How to Set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG)

Leaders sometimes realize that incremental improvement won’t move an organization far enough. That realization is where the idea of a BHAG—short for big hairy audacious goal—enters the conversation. The concept was introduced in the book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, where it was presented as a powerful way to push organizations toward extraordinary long-term achievements.

What Is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal?

A big hairy audacious goal is a bold, long-term objective designed to push an organization far beyond incremental progress and toward transformative achievement. Introduced in Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, a big hairy audacious goal provides a clear focal point that aligns teams, energizes employees and directs strategic decision-making toward a single ambitious outcome that may take decades to accomplish.

Once goals are defined, teams need tools to plan the work and track progress. ProjectManager is an award-winning project management software that helps turn a big hairy audacious goal into an executable project plan by organizing tasks, building project timelines and monitoring progress in real time. Teams can track milestones, manage resources and visualize progress through dashboards and Gantt charts, ensuring their goals stay aligned with schedules, budgets and priorities. Get started for free today.

Who Should Set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal?

Fast-growing organizations, established corporations and mission-driven institutions benefit the most from a big hairy audacious goal. Companies operating in technology, manufacturing, aerospace, healthcare and other innovation-heavy industries often adopt a big hairy audacious goal to unite large teams around a long-term strategic direction that demands persistence, creativity and breakthrough performance.

What Are the Benefits of a Big Hairy Audacious Goal?

When organizations commit to a big hairy audacious goal, they gain more than an ambitious target. A big hairy audacious goal can reshape how leaders plan strategy, how teams collaborate and how employees understand the long-term mission of the organization.

• Creates a clear long-term strategic direction: A big hairy audacious goal gives teams a single, compelling destination that guides strategic planning, investment decisions and organizational priorities.
• Aligns teams around a shared mission: Because a big hairy audacious goal is easy to understand, it helps employees across departments see how their work contributes to the company’s long-term vision.
• Encourages breakthrough thinking: Pursuing a big hairy audacious goal forces organizations to abandon incremental thinking and explore bold ideas, new technologies and unconventional strategies.
• Strengthens organizational identity: Over time, a big hairy audacious goal becomes part of a company’s culture, reinforcing the values and ambitions that define the organization.
• Motivates employees with a compelling challenge: Many teams perform better when they feel they are contributing to something ambitious, and a big hairy audacious goal provides that sense of purpose.
• Supports long-term strategic planning: Leadership teams can use a big hairy audacious goal as a guiding reference when building strategic roadmaps, project portfolios and long-range growth strategies.
• Drives sustained performance improvement: Because a big hairy audacious goal often takes decades to accomplish, it encourages consistent progress and continuous improvement over time.
• Inspires innovation and competitive advantage: Organizations pursuing a big hairy audacious goal often develop new capabilities, products or services that strengthen their position in the market.

How to Set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal

Designing a big hairy audacious goal requires more than writing down an ambitious target. Leaders must translate long-term vision into a challenge that people across the organization understand, believe in and work toward consistently. The following steps reflect how visionary companies described in Built to Last structured a big hairy audacious goal so it inspires action for decades.

1. Set a Bold and Audacious Goal

At its core, a big hairy audacious goal must stretch an organization far beyond normal expectations and push its vision. Collins and Porras describe it as a powerful long-term challenge that demands extraordinary commitment and pushes the organization toward breakthrough performance. A big hairy audacious goal should feel daunting but still believable, forcing teams to think beyond incremental growth and pursue transformative results.

Imagine a renewable energy company that currently powers small regional communities. Leadership might establish a big hairy audacious goal to supply clean electricity to an entire national grid within twenty-five years. That challenge immediately changes how teams approach project planning, technology development, partnerships and infrastructure investments across the company.

2. Make the Goal Clear and Compelling

Clarity is essential for a big hairy audacious goal to work. In Built to Last, the authors explain that visionary companies express their big hairy audacious goal in simple, memorable language so every employee understands it instantly. The goal must communicate a compelling destination that energizes teams and makes the organization’s strategic direction easy to rally around.

Returning to the renewable energy example, leadership would avoid vague statements like “become a major clean energy provider.” Instead, they might frame the big hairy audacious goal as “power the entire country with 100% renewable energy by 2050.” That wording paints a clear picture employees, investors and partners can immediately grasp.

3. Establish a Clear Finish Line

Another defining trait of a big hairy audacious goal is the presence of a recognizable finish line. Collins and Porras emphasize that a big hairy audacious goal should function like a long-term mission with a clear point of completion. Teams must know what success looks like so they can organize projects, milestones and strategic initiatives around reaching that endpoint.

For the renewable energy company, the finish line becomes measurable and concrete: achieving enough renewable generation capacity to supply the entire country’s electricity demand. That milestone gives engineers, project managers and executives a shared reference point when planning large infrastructure projects, building partnerships and tracking long-term progress.

4. Think in Long-Term Horizons

Unlike short-term performance targets, a big hairy audacious goal operates on a time horizon that can span decades. Collins and Porras observed that visionary companies use a big hairy audacious goal to guide progress over 10 to 30 years. The extended timeframe allows organizations to pursue transformational breakthroughs, build capabilities gradually and coordinate major strategic initiatives without being constrained by quarterly performance pressures.

Continuing the renewable energy example, leadership recognizes that powering an entire national grid with renewable energy cannot happen within a few annual planning cycles. Instead, the big hairy audacious goal stretches across multiple decades, allowing teams to plan massive infrastructure projects, invest in research and development and gradually scale renewable capacity until the target becomes achievable.

5. Create a Unifying Focal Point

One reason a big hairy audacious goal works so effectively is that it becomes a central point of focus for the entire organization. Collins and Porras describe a big hairy audacious goal as a powerful rallying objective that aligns decisions, motivates employees and channels collective effort toward a single long-term challenge that everyone understands and supports.

Within the renewable energy company, the big hairy audacious goal of powering the country with renewable electricity becomes a constant reference point in meetings, strategy sessions and project planning discussions. Engineers, operations managers and executives all evaluate new initiatives by asking a simple question: does this move the organization closer to achieving that national energy milestone?

BHAG Goal Template

This example shows how a big hairy audacious goal can be created using clear criteria. Each row explains why the goal qualifies as a BHAG by demonstrating its ambitious scope, defined finish line, long-term horizon and ability to unite teams around a single transformative strategic objective. We’ve also created other goal-setting templates you can use to establish personal, project and organizational goals.

BHAG Goal Examples

Understanding a big hairy audacious goal becomes easier when looking at practical scenarios. The following BHAG goal examples illustrate how organizations translate a bold vision into a clear long-term challenge that aligns teams, guides strategic planning and drives transformational progress across the entire company.

1. BHAG Goal Example #1

A fast-growing electric vehicle manufacturer wants to accelerate the global transition to sustainable transportation. Leadership decides that incremental market expansion is not enough and establishes a big hairy audacious goal designed to redefine how vehicles are produced, sold and powered worldwide.

Build the world’s largest electric vehicle ecosystem and replace gasoline-powered transportation in at least 20 major global markets by 2045.

2. BHAG Goal Example #2

An international healthcare organization aims to address global health disparities. Rather than focusing on individual programs, leadership defines a big hairy audacious goal that challenges the organization to dramatically expand medical access in underserved regions around the world.

Provide reliable access to essential healthcare services for one billion people living in underserved regions by the year 2040.

3. BHAG Goal Example #3

A space technology company believes humanity’s future includes permanent settlements beyond Earth. Instead of focusing solely on satellite launches, leadership establishes a big hairy audacious goal centered on building the infrastructure necessary for sustained human presence on another planet.

Develop the technology and infrastructure required to establish a permanent, self-sustaining human settlement on Mars by 2055.

ProjectManager Is an Award-Winning Project Management Software

ProjectManager offers robust project management features that are ideal for planning, scheduling and tracking the work required to achieve a big hairy audacious goal, such as Gantt charts, task lists, workload management charts, timesheets and real-time dashboards and reports. In addition to that, it’s also equipped with AI project insights, online team collaboration features and unlimited file storage that further help project managers ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Watch the video to learn more!

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• How to Write SMART Goals: SMART Goal Examples
• SMART Goals Template

If you need a tool to help you manage projects from start to finish, then signup for our software now at ProjectManager. Our online software can help project managers plan, track and oversee projects as they unfold. Sign up for a free 30-day trial today!

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