What’s your BHAG?

I often ask leaders during my discussions this question (pronounced BEE-HAG) and I am often met with a confused/quizzical look.  

First of all what is a BHAG?  It stands for a Big Hairy Audacious Goal and was first coined in their book Built to Last over 30 years ago by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras where they explained that companies with a clear BHAG tended to outperform their competitors. 

In the book, their studies demonstrated that those with ambitious, long-term goals were more likely to innovate, adapt, and sustain success over time. While a BHAG alone is not a guarantee of success, I think it helps bring to life the vision, purpose and strategy of the organisation. Unlike small, incremental objectives, a BHAG is designed to be inspiring, ambitious, and even slightly intimidating!

When you look with the benefit of hindsight, the most successful businesses, athletes, and artists have all harnessed the power of BHAGs to fuel their achievements.

In the early days, Jeff Bezos envisioned Amazon as the world’s most customer-centric company and aimed to build an “everything store.” 

Nike’s BHAG was to overtake Adidas as the leading sportswear brand, which they ultimately achieved.

Roger Bannister set his BHAG to break the 4 minute mile in 1954 and Eliud Kipchoge set his at under 2 hours for the marathon distance in 2019.

Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, set a BHAG in the 1990s to make his band as big as U2. Fast-forward to today, and Coldplay is one of the biggest bands in the world, selling out stadiums and winning countless awards.

Finally, Victoria Beckham as a child apparently had a BHAG whereby she wanted to be more famous than Persil Automatic. Now her and husband David are two of the most recognised people in the world!

I believe a BHAG is effective in driving success for three reasons -  

It inspires long-term commitment -  It’s easy to lose motivation and direction with small, short-term goals. A BHAG keeps people focused on the bigger picture – could Roger Bannister have committed to combining his vigorous training alongside medical school studies without his? 

It drives Innovation and Courage -  Big goals force individuals and organisations to think differently, take risks, and push beyond the norm and their comfort zones. Amazon is famous for constantly creating innovation with some working (e.g. Kindle) some not (e.g.Fire Phone). 

It creates a Shared Purpose -  In teams and companies, a BHAG aligns everyone towards a common mission, making collaboration more meaningful. In 1961, JFK set a BHAG -  to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the decade ended with the famous quote from the janitor telling JFK during a visit later that decade his job was to put a man on the moon.

We can all set our BHAG that could be either personal or business related.  It should be bold yet achievable with long term extraordinary effort. 

Ask yourself, what’s the one goal that excites and scares me at the same time? If you can answer that, you’ve found your BHAG!