It’s that time of the year. Perhaps not the “most wonderful time of the year”, but the time of the year that businesses and nonprofits alike go through the process of strategic planning and goal alignment. The notion is this: direction gets set at the top, then is cascaded down the organization through a goal alignment and setting process.
Today, I’m not going to quibble with the process. I’m going to attempt to demystify the language, as I observe much head scratching (and some of it’s my own) when asked to participate in the process. What is an objective? How does it differ from a goal? Should I have a mission? A vision? And when someone tells me I should be more strategic, what do they mean?
The Terms of Strategic Planning Steps
I’ll begin by defining the terms in everyday language and then walk you through a simple example.
- Vision – Seeing something in the future that is worthy of spending time and resources on today. Typically something big. Think “man on the moon” or “people judged by the content of the character”
- Mission – Why you exist as an organization. Mission is the value you create or the problem you solve. Hint: it needs to be bigger than “to make money”. Think Nordstrom whose mission is to work relentlessly to give customers the most compelling shopping experience possible.
- Values – How you go about doing the thing that you do. This is the core essence of that which defines you, and is unchanging – even in tough times. In fact, tough times define your values, as they are fixed regardless of the time and factors. You might, at times, slip up and not honor your values, but you are always striving to live them consistently.
- Principles – Foundational propositions that shape beliefs, behaviors, and actions. These define how to think about the work is to be done and how the values get expressed in day to day actions. Google’s principle “The need for data crosses all borders” is a principle that gets expressed through thinking globally.
- Strategy – The plan or approach to achieving your mission – changes according to internal and external realities. This is how you go to market or how you deliver your goods or services. Nordstrom and Wal-Mart are both consumer retailers with very different strategies.
- Goals – The final result in quantifiable terms that is desired. For example: Sales of $XXX in the next quarter.
- Objectives – Detailed steps you plan to take in order to achieve a stated goal. Objectives are nested within goals. For example, to hit that sales goal, you may have an objective to make 50 calls each week.
All very conceptual stuff. Let’s walk through this lexicon using a story about a trip as an example.
Example of Strategic Planning: Vision, Mission, Values, & Principles
Let’s make the story about you, who one day in a burst of inspiration, has a Vision. It is to travel the globe, to go to each and every continent. As you consider this bold idea, you ask yourself, “WHY do I want to do this?” For some it may be for bragging rights or for others to have a high adventure. However, upon reflection you solidify your personal Mission to develop a deep understanding of the geography and cultures outside your home country.
Still in the dreaming mode, you connect this visions and this mission to the Values that guide you day in day out. You value learning, connecting, and relationships and friendships.
From those values, you put in place some Principles that guide your trip. They include:
- Stay local: No big hotels for you. You’ll find ways to stay with host families, giving you to build relationships and learn more authentically.
- Eat local: Eat what and where the locals eat – for a deeper experience and one in which you are more likely to connect with natives and less likely to connect with fellow travelers.
- Explore Local: Get off the beaten tracks and forgo venues that are designed for tourists only. Walk neighborhoods rather than ride in a tour bus.
- Learn then leave:. You will study the history, geography and culture of your destinations in advance so that you time in that locale is spent on experiencing at a deeper level.
Example of Strategic Planning: Strategy, Goals, & Objectives
Your mission, values and principles enable you to quickly eliminate some obvious strategies. For example, you will NOT be signing up for a whirlwind see the world in 2 weeks through the windows of a tour bus. You do come up with a great Strategy – you will go to one different continent a year. In advance you will take online courses to study about the country (or countries) you will visit on that trip. You will work with an organization that matches you with host families across the globe in exchange for hosting in your own locale.
As you can see, Goals become easy to set once you’ve established a strategy. Your goal is to spend two weeks a year and visit a different continent every year for the next seven years, and another goal is complete coursework a month before departure and to establish relationships with seven different host families.
Now it is time to get to work, so you create specific Objectives. Here are some examples:
- Block travel dates for 2017
- Identify first continent to visit and the specific area to explore
- Complete for the online course
- Identify and connect with your host family
- Secure a passport
- Pack your bags
Each step in the process serves a purpose, and the overall purpose of the entire process of strategic planning is to dream and then do. To start by thinking big and then taking that big ideas and breaking it into actionable steps. For, as the saying goes:
Vision without action is a daydream.
Action without vision is a nightmare.
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