Clock Building, Not Time Telling

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Collins
I am not going to belabor all the links from the above table, but I would like to highlight one particularly powerful link the connection between BHAGs and the three circles of the Hedgehog Concept. In Built to Last, we identified BHAGs as a key way to stimulate progress while preserving the core. A BHAG (pronounced bee-hag, short for "Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is a huge and daunting goal-like a big mountain to climb. It is clear, compelling, and people "get it" right away. A
BHAG serves as a unifying focal point of effort, galvanizing people and creating team spirit as people strive toward a finish line. Like the s NASA moon mission, a BHAG captures the imagination and grabs people in the gut. However, as exciting as BHAGs are, we left a vital question unanswered. What is the between a bad BHAG and a good BHAG? Swimming from Australia to New would be a BHAG for me, but it would also kill me We can now offer an answer to that question, drawing directly from the study of good-to-great companies. A superb example of this comes from Boeing in the s. Until the early Boeing focused on building huge flying machines for the the B Flying Fortress, the B Superfortress, and the B intercontinental jet bomber However, Boeing had virtually no presence in the commercial aircraft market, and the airlines showed no interest in buying aircraft from Boeing. (You make great bombers up therein Seattle. don't you just stick with that" they said in response to Boeing's inquiries) Today, we take for granted that most air travel takes place on ing jets, but in 1952, almost no one outside the military flew on Wisely, through the Boeing had stayed away from the commercial sphere, an arena in which McDonnell Douglas had vastly superior abilities in the smaller, propeller-driven planes that composed the commercial In the early however, Boeing saw an opportunity to leapfrog McDonnell Douglas by marrying its experience with large

Good
to Great
What drives Includes your core values and purpose
, craft to its understanding of jet engines. Led by a Level
5 leader named Bill Allen, Boeing executives debated the wisdom of moving into the mercial sphere. They came to understand that, whereas Boeing could not have been the best commercial plane maker a decade earlier, the cumulative experience in jets and big planes they had gained from military contracts now made such a dream possible. They also came to see that the economics of commercial aircraft would be vastly superior to the military I market and-of no small importance- they were just flat-out turned on by the whole idea of building a commercial jet. So, in 1952, Bill Allen and his team made the decision to spend a quarter of the company's entire net worth to build a prototype jet that could be used for commercial They built the 707 and launched Boeing on a bid to become the leading commercial aviation company in the world. Three decades later, after producing five of the most successful commercial jets in history (the 707,727,737,747, and Boeing stood as the absolute, unquestioned greatest company in the commercial airplane industry, Not until the late s would Boeing's number one position be seriously challenged, and it would take a government consortium in the form of Airbus to do

204 Collins Here is the key point Boeing's BHAG, while huge and daunting, was not any random goal. It was a goal that made sense within the context of the three circles. Boeing's executives understood with calm, equanimity that
(1) the company could become the best in the world at commercial jet manufacturing even though it had no presence in the market,
(2) the shift would significantly improve Boeing's economics by increasing profit per aircraft model, and
(3) the Boeing people were very passionate about the idea. Boeing acted with understanding, not bravado, at this pivotal moment in its history, and that is one of the key reasons why it endured as a great company. The three framework provides one powerful example of how the ideas from the two studies link together, and I'd like to offer it here as a practical tool for creating this link within your own organization. Yet it alone will not make your company great and lasting. To create an enduring great company requires all the key concepts from both studies, tied together and applied consistently overtime. Furthermore, if you ever stop doing anyone of the key ideas, your organization will inevitably slide backward toward mediocrity. Remember, it is much easier to become great than to remain great. Ultimately, the consistent application of both studies, one building upon the other, gives the best chance for creating greatness that lasts.

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