What the Private Space Race Can Teach (Terrestrial) Businesses About Leadership Culture
When Robert was just two, he ambled into the den. His father was watching a film on their then state-of-the-art VHS tape system. Onscreen was a scene featuring four men in grey-blue uniforms walking through a cavernous chamber filled with huge glowing spheres, massive power generators, and wide elevated walkways stretching to infinity.
“Is this Star Trek?” the toddler asked.
Robert’s father was a Trekkie and loved watching the series. Young Robert was his frequent companion. “Close. It’s an old movie called Forbidden Planet.” Robert’s dad, then 35, was surprised by his young son’s acuity, for while the toddler had mis-identified the particular franchise, he’d clearly discerned the visual signatures of 20th century science fiction.
For a mere two-year-old, that was impressive.
As he grew up, Robert continued to impress. He became a walking encyclopedia of all things space. As a teen, he became a voracious reader of literary sci-fi. But Robert’s dreams of faster-than-light travel weren’t just confined to fiction.
Blessed with an analytic mind and imbued with a strong work ethic, he earned top grades in his math and science classes, demonstrating an aptitude for physics and engineering. The president of his high school’s Robotics Club, Robert was thrilled when he earned a scholarship to the prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology. There he earned a B.A. in Aerospace Engineering and then a master’s in Astrodynamics.
Upon graduation, Robert received job offers from both NASA and several private-sector aerospace companies, eventually choosing to join a company producing reusable launch vehicles intended for the construction of permanent industrial manufacturing facilities in low earth orbit.
Like many workers in today’s fledgling spaceflight industry, Robert’s career choices were driven by natural aptitude, education, and passion. Since the days of watching Star Trek and Forbidden Planet at his father’s side, he’d dreamed of sending people into space—if not going himself. Today, he says of his job, “I don’t know why they pay me to do this. I should be paying them.”
Isn’t this the kind of passion you want from your staff? Isn’t this the kind of passion you need from them? Just a few years ago, everyone was talking about The Great Resignation. The COVID-19 pandemic had sparked levels of fear, uncertainty, and doubt most people had never experienced. Companies shut down. Business stalled. People cocooned themselves in their homes.
As so many of us hunkered down before our monitors and laptops, workers reflected on their relationship to work. And as they did, they seemed to realize en masse that certain aspects of the traditional post-World War II employment model just didn’t work for them anymore.
Who needs to waste hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic, spend thousands of dollars a year on parking and business attire, and toil day after for an end-product you cared little to nothing about? As the coronavirus forced us to reflect on our mortality, a cry for a higher quality of life echoed through Western economies at volumes that was deafening.
“No amount of money can compensate for a working environment offering only frustration, dehumanization, abuse, confusion, belittlement, anonymity and/or soul-sucking boredom,” I wrote in an article for LinkedIn back in 2021.
That assessment rings truer today than ever.
The solution to today’s organizational challenges is to create company cultures as vibrant and exciting as the commercial rocket builder Robert now works for. And you don’t need to be sending ships to the moon to do this.
It’s possible to pull this off here—back on earth.
Case in point: In the 1994 book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, authors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras coined the term “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”, or BHAG for short. Simply defined, a BHAG is a compelling long-term goal that’s intriguing enough to inspire employees to imagine, to create, to innovate, and to act.
Unlike a short-term objective like hitting a quarterly profit goal, or enjoying a successful product launch, a BHAG is a wild, often romantic dream promising to make a seismic impact on the market, and perhaps change the world. The trick to having a successful BHAG is to make it simple, make it understandable, and make it achievable.
This is the thrust of my recent contribution to a new book that just published We Have Liftoff (Fast Company Press). The authors—positive futurist Michael Ashley and Tom Vice, CEO of Sierra Space—wished for me to describe how BHAGs in the private space race could inspire both the rank and file to fall in love with their work again. This message doesn’t only apply to space-faring organizations, though. Every company can benefit from inspiring their people to greatness. All it takes is a lofty goal to better attract and retain top talent.
Just think:
Henry Ford had a BHAG: To put a motorcar in every driveway.
Steve Jobs had a BHAG: To put a personal computer on every desktop.
Jeff Bezos had a BHAG: To make retail shopping as easy as pressing a button.
The passion and excitement driving today’s private commercial space companies—SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Rocket Lab, Bigelow Aerospace, and now Sierra Space, attracts the best and brightest—people like Robert—which leads to even more innovation and more success.
The message I had for authors Ashley and Vice in their new book is one I want to share with (terrestrial) organizations now: Seek out your BHAG—your Big Hairy Audacious Goal—and watch the ennui of today’s young workers turn to zeal and dedication. All because you’ve given them a reason why.
Need help creating your BHAG? As a seasoned corporate culture and leadership specialist, I can help you design a “moon shot” specific to your industry and resources. Start by contacting me at laura@conover.com. Let’s reach for the stars together.