Built to Last, by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras

Vivid Descriptions
Chapter 11, pages 233–234

Vivid description, the second component of envisioned future, is a vibrant, engaging, and specific description of what it will be like to achieve the BHAG. Think of it as translating the vision from words into pictures, of creating an image that people can carry around in their heads. We call this “painting a picture with your words.” This “picture painting” is essential for making the 10- to 30-year BHAG tangible in people’s minds.

For example, Henry Ford brought to life the BHAG to democratize the automobile with the vivid description: “I will build a motor car for the great multitude. ... It will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one—and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces. ... When I’m through everybody will be able to afford one, and everyone will have one. The horse will have disappeared from our highways, the automobile will be taken for granted ... [and we will] give a large number of men employment at good wages."^{4 s}

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Passion, emotion, and conviction are essential parts of the vivid description. Some managers are uncomfortable with expressing emotion about their dreams, but it's the passion and emotion that will attract and motivate others. Winston Churchill understood this when he described the BHAG facing Great Britain in 1940. He didn't just say "Beat Hitler." He said: "Hitler knows he will have to break us on this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, the whole world including the United States, including all we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' "⁵