The Strategic Planning Hierarchy
Key Points
Mission and vision statements are concise, inspiring statements that clearly communicate the direction and values of an organisation. These statements can powerfully explain your intentions, and they can motivate your team or organisation to realise an inspiring vision of the future. When writing them, make sure that you understand your organisation’s USP, or “winning idea.” You’ll also need to clarify your organisation’s values, and distil them into statements that are concise, engaging and uplifting.
Just one final point, it is suggested by some, Steve Jobs included, that we should stop talking about vision and mission and talk about ultimate goals instead.
People like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk often talk about the “ultimate goal” of the organisations they are building. Since the meaning of mission and vision is widely misunderstood, and it’s more natural to talk about goals, they recommend that organisations merge their mission and vision into an ultimate goal. One goal that every employee understands and can remember. This ultimate goal guides your strategy and tactics.
An ultimate goal, if formulated well, can bring a lot of clarity to your organisation. The same goes for strategic goals. It’s, therefore, crucial to make all these goals transparent and easily accessible.
Using the OKR framework (Objectives and Key Results) to manage your goals, and also to start tracking the actual things that will be done (“outputs”) to achieve the Team Goals is an alternative approach to strategy. Find out more by following the link and video below.
Additional material on topic can be found here:
Stop talking about mission, vision, strategy, and tactics
Why the secret to success is setting the right goals
Think of your organisation/ company/ new start business and construct your own vision (the ‘where’) and mission statements (the ‘how”) using the information provided. You can learn more about how to create your vision in the Management and Leadership Module.
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