14 Entrepreneurs Describe The BHAGs Big Hairy Audacious Goals For Their Business Hearpreneur

As such, it should ideally have at least a 50% chance of success. Writing a mission statement is one of the most important things you can do for your company. It answers what your company does and why you do it, and it also clarifies your company’s personality and core values. So, before you charge ahead with a big, hairy, audacious goal, be sure you and your team members are clear on your mission statement. But Nike is getting closer to reaching it by setting other BHAGs on the way to it. You may have an ultimate BHAG too, but to reach it, you’ll need other bold goals that grow and change as your business does.

Once you’re ready to update your strategic plan three or five years down the road, you can create another strategic plan to get you one step closer to your BHAGs. You don’t need to be an innovator to create a good BHAG. After all, achieving excellence in your category is challenging enough.

Elements Of A Good BHAG®:

In your wildest dreams, what would you like to accomplish? Now describe what the company will look like when it is operating at a level that achieves that success. What is the benefit for your customers, your employees, your shareholders? It should be a precise goal that’s easy to understand, not a meaningless statement that needs explanation. “Land a man on the moon” is a much more direct and exciting goal to shoot for than, “Improve the space program.” It paints a compelling picture of the finish line, inspires people, and ignites team spirit. Researchers Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras found that visionary companies set and achieve Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs).

When you and your team go after a huge, outrageous goal that has a clear finish line, it puts a fire in your belly too, doesn’t it? Each success along the way, and even failure, is part of the ultimate victory. When we achieve the impossible, it’s often because we believe we can do it in the first place.

How to set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) to do the impossible

For example, your BHAG can target your company’s worth to become $1 million. The latter, on the other hand, is about a qualitative measure. This BHAG can be about being a dominant force in the industry you are in. If you still think you would need to explain it and improve your employee performance, you can check this guide to employee and personal performance improvement plans. But believe me, if you are implementing BHAGs, you won’t need it.

• Balancing a budget is a great top level goal for non-profits.
• Am I excited about talking about this particular subject to my audience or do I do it just for the views?
• Finally, if you want to take your goal-setting efforts to the next level, check out this FREE printable worksheet and a step-by-step process that will help you set effective SMART goals.
• And even after 6 years of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the US aspired to be the first nation going to the moon.

My purpose in life is to move peoples’ lives, and that begins with moving my own. This kind of BHAG is precisely what my followers want from me. This is how we inspire, change lives, and change narratives around aging and decrepitude. My Big Hairy Audacious Goal for my business is complete digital transformation, embracing multi-layered cybersecurity and innovative digital marketing solutions. Of course, content marketing still requires professional human writers.

Three Steps to Setting and Reaching Stretch Goals

Knowledge transfer and development will impact all levels of you… Founder and CEO of Gazelles, a global executive education and coaching company with over 150 coaching partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past three decades helping companies scale-up. “When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about software.We had dreams about the impact it could have. We talked about a computer on every desk and in every home.” A BHAG should be built into the organization and should be exciting enough to maintain momentum, transcending any disruptions such as a change in leadership. This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to “Built to Last” by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras.

Say no to corporate mumbo jumbo or long statements that are impossible to remember. You may even need to revisit your mission statement and company values to help keep you focused and inspired. Let’s look at some bhag examples big, hairy, audacious goals examples so you can see what we mean. You’re in business to do something useful and important. And that can only happen if you constantly push for change, improvement and innovation.

#10- Empower everyone to become a content creator

Further, when thinking of a long term goal – it’s typically one set with a date to accomplish within one year or more. She’s published dozens of articles and book reviews spanning a wide range of topics, including health, relationships, psychology, science, and much more. Amanda was a Fulbright Scholar and has taught in schools in the US and South Africa. Amanda received her Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. A BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is a huge, seemingly impossible objective that can inspire outsiders and stakeholders alike.

• They should create focus, a sense of urgency, and a sense of collective purpose.
• Our view is that by getting our products into the hands of consumers, they will see the difference.
• His BHAG (even if he didn’t call it that) was what we now know as Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
• The OKR template states I will [objective] as measured by [key result].

You need passion to achieve your Big Hairy Audacious Goal. The reason the good-to-great companies were able to excel regardless of industry was their sharp insight into the fundamental economics of what aspect of their business would drive profits. They formulated a single “economic denominator,” defined as a ratio such as “profit per X,” and aligned their strategy around that ratio. The challenge was to define the correct X to produce the correct strategy. For example, by the 1960s, Abbott Labs hadn’t invested enough in R&D to compete with major pharma companies like Merck.

This type of goal has many benefits to both the company and those who work within the company. In fact, you need to break down your BHAG into many sub-goals in order to work steadily toward the big picture and measure your progress. One of the biggest differences between BHAGs and traditional goals is the mere scope of the goal. Traditional goals are ones that, with a bit of effort, you and everyone else know you can achieve. The BHAG must require improvement in your company, and you have to be willing to improve.