How to Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) That Motivate Your Team?

As a founder, you’re driven by a vision that extends far beyond the next quarter’s earnings report. Yet, you find your team bogged down in the day-to-day, their energy consumed by short-term targets that feel more like a checklist than a calling. You’ve set SMART goals, you’ve communicated objectives, but the spark—the collective, burning desire to achieve something legendary—is missing. This disconnect is a common frustration, leaving leaders to wonder how they can translate their grand vision into a force that truly mobilizes their people.

The conventional wisdom tells us to make goals bigger, more audacious. We’re encouraged to communicate the vision more frequently. While these are not wrong, they are incomplete. They treat the vision as a static object to be admired. They miss the crucial element: a BHAG’s real power isn’t in its size, but in its ability to create a gravitational field of purpose. It should be a force that naturally pulls talent, resources, and creative energy toward a single, distant point on the horizon.

But what if the key wasn’t just about *setting* a visionary goal, but about architecting it to become a self-sustaining source of energy for your organization? What if you could build a vision so compelling it becomes the ultimate source of motivation, independent of your own charismatic leadership? This is the essence of creating a durable, legacy-defining company. It requires moving beyond simply stating a goal and into the mechanics of making that goal the cultural North Star for every person on your team.

This guide will explore the practical steps to forge such a vision. We will dissect the difference between a fleeting mission and a lasting vision, outline how to architect your BHAG in a collaborative workshop, and provide a framework for breaking it down into actionable sprints. Ultimately, you will learn how to build a culture where your 10-year vision isn’t just a poster on the wall, but the reason everyone shows up, ready to build the future.

Why Companies With a 10-Year Vision Outperform Short-Term Thinkers?

In a business landscape obsessed with quarterly returns and rapid pivots, the idea of a 10-to-30-year goal can seem like an anachronism. Yet, the data consistently shows that companies anchored by a long-term vision don’t just survive; they thrive. A powerful, long-range goal—a Big Hairy Audacious Goal or BHAG—acts as a powerful filter for decision-making. It forces an organization to prioritize foundational investments over fleeting opportunities, leading to more sustainable growth and innovation. This long-term focus creates a stability that short-term thinking simply cannot replicate.

Consider the trajectory of a Canadian success story like Shopify. Their unwavering vision to “make commerce better for everyone” has guided their strategy for over a decade. This wasn’t about hitting a specific quarterly sales number; it was about building an entire ecosystem. This long-view strategy is reflected in their performance, with a recent analysis of Shopify’s performance showing projections of incredible growth. This is the result of compounding decisions all aligned with a single, powerful vision. It creates a momentum flywheel where each success builds upon the last, driving exponential, not just linear, progress.

The concept, popularized by Jim Collins, is rooted in a simple but powerful psychological shift. As Collins himself notes, a BHAG has a unique effect on a team’s mindset.

One of the biggest values behind the BHAG is that it gets you out of thinking too small. Ironically, setting a long-term goal that is big and audacious, also creates a sense of urgency.

– Jim Collins, Growth Institute Blog

This sense of urgency isn’t the frantic energy of meeting a monthly quota. It’s the profound, unifying drive to build something that matters, something that will last. A 10-year vision provides the ultimate context, turning everyday tasks into contributions to a grander legacy. This is why visionary companies consistently outperform their myopic competitors; they are not just running a race, they are on a mission.

How to Run a Vision Board Workshop With Your Leadership Team?

A BHAG cannot be dictated from the top down; it must be forged in the fires of collective ambition. The most effective way to begin this process is through a dedicated vision workshop with your leadership team. The goal is not just to brainstorm, but to excavate the shared aspirations and audacious spirit of your organization. This session should be a protected space, free from the operational pressures of the day-to-day, allowing for expansive, “blue-sky” thinking. It’s about asking “What if?” on a grand scale.

The environment you create is critical. Think of a minimalist boardroom, perhaps overlooking an inspiring Canadian cityscape, where the focus is solely on the conversation. The objective is to move from introspection about your company’s unique potential to a shared, strategic vision for its long-term future.

The process of crafting the BHAG itself should be structured yet creative. It’s a blend of art and science, guided by a few key principles. A successful workshop will move through these distinct phases:

1. Introspection and Aspiration: Begin with thought-provoking questions. Where do we want to be in 15 years? What impact do we want to have on our industry or the world? What would we do if we couldn’t fail? This is about dreaming big, before applying constraints.
2. The Audacity Test: Once ideas emerge, they must be tested. According to best practices, you should have a 50% to 70% chance of achieving the goal. If it’s 100% certain, it’s not a BHAG. If it’s only a 10% chance, it’s a fantasy that will demotivate.
3. The Quantum Leap Filter: A true BHAG requires a fundamental shift in capabilities. It should force your organization to grow and innovate dramatically. Does achieving this goal demand that you become a fundamentally different, better company?
4. The Finish Line Metric: The goal must be clear and compelling, with an unambiguous finish line. Ask yourselves: “In 25 years, will we know, without any doubt, if we have achieved it?” Vague goals like “become the best” are not BHAGs. SpaceX’s goal to “Enable human exploration and settlement of Mars” is.

This structured approach ensures that the outcome is not just an inspiring slogan, but a well-defined, audacious, and achievable long-term target that can serve as the organization’s North Star.

Mission Statement vs. Vision Statement: What Is the Difference?

Founders often use the terms “mission” and “vision” interchangeably, but this confusion dilutes the power of both. Distinguishing between them is the first step toward building a true gravitational field of purpose. A mission statement is about the present; it defines what the company does, who it serves, and how it does it. It is the “what” and “how” of your daily operations. Shopify’s mission, “Make commerce better for everyone,” is a perfect example—it’s an ongoing, present-tense commitment.

A vision statement, especially when framed as a BHAG, is fundamentally different. It’s not about what you do today; it’s about what you aspire to become. It is a destination, a finish line set 10, 20, or even 30 years in the future. As Jim Collins explains, a true BHAG “reaches out and grabs them in the gut.” It’s not operational; it’s emotional. It’s the “why” that fuels the “what.” This distinction is critical for long-term motivation.

The following table, based on the principles defined by Jim Collins, clarifies the key differences:

Mission vs Vision Statement Characteristics

Aspect	Mission Statement	Vision Statement (BHAG)
Time Frame	Present focus	10-30 years
Purpose	What we do today	What we want to become
Characteristics	Operational clarity	Clear, compelling, needs little explanation
Example	Shopify: ‘Make commerce better for everyone’	SpaceX: ‘Enable human exploration and settlement of Mars’

A mission provides clarity for today’s work, but a BHAG provides the unifying focal point for tomorrow’s ambition. While the mission guides tactical decisions, the BHAG inspires strategic leaps. You live your mission every day, but you strive toward your BHAG for a generation. Confusing the two means you risk having a great operational plan with no soul, or a big dream with no way to execute it. A visionary company needs both: a clear mission for today and a compelling BHAG for the future.

The Mistake of Setting Goals Without a Resource Plan

A Big Hairy Audacious Goal without a commensurate commitment of resources is not a vision; it’s a hallucination. One of the most common failure points for ambitious goals is the disconnect between the scale of the ambition and the reality of the budget, talent, and tools allocated to it. A BHAG is, by definition, a goal that requires a quantum leap in capabilities. This leap doesn’t happen by magic; it happens through deliberate, and often heavy, investment. The vision must be backed by a credible plan to acquire or develop the resources needed to make it a reality.

This doesn’t always mean needing massive external funding from day one. Resourcefulness can be a powerful engine. Look at the Canadian brand Province of Canada. Their story, where an initial $1,500 investment grew to $100,000 monthly revenue in five years without paid ads, is a testament to how a clear vision can guide resourceful, organic growth. Their BHAG wasn’t just a dream; it was a filter for every decision, ensuring every dollar was spent to build the brand’s long-term identity. This is “Resource Gravity” in action: the clarity of the goal attracts the right kind of growth.

However, for many BHAGs, especially those involving technology or scale, significant investment is non-negotiable. This is where the vision must directly inform the financial strategy of the company.

Whether through scrappy ingenuity or strategic capital allocation, the lesson is the same: your resource plan is the tangible proof of your commitment to the BHAG. Without it, your vision remains a distant star—beautiful to look at, but impossible to reach. A serious resource plan tells your team, your investors, and yourself that you are not just dreaming; you are building.

How to Break Down a 10-Year Goal Into 90-Day Sprints?

A 10-year goal can feel so distant that it becomes paralyzing. The secret to making it actionable is to translate that massive vision into a series of short, focused, and high-intensity bursts of effort. This is the power of the 90-day sprint. By breaking the marathon into a sequence of manageable races, you create a rhythm of progress, learning, and adaptation. This process builds what we call the momentum flywheel: each 90-day cycle adds energy and speed to the overall journey, making the long-term vision feel more attainable with every completed sprint.

The key is to work backward from the BHAG. If you know where you need to be in 10 years, what must be true in 3-5 years? This “base camp” becomes your medium-term strategic plan. From there, what must you accomplish in the next year to be on track for that base camp? And finally, what is the most critical priority for the next 90 days to make this year a success? This cascade of goals connects the daily work of your team directly to the ultimate vision.

This systematic breakdown from vision to action is not just a theory; it’s a proven practice used by some of the world’s most innovative companies.

To start this process, consider your 3-5 year plan as the first major milestone. You can use the “Rule of 72” to calculate your required annual growth rate (72 divided by the years you want it to take to double revenue). From there, define the specific product and service innovations needed to hit that target. Each 90-day sprint then becomes a mini-project focused on a critical piece of that 3-5 year plan, ensuring the entire organization is moving in concert toward the same distant peak.

Why Your Employees Don’t Understand Your Company Vision?

You’ve crafted the perfect BHAG. It’s audacious, it’s inspiring, and it’s on a beautiful poster in the lobby. Yet, when you talk to your employees, you sense a disconnect. They understand their daily tasks, but they don’t see how their work connects to the grand vision. This is a common and dangerous gap. A vision that isn’t understood and embraced by every employee is merely a slogan. The failure often lies not in the vision itself, but in its translation and reinforcement throughout the organization.

Often, the vision remains too abstract or becomes overly dependent on the founder’s charismatic storytelling. The goal should be to build what we call visionary durability—a vision so clear and compelling that it becomes the primary source of loyalty, even more so than loyalty to a specific leader. Jim Collins powerfully articulated this concept in an interview.

One way to get around founder dependence is to make people loyal to the BHAG rather than loyal to the leader. To have a goal that is much bigger than the leader and cannot be achieved during the leader’s tenure. If the BHAG is the beacon and inspiration, then the business is much more durable.

– Jim Collins, Inc. Magazine Interview

When the BHAG is the true North Star, it empowers employees at all levels to make decisions aligned with the long-term direction. They don’t need to ask the founder for every answer; they can ask, “Does this action move us closer to our BHAG?” This level of alignment has a profound impact on engagement. For instance, at a vision-driven company like Shopify, employee engagement data reveals that 75% of employees are motivated by the company’s mission, vision, and values. This isn’t an accident; it’s the result of systematically embedding the vision into the company’s DNA.

If employees don’t understand the vision, it’s because it hasn’t been made a tangible, daily-use tool for their work. It must be more than an idea; it must be the core of your operating system.

Why Your Brand Is Your Most Valuable Intangible Asset?

Your brand is far more than a logo, a color palette, or a catchy tagline. It is the external manifestation of your internal vision. It’s the promise you make to the world, and that promise is an echo of the Big Hairy Audacious Goal you’ve set for your organization. When your BHAG is clear and compelling, it acts as the creative engine for your brand, ensuring every piece of content, every product, and every customer interaction tells a consistent and powerful story. This makes your brand an incredibly valuable intangible asset, creating a moat that competitors can’t easily cross.

A visionary brand connects with customers on an emotional level, building loyalty that transcends price or features. People don’t just buy what you do; they buy why you do it. Your BHAG is your ultimate “why.” As Jim Collins and Jerry Porras noted in their seminal work, a BHAG is designed to energize and inspire action toward a larger vision. When this energy is channeled into your brand, it becomes magnetic.

The Canadian company, Province of Canada, provides a masterful example of this principle in action. They set out to redefine what a “Canadian brand” looks like, moving beyond stereotypes to create something fresh and modern that people genuinely want to wear. Their vision wasn’t just to sell clothes, but to shape a new narrative for Canadian style. As they describe their process, “Our logo is the Canadian flag minus the maple leaf—showing that a Canadian brand doesn’t need to look typically Canadian… Every piece of content reinforces this vision.” This is the key: the BHAG becomes the relentless filter for every single brand expression, creating a cohesive and authentic identity that resonates deeply with its audience.

Ultimately, a strong brand built on a powerful BHAG creates what we’ve called “Resource Gravity.” It not only attracts customers but also top talent who want to be part of your mission. It draws in partners who want to align with your vision. It builds a reserve of goodwill that can sustain the company through difficult times. In this sense, investing in your brand is not a marketing expense; it is a direct investment in the long-term achievement of your most audacious goals.

How to Build a Culture of Radical Transparency Without Chaos?

A Big Hairy Audacious Goal cannot thrive in the dark. For it to become the true gravitational center of your organization, it must be supported by a culture of transparency. This doesn’t mean chaotic, unfiltered information overload. It means creating a clear, consistent flow of communication about the BHAG: where you’re going, how you’re tracking against it, and what challenges you’re facing. Radical transparency, when structured correctly, is what transforms a BHAG from a leadership objective into a collective mission.

The foundation of this culture is continuous communication. The BHAG should not be a document that’s reviewed once a year. It needs to be a living part of the company’s rhythm. This means integrating it into your most important meetings and planning sessions. You should review your BHAG at every annual planning session to ensure it’s still the right mountain to climb. Progress toward it should be a key topic in quarterly planning sessions. And most importantly, it needs to be on the agenda for your weekly team meetings, connecting the team’s immediate priorities to the long-term vision.

This regular cadence of communication creates accountability and maintains momentum. It ensures that the entire team feels a sense of ownership over the goal. As Collins and Porras wrote, the goal should thrill and excite your team so much that it would keep the organization motivated even if the leaders who set it disappeared. This is the ultimate test of visionary durability. It requires a sustained commitment over a very long period, as research on goal achievement shows that BHAGs take 10-25 years to complete and require unwavering team focus.

Building this culture prevents the chaos that many leaders fear from transparency. The structure comes from tying transparency directly to the BHAG. You’re not sharing random data; you’re sharing progress, setbacks, and learnings related to your North Star. This focused transparency builds trust, fosters a problem-solving mindset, and ensures that everyone in the organization is pulling in the same direction, not just for a quarter, but for a decade or more.

Your legacy as a founder won’t be defined by next quarter’s results, but by the horizon you dared to chase and the team you inspired to chase it with you. The work is not easy, but it is the most rewarding work there is. Begin forging your North Star today.