- Big Hairy Audacious Goal
The phrase Big Hairy Audacious Goal ("BHAG") was proposed by James Collins and
Jerry Porras in their 1996 article entitled "Building Your Company'sVision ". A BHAG (BEE-hag) is a form of vision statement "...an audacious 10-to-30-year goal to progress towards an envisioned future.""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, 1996).Collins and Porras also used this concept in their book "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies".
In this book they have taken 18 visionary companies and studied them, and also studied 18 comparison companies.
BHAG(s) to Stimulate Progress:
*
Google : Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. [ [http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/index.html "Company Overview", "Google.com"] ]
*Google : Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal. [ [http://www.google.com/corporate/green/energy/ "Powering a clean energy revolution", "Google.com"] ]
*Boeing : Bet the pot on the B-17, 707 and 747.
*IBM : Commit to a $5 billion gamble on the 360; meet the emerging need of our customers.
*Ford : "Democratize the automobile."
*Motorola : Invent a way to sell 100,000 TVs at $179.95; Attain six-sigma quality; win the Baldridge Award; launch Iridiums.
*Philip Morris : Slay Goliath and become the front-runner in the tobacco industry, despite the social forces against smoking.
*Sony : Change the worldwide image of Japanese products as poor quality; create a pocketable transistor radio.
*Disney : BuildDisneyland - and build it to our image, not industry standards. To be the best company in the world for all fields of family entertainment.
*Nokia Siemens Networks : Connecting 5 billion people by 2015.
*Symbian : To become the most widely used operating system in the world.Notes
References
*Collins, J. & Porras, J. (1996) "Building Your Company's Vision", Harvard Business Review, Vol. 74, Iss. 5, pp65-77.
*Collins, J. & Porras, J. (1994, 1997, 2002) "Built To Last", pp113.
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