Mehmed the Conqueror Sets The Most Audacious Goal
It’s May 29, 1453, and Sultan Mehmed II (1432-1481) is having a rough day. And it’s not even dawn yet.
(This is part two of two about the Fall of Constantinople in 1453)
It seems that he’s prepared all his life for this day, but he might not be successful in his quest. He’s attempting something that many others before him have tried and failed, but Mehmed II is determined. Today he plans to conquer the great city of Constantinople.
Only 21 years old, Mehmed II is a young sultan, looking to make a name for himself. A few years back, his father tried to take Constantinople but failed. The city’s walls have repelled every attack for 1,000 years.
A hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, prophesied that a Muslim army would one day conquer the city, and Mehmed II intends to be at the head of that army. Today is the day.
Sultan Mehmed II has spent most every day of the first two years of his reign working toward the goal. He built dozens of warships. He built the Rumeli Fortress as a base of operations on the Bosporus Strait. He called up all his troops from all his vassals.
Mehmed II signed peace treaties with Hungary, Genoa, and Venice to Isolate the Byzantines from their Christian neighbors. The emperor in Constantinople could plead for aid, but little help would come.
Just like many youthful leaders today, Mehmed II leaned into new technologies. The newest innovation in warfare in the 1400s was gunpowder, especially cannons. Cannons could be used to reduce the walls of castles and cities to rubble, so Mehmed commissioned the largest cannon ever built.
Its designer was an engineer from Hungary who initially offered to make the cannon for the Byzantine emperor, but the emperor was broke and couldn’t pay the asking price. Sultan Mehmed II was not broke, so he offered the Hungarian gunsmith four times his asking price and added the cannon to his arsenal.
With his plans readied and forces mustered, Mehmed II began the attack. While the Ottoman forces vastly outnumbered the Byzantines, 100,000 attackers to 7,000 defenders, Constantinople had the greatest fortifications of any city of its time.
The assault faced three sets of defensive walls and a huge moat. Ships were blocked from attacking the harbor by a giant chain stretched across the sea.
Mehmed fired his cannons at the walls. The defenders repaired the damage the best they could, so Mehmed fired his cannons again and again, isolating the weakest spots.
If his boats couldn’t sail into the harbor to attack, no problem. He loaded 70 boats onto carts, had oxen haul them over the mountains, plopped them in the water, then sailed back to rejoin the siege on the other side of the chain.
But with all his preparation and all his advantages of manpower and munitions, the city still held out. Now 55 days into the siege, Mehmed decided to risk it all. He put it all on the line and threw everything at the walls.
The first two waves of soldiers could not defeat the defenses. But on the third charge, just as the first rays of sunlight appeared in the sky, his elite Janissary troops broke through. They opened the gates of the city and the rest of the army charged in.
Chaos ensued in the Queen of Cities, with destruction and violence beyond all reckoning. Tens of thousands of the surviving citizens of Constantinople were enslaved.
Traditionally, armies were allowed three days to loot and pillage a town after winning the siege, but Mehmet II called back his troops after only one day. He wanted to make this city his new capital, not burn it to the ground.
He would rebuild the city and bring in new residents from across his growing empire. Constantinople’s population would double, then double again, continuing its long tradition as the Greatest City in the World. The Ottoman Empire would grow to be the one of the greatest empires ever seen, and Constantinople would be its capital all the way until its end following WW1.
There was no longer a Byzantine Emperor. No longer new, no longer Roman, Constantinople, the New Rome, now was under new management. The young sultan would be known to history as Mehmed the Conqueror. Many before him had tried and failed, but he achieved his goal.
The 1994 book, Built to Last, introduced the concept of the BHAG: Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
This is a different idea from the normal goals you set for the year or quarter. A BHAG (pronounced “bee-hag”) is an ambitious, long-term goal that serves as a vision to stretch an organization beyond any perceived limits. It is the North Star, guiding the company towards an inspirational future, not just incremental growth.
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
- President John F. Kennedy, 1962, Houston, Texas
That’s a BHAG. It might seem impossible at first, but after continuous work on many smaller problems, the bigger challenge starts to seem achievable. Working toward a BHAG can transform an organization, breathing new life into the team and supercharging its energy.
As a leader, setting the north star vision for your team is one of your biggest tasks. Your team is likely to be much more inspired if they come to work every day thinking “I’m helping to cure cancer” rather than “I need to process 36 TPS reports before 5:00” or worse, “we gotta hit our Q3 quota so our boss can buy that new boat.” That ain’t gonna inspire nobody.
If you want to attract, retain, and motivate top talent, then get yourself a BHAG. Get your team bought in on the vision. And then get cracking on that goal. Just because the city’s never been conquered before doesn’t mean that it can’t be conquered. Try a new approach to the problem and seize the day.
