Hello and welcome back to the Skills 360 podcast. I’m your host, Tim Simmons, and today we’re going to continue our look at strategic planning.
How often do you ask yourself why your company exists? I mean, it exists to make money, of course, but there’s more to it than just that. What is your company’s vision? Is it to be “the most innovative footwear designer in the world?” Or is it “great shoes, fantastic prices?” Or is it “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world?”
These are all examples of vision statements. And a good vision statement is the cornerstone of a good strategic plan. In our last lesson, we looked at how to better understand our company, its position, and its operating environment. With this understanding, we can move on to build a strong strategic plan that will inspire, motivate, and help to focus the company’s precious resources and energy on the things that matter most.
Besides a vision statement, which is emotionally resonant and aspirational, most companies also have a mission statement. The mission typically spells out more clearly who the company serves and what it actually does. So that might be something like “our mission is to produce high-quality athletic shoes with a focus on environmental responsibility and customer satisfaction.”
A solid statement like this helps people understand not only what the company does, but how it does it. We know that the company values the environment and customers. And that is important not just for those customers, and not just for the people who give a hoot about the environment. It’s important to every decision-maker in the organization who has to decide what to focus on.
A clear, compelling, and truly unique vision and mission statement can go a long way to unifying a team or company. But a strategic plan has to articulate the approach to reaching this vision and fulfilling this mission. All that analysis of the company and its context should provide leaders with a sense of priority.
After all, a strategic plan can’t just be a list of thirty things your company could do in the next five years. Real strategic planning means taking that list, making tough decisions, and accepting tough trade-offs. So the question is not what could we do, but what must we do. Which of those thirty things are the best bets, or the most impactful strategies?
Where companies go wrong is focusing on what is familiar, instead of what matters. Or they get complacent and resist change because they’ve enjoyed a ton of success. Or they don’t know how to say no and stretch themselves too thin. Or they don’t know how to build the capacity to meet their bigger goals.
All of these issues are about strategic focus. And gaining strategic focus requires us to ask questions like “which investments will open up new opportunities?” And “what is our primary approach to growth?” And “what new strengths do we need to develop to remain competitive?” And “how will we overcome our greatest challenges or threats?”
These kinds of questions allow us to prioritize. They require us to select the best options from several possibilities. And that’s not always easy. We need careful analysis, insight, and experience. Strategic thinking involves learning lessons from the past without being limited by the past. It means understanding how the market is changing. And it means accepting that you can’t have it all.
With a clear sense of priority and focus, and with confident strategies designed to move toward our vision of the future, we can create an effective strategic plan. It’s a plan that provides the framework for all other planning. Each department should be creating their own plan for how they’ll help achieve the goals in the strategic plan.
And if those goals are measurable, then everyone will know if the company is making progress toward its vision. These measurables are about more than just understanding our own success. It’s about driving that success. As they say, we work toward what we measure. So if the goal is to double the company’s geographic reach, and if you reward people for moving toward that goal, then they’ll figure out how to make it happen.
In this way, a strategic plan can be the single most useful document in the entire organization. If leadership uses this plan to steer decisions and direct resources, then the entire organization will move in the same direction. And that’s critical for success in such a dynamic and volatile competitive environment. Only with smart goals and a strong sense of priorities will we fulfill the mission and get closer to that inspiring vision.
So long. And see you again soon!
