Go for Something, Make It a BHAG

The only way to ensure that meaningful progress is made is to first determine what, in fact, constitutes meaningful progress to you. Then set a goal.

Want to lose 10 pounds? Set the goal. Establish a date to accomplish it by. Tell the world. Put a chart on the wall for all to see. Then celebrate incremental progress and goal achievement.

It's pretty simple. Goals aren't achieved if they are never set.

Good companies set goals.

Great companies set big, inspirational goals.

You?

Your employees are dying to hear that they are doing more than just passing time, upholding the status quo so the boss can remain the boss and the peons can remain peons.

Yes, your employees want to get involved in a mission that is going somewhere exciting. Just like you, they want to experience the exhilaration of victory.

Victory is not just for the sports realm. At least it doesn't have to be. Great companies also experience "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" (to borrow the famous ABC Sports tagline). Experiences that every person in the organization contributes to and feels a part of.

The first step toward becoming a winning, exciting, energized, victorious organization is to start setting goals. Start with just one goal. Make it clear, like it used to be on the sports field. A vividly clear goal that all can see, like a finish line with a yellow tape draped across it.

Your goal could be to beat a competitor to market with a product, or just a challenge to yourself or your organization. For example, receive your first fully automated website order by June 1. Hit $100,000 in website orders by September 1. Secure two new customers from your Big League Prospect List before year-end. Deliver 30,000 units into the XYZ industry before year-end 2009.

The above examples might be goals of the entire organization, a division, a team, or even an individual who is contributing to a larger, organization-wide goal. But in each case, you must make the goal clear and public, regularly track its progress, provide support and encouragement, post progress on the wall, and recognize and reward success.

Go for a BHAG

James "Jim" Collins, Jerry Porras and an army of graduate students painstakingly studied a set of companies that had performed exceptionally well for long periods of time, companies such as Merck, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney, 3M, American Express, Citicorp, Johnson & Johnson and Nordstrom. For each high-achieving company, they also studied one that was similar in many respects but much less successful. They published their findings in Built to Last. One of the things they found is that the high-achieving companies set BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). They defined a BHAG as:

It engages people. It reaches out and grabs them in the gut. It's tangible, energizing and highly focused. People "get it" right away with little or no explanation.

Here are the original BHAGs of some of the companies that went on to world-class success:

Be #1 or #2 in every market we serve and revolutionize this company to have the speed and agility of a small enterprise. (General Electric, 1981)

Be the General Motors of the tobacco business. (Philip Morris at the time -- 1960s -- was the 6th-largest U. S. tobacco company and General Motors was the world's dominant car company.)

Build a motor car for the great multitude...It will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one -- and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces... everybody will be able to afford one, everyone will have one. The horse will have disappeared from our highways, and the automobile will be taken for granted. (Ford, 1907)

As you can see, these are just simple, ambitious goals that the leader of each of these organizations put in front of employees. At the time, each BHAG was almost laughable. But in each case, the leader made the employees see it was possible if they applied themselves each day and worked together as a team toward the goal.

Selling Your BHAG

Obviously, your employees are going to wonder how in the world they will be able to achieve the BHAG. And you'll have to tell them.

The beautiful thing is, they want to believe it is possible, and all you need to do is give them a reason. Of course, you don't want to give them just any reason. First you have to figure it out for yourself. That is, how will your company achieve this goal? The answer is, "We will achieve this by being ____." So what is it?

For Best Buy, the answer was:

"Our blue-shirts will be the smartest friends you've ever had. We will be exceptionally careful about who we select for these roles. Those we select will be trained on how to teach what customers want to learn. And we will arm them in the store with the best information technology possible so that they can answer any question you may have, even if it concerns a product we don't sell."

This is a major strategic decision for you, the business owner, because this is the core of how your organization will reach the goal. Of course, you won't get there by succeeding on this dimension alone, but it will be a critical one, and this one will play a few other important roles:

1.                Give your employees a very simple and clear reason why you believe, and the reason they will come to believe, that reaching your BHAG is possible.

2.                Provide a measuring stick to judge all decisions and ideas. For example, every decision will be made and all ideas will be judged according to making "our blue-shirts the smartest friends you've ever had."

Marcus Buckingham explains that when you establish your BHAG, your organization might not yet have what it takes to reach that BHAG, but you just have to be clear about how to get there. Once your people understand the path that will take them there, they will stand ready to work with you to make it a reality.

Setting Your BHAG

Want help setting yours? Built to Last provides a list of questions to judge your BHAG by:

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?

Does it fit with your core ideology (principles)?

In reading these qualities of a good BHAG, I recall Marcus Buckingham's conclusion about The One Thing You Need to Know About Great Leading. It is to "rally people to a better future."

In essence, this is what great BHAGs do. Rally people to a better future.

So I urge you to set your BHAG. Make it clear. Vivid. Exciting. And rally your people to a better future.