursuit of being better, thinking better, and ultimately contributing to society — a lesson that we all can learn. I hope you all can learn as much as I have from Mr. Collins in the coming blogs.
Life in Perspective Part 3 of 4: Your Future
November 26, 2008 by dr. lam · 1 Comment
We talked yesterday about life being a journey and how to savor our present time. However, if life is a journey, where are we going? Some people who relish the present so much in a hedonistic fashion do not prepare for the future or have no idea where they are going. I think part of being on a journey is knowing what should be our life’s destination. Are we moving along a path toward a goal or just going in circles? Sometimes we try too hard to know our future, which is unknowable but I like the saying, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” If you are lackadaisically living entirely within the confines of the moment, you may not have a future that can sustain your present lifestyle.
Also, meaning in our life is defined by having a sense of purpose. We will talk about this more tomorrow. However, in short, we actually derive pleasure in life to know that what we are doing on a daily basis is meritorious and beneficial for others. I think even the most hedonistic, self-centered person can feel a sense of joy in having a defined purpose in life. It can also help us limit our present fears and vicissitudes in our emotions when we know firmly where we are going in life. What are your 5-year plans? What are your 10-year plans? What are your 20-year plans? Do you have them? I do.
Once you define your goals you should then divide them into your BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) — to steal a term from Jim Collins — and your smaller goals. These goals should fit within your vision of what you want to be. (See last week’s blogs to understand what I mean by vision.) Your BHAG is your dream, perhaps unattainable, perhaps unrealistic but who cares. My BHAG is to be a household name across the U.S. and the world in facial plastic surgery. My steps to get there are to continue video production to disseminate my knowledge as an immediate goal; continue to improve my website as a twin goal; write a major laypress book published by a major publishing house to define a new paradigm and aesthetic; and become a speaker in the lay circles (not just academia) in major venues in the coming 5 years. Those goals are my 5-year goals. MY BHAG is my 10-year goal. My 20-year goal is to attain another BHAG regarding expanding my concept of wellness and establishing a model for other surgeons, health-care professionals, and individuals related to the industry to follow. I think wellness is the future of health care in America and for most of the developed world out there. My passion is to see that what I have defined for the Willow Bend Wellness Center can be a replicable model, where we lead the industry by business acumen and vision.
If you laugh at my BHAGs, that is fine with me. I don’t. Discover your BHAGs but don’t live entirely for them. You must define small steps for you to attain your BHAGs, things that are attainable in the short term, measurable steps that are discernible through fixed metrics and time points. Be flexible to open yourself to new BHAGs or replace ones that simply don’t mean much to you anymore but don’t throw a BHAG away simply because you don’t think you will attain it.
Many times a BHAG is defined by money. I would say if you are a company, that may be okay. But I would argue that monetary goals should be short term metrics to attain a BHAG but not a BHAG. A BHAG should be a larger, all-encompassing vision that you as an individual or your company can follow, be inspired by, be motivated by, and live for. I always help those around me who are struggling with their BHAGs to define them by anything but money. I like to say, “Follow your passion and money will come. Follow money, and money will go.”
The core of any individual or business should be a burning passion. I recently had a fireplace with the glass shards (instead of the wood) made by an expert in these kinds of fireplaces. I asked the woman, Nadine, who designed the glass why do you do what you do. Her eyes lit up brighter than the fireplace and she said, “I’m 46 now and the vision came to me at 17 in a dream. I somehow knew that is what I needed to do.” She did not have to tell me that because when the fireplace was lit, I could see this broad beaming smile like a child captivated by her creation. It is the same smile that I have when I see my work.