Big. Hairy. Goals

The BHAG Method: Accelerating Growth in Renewable Energy

Let’s face it: most of us have lived through the frustrating cycle of corporate goal-setting. You know the one. A comprehensive strategy document passes between engineering, commercial, and compliance teams for months. It includes every technical specification, market analysis, and consideration imaginable. Then, it sits in a shared drive, gathering digital dust while your market moves on without you.

This is more than just frustrating.This is a missed opportunity. When your industry is moving rapidly, you can’t afford to let strategy stagnate. In response, here at Make the Break we are great believers in the simple concept of the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) method.

The BHAG is the idea of author Jim Collins and his book Built to Last.

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. A BHAG engages people – it reaches out and grabs them in the gut. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused. People get it right away; it takes little or no explanation.

Jim Collins; source https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/bhag.html 

Here’s our take

Having a BHAG provides the essential (and mercifully brief) point of reference. Without it, you don’t have something to aim at. However, the traditional long-form strategy doc? No-one has time for that. The BHAG is just what’s needed.

Let me show you why.

Clarity cuts through complexity

 A BHAG is a single, bold, ambitious statement that captures your organization’s ultimate destination. In an industry where we often get lost in technical specifications and regulatory requirements, be bold and focus on one single metric.

We’ve seen 63 page strategy documents filled with detailed methodologies and matrices. Impressive? I guess so? Useful? I say no because how on earth does a small team translate such complexity into concrete action?

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

Alignment across diverse teams

For technical founders especially, BHAGs help bridge the gap between engineering expertise and commercial success. For example, a software vendor could shift from a technology-focused strategy to a BHAG of “Make predictive maintenance the industry standard for offshore wind by 2035.” This keeps their technical innovation focused on clear market impact.

The benefit of the BHAG extends beyond the founder. Across the industry, teams often span a range of functions. A well-crafted BHAG can serve to unite the teams. With a collective BHAG to aim at, every department can be clear about its role in the larger mission.

Measurable progress

Traditional strategic plans often become outdated before they are implemented. The renewable energy supply chain moves too fast for that luxury. BHAGs give you a fixed point on the horizon while allowing flexibility in getting there.

A BHAG could be a simple revenue figure or more nuanced. For example, a consulting firm could take on the BHAG “Enabling 10GW of renewable projects through streamlined permitting in the next 10 years.” This clear metric lets them track progress monthly while adapting their tactics as regulations and market conditions evolve.

Making it work: Practical steps

Of course, a single metric is meaningless. This is where we bring in a new player. We like the Vision/Traction Organizer from EOS Worldwide.

The VTO provides for a complete commercial business plan across just two pages. At the top is the BHAG and at the bottom are a series of 90 day actions, ‘rocks’ for the team to take on. These rocks feed up to the 1-year goal, the 3-year plan, and in turn, up to the mighty big hairy at the top.

This is where the BHAG gets into stride. The top-level goal now has a set of layers below it that together form a series of actions and milestones to help us get there.

And right now, all the team has to concentrate on is their rock for the next 90 days, in the knowledge they serving the greater goal. The management task is then to track of progress, unblock issues and pivot the tactics as required to keep on track.

Now… that’s no simple task but it’s much (much!) easier than trying to implement 63 pages of strategy.

It’s only big if it’s bold

Creating the BHAG takes a moment of being bold.

“BHAGs are bold, falling in the gray area where reason and prudence might say ‘This is unreasonable,’ but the drive for progress says, ‘We believe we can do it nonetheless.’ Again, these aren’t just ‘goals’; these are Big Hairy Audacious Goals.”

Jim Collins; source https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/bhag.html

But a BHAG is not just ridiculous posturing. Again, here Collins has put some guardrails around it and suggested the answer should be yes to all of these questions

• Do you find this BHAG exciting?
• Is the BHAG clear, compelling, and easy to grasp?
• Does this BHAG somehow connect to the organization’s core purpose?
• Will this BHAG be exciting to a broad base of people in the organization, not just those with executive responsibility?
• Is it undeniably a big, hairy, audacious goal, not a verbose, hard-to-understand, convoluted, impossible-to-remember mission or vision statement?
• Do you believe the organization could achieve the BHAG if it was fully committed?
• Will achieving the BHAG require a quantum step in the capabilities and characteristics of the organization?
• Are my team members ready to throw their creative energy and commitment into it

Source https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/bhag

There’s a point of balance here. It should be big, it should be scary but it is not impossible. This is not just some coffee fueled adrenaline based frenzy. It should be doable, it just needs a deep breath to get going.

Having a BHAG in place brings the team together

We’ve worked with businesses who have put in their own BHAGs. Here at Make the Break, we have a BHAG. For both our client businesses and our own, we can track back the point at which measurable growth kicked in, at pretty much the same time that the BHAG was set and the team started living it.

We have to be careful; correlation does not always imply causation but from close up and very personal experiences, having the moon shot AND the plan to support it has driven the right behaviour, sparked inspiration and fostered a growth-focused mindset.

For a small business in renewables, stop diluting the ambition with overly complex strategy. Instead, make it big, make it hairy and go get it.