Ok, it’s been about enough time for you to have figured out that you’ve completely failed at your New Year’s resolutions. Good. Now that you’ve gotten that useless little yearly ritual out of your system, let’s focus on something that will actually make a positive difference.
I have a proposition for you: trade your New Year’s resolutions in for BHAG’s. What is a BHAG? It’s a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. This is a term that Jim Collins and Jerry Porras coined and described in their great book “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies”.
BHAG’s are not just ordinary goals. They are big and bold—audacious! They should sound a bit unreasonable. If your goal causes you to gasp, saying to yourself, “I’m not quite sure how I’m going to pull this off—it sounds a little ‘out there’”, you’re on the right track.
Specifically, a BHAG is clear, compelling, and big. And because of its “bigness”, it should inspire you to action.
Your BHAG should be in alignment with your core values and your mission, rather than some daring goal that sounds audacious but that you have no personal connection to and is not in any way relevant.
President Kennedy’s goal of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth” was certainly a BHAG, especially at a time when the space program wasn’t taking any bold steps forward.
Collins and Porras observe, “President Kennedy and his advisors could have gone into a conference room and drafted something like, ‘let’s beef up our space program,’ or some other such vacuous statement . . .”
No, President Kennedy sets the vision for putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Could he have said anything bigger or more audacious than this?
Given the context and particular time in history, I don’t think so. And by the way, that was an example of a brilliant piece of leadership. So all you leaders out there, extract the relevant lesson.
By the way, there wasn’t a ton of optimism in the scientific community for the success of the moon mission. And that’s always the case with a BHAG—it not only inspires enthusiasm to take action and move forward, it also inspires the naysayers to surface and say, “Hah! That could never happen!”
In fact, perhaps that’s another proof that you’re actually expressing a BHAG instead of just an ordinary goal: you’ll hear the hear naysayers commence with their negative “chirping”.
Time for application: What’s your BHAG FOR 2012? No, we’re not talking about a lame New Year’s resolution. This is a serious vision that will infuse you with enthusiasm, pulling you into the future, and sending you directly into your target’s bull’s eye.
It’s not at all too late to get some serious BHAG’s on the table for 2012. This year will come and go like all the others—make this year different, so that at the end of next December, you can look back over the previous 12 months and see a life that was boldly, adventurously lived.
Be proactive, be courageous, take charge of your future, and stoke up some goals that are big and audacious!
--Sean Cox, Chicago