A famous quote I like to use when talking about Strategic Planning is this: “All you need to know about Strategic Planning is where you want to be 20 years from now, and what are you going to do about it in the next 90 days.”
The 20 year goal or vision, is your BHAG, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, a term coined by Jim Collins in his first book Built to Last and referred to regularly in his subsequent books.
One of Jim’s pieces of advice on the BHAG, other than the obvious, is that it needs to be grounded in business fundamentals. Real world data. And even though it’s big hairy and audacious, it needs to be achievable, even if the the achievement is a stretch.
I’ve been thinking that our business environment has changed so much in the past year, that what we thought were fundamentals are no longer so. We are experiencing real fundamental changes in the economy and our markets. Across the board.
So if we set BHAGs for our businesses based on old, outdated conditions, maybe we need to spend some time redefining our BHAGs based on the new fundamentals of the current business environment.
If not changing the BHAG, at least verifying that it’s still viable and meaningful and achievable.
At this month’s In-Synk Strategic Huddle, we’ll be focusing on the “Strategy” part of the Gazelles Growth Model. Might be a good opportunity to redefine your Vision or BHAG.
Join us.
http://junein-synkstrategyhuddle.eventbrite.com
The fundamental change that initially occurs to me is "protectionism". Being more transparent is a fundamental change organizations are trying to deal with. From within the organization to externally with customer service, transparency goes against many fundamental grains deep rooted even in society (much less the enterprise).
Great insight. The answers to the changes is definitely not to withdraw and hide the facts. Need to open up. Protectionism is only a short term solution. Knee jerk reaction.
Set a new Vision or BHAG, and work towards it.