Strategy · Growing to Scaling
3HAG: your company in three years
In five or six sentences you describe what your company looks like on a date three years from now, specific enough that your team can make their own choices based on it.
Worth reading first: The BHAG: one big goal with a finish line
Does this sound familiar?
- Your BHAG is on the wall, but nobody can say what it means for the next three years.
- Your planner is counting on the same crews as now, while your salesperson is promising a customer you'll deliver in Germany next year.
- A manager asks whether he should start preparing a second site. You're not sure yourself.
- Your multi-year plan is a revenue figure with twenty per cent added each year. It doesn't say what the company looks like by then.
Who it's for, and when
For founders with a big long-term goal whose team doesn't know what it means for the next few years. It matters in Growing and Scaling, when other people make choices based on where the company's heading. In Searching and Proving it's too early: until the market has spoken, a three-year picture rests on assumptions and the first pivot throws it out. Look a quarter or a year ahead instead.
The model
3HAG stands for Three-Year Highly Achievable Goal: a three-year goal you're very likely to hit. It's the stepping stone towards your BHAG. Your BHAG can be bold; your 3HAG is a goal your team believes when they read it. You can't say much about how your company will work in twenty years' time. About three years' time, you can.
Susko writes a 3HAG in three parts: a date, a few numbers and a description of the company. On the canvas that's two boxes. Here you write the picture in words: who you work for, what you deliver, how the team works and what you still do yourself. The numbers that go with it (revenue, profit, headcount) go in the 3-Year Objectives box, which has its own lesson. That way the picture stays readable and the numbers stay measurable.
With a picture like that, other people make their own choices. A manager who reads that there'll be a second site by the end of 2029 knows what to prepare now, without asking you. Susko reviews it every quarter to see whether you're still on course, and moves the date on a year every year. So there's always a picture three years ahead.
Shannon Byrne Susko, 3HAG WAY (2018). Susko built companies herself and coaches founders through her firm Metronomics. Between the BHAG and the coming year she added a three-year goal you can reach with a high degree of certainty: the Three-Year Highly Achievable Goal.
The date
The end of a financial year, three years ahead: 'End of 2029'. Your three-year objectives use the same year.
Customers and market
Who are you working for by then, and where? Which customers, in which region or sector, and what's different from now. This is where you see whether you're getting closer to your BHAG.
What you deliver
Which services or products, and what's new? Ongoing contracts instead of one-off jobs, a second product line, your own support team.
The team and you
Which teams and roles there are, how you work and what you still do yourself. Headcount goes with the numbers; this is about who does the work.
Pitfalls
Vague enough to always be true
'We're a strong player with happy customers.' In three years you won't be able to say whether you made it. Write it so that on the day you can point at it and say whether it's there.
Disconnected from the BHAG
Your 3HAG points in a different direction from your BHAG. Then you work hard for three years on something that doesn't get you to your BHAG. Put them side by side before you finalise it, and change one of the two.
Watch and read
The creator herself, briefly: Susko asks whether you know your company's three-year goal, and sets out the 3HAG as the bridge between the distant BHAG and what you do now.
Watch on YouTubeSusko explains how she and her team concluded that every company needs a 3HAG: the team has to know where it'll be in three years before it can make its own choices.
Watch on YouTubeTo go further
British founder and coach Dominic Monkhouse goes through the whole method with Susko. For anyone who wants more after the lesson.
Watch on YouTubeRead
3HAG WAY
Shannon Byrne Susko · 2018 · ISBN 9781947368798
The book by the creator: how to set a three-year goal that turns your BHAG into something concrete, and how your year follows from it. There's also an edition with ISBN 9781980755081. We haven't found a Dutch translation.
View the bookApply it
- 1
Where do you need to be in three years to be on course for your BHAG?
Read your BHAG out loud and start there. If you don't have a BHAG yet, start by asking how the company will be different in three years' time.
- 2
What does the company look like on that date?
Five or six sentences, using the template alongside. Start with 'End of 2029' and write in the present tense, as if you're walking around the place. Leave the numbers out here: they go in the 3-Year Objectives box.
- 3
What has to change from now?
For each sentence, say what has to change to get there. If you can't say that for a sentence, or too much has to change at once, make the picture smaller. It has to be a goal you're very likely to hit.
- 4
Does your team believe it?
Read it out to your leadership team. Ask whether they believe it and whether they can see themselves in it. Change whatever nobody believes.
Examples
The template
End of [year] ... Customers and market: we work for ... in ... What we deliver: ... What's new compared with now: ... The team: ... (teams, roles, how we work) What I still do myself: ...
A maintenance company for schools
BHAG: the largest maintenance company for schools in the east of the Netherlands. 3HAG: 'By the end of 2029 we maintain the installations of schools across Gelderland and Overijssel, on ongoing contracts instead of one-off call-outs. Each region has its own crew with a dedicated planner. The owner no longer does call-out shifts and handles the conversations with the school boards.'
A software company
The first draft was '3 million in recurring revenue'. That number went to the three-year objectives. What went in this box: 'By the end of 2029 accountancy firms in the Netherlands and Belgium work with our software. We have our own support team, and the founders no longer do the selling themselves.'
An engineering consultancy
The board wrote a 3HAG with three new countries. The team didn't believe a word of it. The version that stayed: 'By the end of 2029 two out of three projects come from existing clients. We work in fixed client teams, each with its own partner as the point of contact.'
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- You write the 3-jaarsdoel (3HAG) section of your strategy, and it stays on your strategy page.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
6 situations. You need 5 of 6 right. You can try again at any time.
1.A founder writes in the 3HAG box: 'End of 2029: 8 million revenue.' What do you say, based on this lesson?
2.Your business partner wants this as the 3HAG: 'By the end of 2029, market leader in the Benelux.' You're growing steadily, but you're a small player now. What do you say?
3.Your first version starts with: 'We aim to ... by 2029.' What do you change?
4.A manager asks whether he should start preparing a second site. How does a good 3HAG help here?
5.Your BHAG is about becoming the largest maintenance company for schools. Your 3HAG mostly describes new-build projects for private homeowners. What's the problem?
6.You have five customers and what you sell still changes every few months. An adviser wants to write a 3HAG with you. What do you do?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Success strategies · You write down three to five choices that set you apart, each with the price you pay for it, and that reinforce each other.
- Three-year objectives · You put the numbers next to your 3HAG, for the same year, and you've checked that they add up.
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