BHAG
Yes, everything is OK with your eyesight and no, I didn’t have a stroke while writing the title of this blog post.
Jim Collins and Jerry Porras coined the term Big Hairy Audacious Goal (or BHAG, pronounced bee hag) in their book Built to last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.
These types of goals are easy to understand but the way to achieve them isn’t and, although, they are primarily stated by companies, even small organizations (like sports clubs) and individuals can have BHAGs as well.
“Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”
These goals are meant to pull everyone together and energize them towards a greater goal. How you will get there is unclear, but you will have your north star always in sight and at least have a feeling about moving in the right direction.
Decisions made now need to be put to the test by asking: “Is this getting me closer to our goal”. If the answer is yes, keep pushing forward. Even if sometimes you don’t think it will give you immediate returns, you need to be in it for the long game to succeed.
Types of BHAGs
Roughly speaking there are 4 different types of BHAGs
Common enemy: You want to become king of the hill and kick out your competition
Role model: You want to become the “Uber of X” or “Tinder for Y” or “Just like Facebook but with Z”
Internal transformation: Companies venture into new industries and try to be competitive as in the main industry (Amazon in Cloud infrastructure for example)
Targeting: You set a goal that is measurable in some form like “Having 1000 members” or “Opening branches in 5 different cities”
Targeting
Although all of those types can be applied to sports clubs, Targeting is the prime candidate for being the goal for them.
Your club currently has 100 members and you want to get to a 1000. When? Not really important. How? Let’s figure it out!
Everything you do in your club needs to be geared towards achieving your goal. Buy better equipment. Educate your coaches. Organize free practice sessions for new members. Have demo days at different schools in your area.
The key here is to try something out other then just holding your training sessions. It might be difficult at first but once you try out a thing and you see it’s working you get fired up for more. You will hit setbacks along the way but every increase in your membership count will make up for all the bumps you hit along the way.
And as you get close to your goal you will keep increasing the pace just like you keep pushing harder during a race once you see the finish line. You find some energy inside of you you didn’t even know was there, your legs feel light again, you feel the air around you flowing as you get closer and closer to the finish.
And as you reach your BHAG for the first time you know that this is just the start.
Until next time,
Stay healthy
