Define the Mission BHAG

MISSION Examples:

1. Google - Organize The World's Information And BHAG [Make It Universally Accessible And Useful]
2. SpaceX - To revolutionize space technology, BHAG [with the goal of enabling people to live on other planets]
3. Microsoft - BHAG [Empower every person and every organization on the planet] to achieve more

Test Your PURPOSE:

Your 100yr purpose for this org, project, role. How it helps people.

Test it: [from Jim Collins book Built to Last]

• Do you find this personally inspiring?
• Is this core purpose passionately held on a gut level
• Does it get to a deeper reason than just making money, how it will help people.
• Can this inspire for over 100 years
• Is this a perpetual guiding star - always to be pursued
• Will this bring out the energies and talents of people
• Does the purpose help you to decide what activities to not pursue
• Is this purpose authentic—something true to what the organization is all about
• Would you feel proud in describing your work in terms of this purpose to friends, family, others?
• Does it describe the resultant experience or outcome, not what you do?

Purpose Examples:

1. Google - Organize The World's Information
2. SpaceX - To revolutionize space technology
3. Microsoft - Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more
4. 3M - To solve unsolved problems innovatively
5. Boeing - To push the leading edge of aviation, taking on huge challenges and doing what others
   cannot do
6. Merck - To preserve and improve human life
7. Nike - To experience the emotion of competition, winning, and crushing competitors
8. Marriott - To make people away from home feel they are among friends and really wanted
9. McKinsey - To help leading corporations and governments be more successful
10. Patagonia - To be a role model and tool for social change

VISION | BHAG – BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL
Built to Last excerpt (coauthored with Jerry I. Porras)

Boeing Corporation is an excellent example of how highly Visionary companies often use bold missions – or what we prefer to call BHAGs (pronounced bee-hag, short for "Big Hairy Audacious Goals")– as a particularly powerful mechanism to stimulate progress. A BHAG is not the only powerful mechanism for stimulating progress, nor do all the visionary companies use it extensively (some, like 3M and HP, prefer to rely primarily on other mechanisms to stimulate progress, as we'll discuss in later chapters). Nonetheless, we found more evidence of this powerful mechanism in the visionary companies and less evidence of it in the comparison companies in fourteen out of eighteen cases. In three cases we found the visionary company and comparison company to be indistinguishable from each other with respect to BHAGs. In one case, we found more evidence for the use of BHAGs in the comparison company.

All companies have goals. But there is a difference between merely having a goal and becoming committed to a huge, daunting challenge– like a big mountain to climb. Think of the moon mission in the 1960s. President Kennedy and his advisors could have gone off into a conference room and drafted something like "Let's beef up our space program," or some other such vacuous statement. The most optimistic scientific assessment of the moon mission's chances for success in 1961 was fifty-fifty and most experts were, in fact, more pessimistic. Yet, nonetheless, Congress agreed (to the tune of an immediate $549 million and billions more in the following five years) with Kennedy's proclamation on May 25, 1961, "that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth." Given the odds, such a bold commitment was, at the time, outrageous. But that's part of what made it such a powerful mechanism for getting the United States, still groggy from the 1950s and the Eisenhower era, moving vigorously forward.

A CLEAR—AND COMPELLING–GOAL
Like the moon mission, a true BHAG is clear and compelling and serves as a unifying focal point of effort– often creating immense 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.

Reflecting on the challenges facing a company like General Electric, CEO Jack Welch stated that the first step– before all other steps– is for the company to "define its destiny in broad but clear terms. You need an overarching message, something big, but simple and understandable." Like what? GE came up with the following: "To become #1 or #2 in every market we serve and revolutionize this company to have the speed and agility of a small enterprise." Employees throughout GE fully understood– and remembered– the BHAG. Now compare the compelling clarity of GE's BHAG with the difficult-to-understand, hard-to-remember "vision statement" articulated by Westinghouse in 1989:

General Electric::
Become #1 or #2 in every market we serve and revolutionize this company to have the speed and agility of a small enterprise.

Westinghouse
Total Quality
Market Leadership
Technology Driven
Global
Focused Growth
Diversified

The point here is not that GE had the "right" goal and Westinghouse had the "wrong" goal. The point is that GE's goal was clear, compelling, and more likely to stimulate progress, like the moon mission. Whether a company has the right BHAG or whether the BHAG gets people going in the right direction are not irrelevant questions, but they miss the essential point. Indeed, the essential point of a BHAG is better captured in such questions as: "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?"

Copyright ©Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, All rights reserved.

The moon mission didn't need a committee to spend endless hours wordsmithing the goal into a verbose, meaningless, impossible-to-remember "mission statement." No, the goal itself– the mountain to climb– was so easy to grasp, so compelling in its own right, that it could be said one hundred different ways, yet easily understood by everyone. When an expedition sets out to climb Mount Everest, it doesn't need a three-page, convoluted "mission statement" to explain what Mount Everest is. Think about your own organization. Do you have verbose statements floating around, yet no stimulating bold goals with the compelling clarity of the moon mission, climbing Mount Everest, or the corporate BHAGs in this chapter? Most corporate statements we've seen do little to provoke forward movement (although some do help to preserve the core). To stimulate progress, however, we encourage you to think beyond the traditional corporate statement and consider the powerful mechanism of a BHAG.

Test Your VISION / BHAG [Big Hairy Audacious Goal]:
The big, audacious, 10yr+ goal. Can you fully visualize success.

Test it: [from Jim Collins book Built to Last]

• Can you fully visualize every aspect of the Goal - see it from every angle
• Does it require 10 to 30 years of effort to complete
• Can the organization MUST believe “we can do it anyway” - even though 50/50 chance
• Does it have a clear finish line
• Does it engage people - grab them in the gut. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused.
• Does it stimulate forward progress
• Does it getting people going? Do they find it stimulating, exciting, adventurous?
• Can you commit that you will "Never give up” on this goal

Google - Organize The World's Information And BHAG [Make It Universally Accessible And Useful]
SpaceX - To revolutionize space technology, BHAG [with the goal of enabling people to live on other planets]
Microsoft - BHAG [Empower every person and every organization on the planet] to achieve more

Test Your VALUES:
Foundational principles that guide all of a company’s actions

Test it: [from Jim Collins book Built to Last]

• If you could only use 5-6 words to describe the culture, would this be one of them
• Is this passionately held on a gut level?
• Would you build a new company around this core value regardless of the industry?
• Would you want your organization to continue to stand for this core value 100 years?
• Do you believe that those that do not hold this core value, don't follow it, should leave
• Does this core value help you in the decision-making processes?
• None of these values are aspiration for future vs currently held core values.

Test Your METRIC:
The metric goal that matters most for this company, team, or role. Include your 1 & 2 year goal for this metric

• This 1 & 2yr metric goal should come from your company or teams financial model.