“A Bug’s Life” is a Pixar classic. And almost 30 years later, the leadership lessons stand. It is a story about a colony of ants that live on Ant Island. They are a timid species and afraid of any kind of change. The ants are ruled with an iron fist by a cloud of grasshoppers. They intimidate the ants into giving an ‘offering’ of food every year, and the ants are too scared to fight back. They keep their heads down and avoid conflict.
Which is what keeps the grasshoppers in power.
Flik, the unlikely hero, is an inventive ant who is always messing things up for his colony. He isn’t strong and isn’t respected. But he is the only one who dares to imagine that the ants don’t have to accept the system as it is. He goes on a journey to recruit fighters to defend the colony. And while he ends up recruiting a bunch of clumsy circus bugs who can’t fight, he helped the colony see that the system they thought was fixed … wasn’t.
Thinking big often starts with questioning the systems that feel inevitable. And acting boldly often looks like trying something that might not work, being misunderstood, and pushing forward before you have full buy-in.
It’s why Thinking Big, Acting Boldly is one of our values. We see it as an essential element to creating new systems, whether our biggest societal structures or our organizational processes. If there’s a better way, why not try it out? Why wait until it’s fully figured out before taking the first step? That’s not how this kind of work happens. You just need to start, even if it’ll be messy.
Ask yourself, what’s one idea you’ve been holding back because it feels too big, too different, or not fully figured out? Where have you accepted something as “just the way it is” that might actually be changeable? Where in your day-to-day work is there room to try something more creative, more efficient, and more centered in community?
We’re on our journey to imagine and cultivate processes and structures that uplift creativity, autonomy, and resilience within our organization. Where we encourage our team to think big and act boldly by recognizing a colleague who brings forth a bold or unconventional idea, letting go of a process that’s familiar but no longer effective, or inviting voices into the work that we don’t usually hear.
It’s simple, not easy. It’s worth it, though, to see the grasshoppers topple.
