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- Strategic goals are the organizing start to an ongoing communication that will provide both direction and focus to the actions of the entire organization for an extended period into the future
- Strategic goals do not need to be precise but they do need to be directionally correct
- By setting one strategic direction, you define all other directions as non-strategic and that provides organizational focus to all activities
- Setting goals requires a close look at the future needs of the business-critical stakeholders, including customers,competitors,employees,owners and communities
- Setting goals requires an equally close look at existing capabilities to meet the future requirement of your stakeholder
- the gaps between the future needs of the business and the current capabilities defines the goals for change in the next few years
- To make strategic goals useful for ongoing communication, the written goal statement should include five elements:
- A memorable short phrase that describes the needed change
- A short few sentences describing the future needs of the business
- A short few sentences describing existing capability to meet future needs
- Objective measure of the desired performance
- Specific performance targets to be achieved in the immediate future.
Strategic goals only become widely useful when they are translated into action that many people can support
