Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs)

The term 'Big Hairy Audacious Goal' (BHAG) was proposed by James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1994 book entitled Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.

A Big Hairy Audacious Goal is a strategic business statement which is created to focus an organisation on a single medium to long term organisation-wide goal which is audacious, likely to be externally questionable, but not internally regarded as impossible. Reason might say “This is unreasonable,” but the drive for progress says, “We believe that we can do it nonetheless.”

There is a difference between merely having a goal and becoming committed to a huge, daunting challenge – like a big mountain to climb.

Perhaps the most famous BHAG type goal is President Kennedy’s challenge to the American nation: “that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”

A true BHAG is a visionary goal that is strategic and emotionally compelling, serves as unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organisation can know when it has achieved the goal.

A BHAG engages people – it reaches out and grabs them in the gut. It is tangible, energising, highly focused. People ‘get it’ right away; it takes little or no explanation.

It can be an audacious 10 to 30 year goal to progress towards an envisioned future, or it can be very tactical, such as "achieve 10% revenue growth in the next three months."

The essential point of a BHAG is better captured in such questions as:

Does it stimulate forward progress?
Does it create momentum?
Does it get people going?
Does it get people’s juices flowing?
Do they find it stimulating, exciting, adventurous?
Are they willing to throw their creative talents and human energies into it?

And:

Does it fit with our core ideology?
Oganisations may have more than one BHAG. There may be one over-reaching
BHAG and other shorter term BHAGs.
BHAG(s) to Stimulate Progress:
Boeing: Bet the pot on the B-17, 707 and 747.
Blackpool FC: To reach the English Premier League, completing a meteoric rise through all four English football divisions within 9 years (achieved 22nd May 2010).
IBM: Commit to a $5 billion gamble on the 360; meet the emerging need of our customers.
Nokia Siemens Networks: Connecting 5 billion people by 2015.

The first Landing on the Moon

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space. None will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

President Kennedy, May 25, 1961