What's Your BHAG?

It's pronounced BEE-hag, and James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1994 book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, define it as "...an audacious 10-30-year goal to progress towards an envisioned future." They claim a company may have an over-reaching BHAG and other short-term BHAGs. It's nice to know we're not limited. Spelled out, it stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

The USAF used the term "vision statement" to cover their version of the BHAG, though many businesses call it a strategic business statement; however, the distinguishing description used by Collins and Porras is "audacious" in terms of a goal. Often business managers establish short-term, tactical goals ion order to motivate their workers to achieve something the organization would like done. That's cool, it's their choice, but they can't call that a BHAG.

"A true BHAG is clear and 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 organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines."

—Collins and Porras, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

Here's a a few BHAGs:

"Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Google 

"Every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds." Amazon 

"Tell the rest of the story." Narrow Way Press 

What’s my BHAG? I’m so glad you asked. My BHAG is coded within my books and it’s going to change the world. Really, it is.

Thanks for reading.

Here's a short video trailer of the popular novel THE DRAGONEERS, book one of my Antediluvian trilogy.