As you probably know, strategy is a key component to the success of your business. Without a clear strategy, how will you know what your short and long-term goals are? How will you know what to work toward and how to lead your team?
While there are several strategic planning models that you can use to craft your company’s strategic vision, we’re going to take you through some of the basic steps to getting it right.
What is a strategic vision?
A strategic vision is often conflated with a mission statement. And while it’s important to have both in place, there are some unique differences between them.
Your strategic vision is somewhat more tangible than your mission statement. It describes the future state of your business and outlines exactly how you will reach this state.
This is your master plan for the next five to 10 years of your business. It’s time-bound with specific ideal timelines described. Having this statement in place can help you make decisions about the goals you want to achieve and gives your staff direction about where your company is going.
Your mission statement, on the other hand, is more of an overarching concept that doesn’t really pertain to any specific timeline. Your strategic vision will need to be revisited regularly as you journey along your timeline, whereas your mission likely won’t change often.
Next, let’s go over some pointers that you can follow when crafting your organisation’s strategic vision.
1Step Decide on your goals
One of the main reasons why your business needs a strategic vision is to help reach its goals. For this reason, your strategic vision statement needs to be informed by these goals and tie them to specific timelines.
So, the first step towards defining your strategic vision is to define your goals and connect them to a deadline.
Your goals should be clear enough for you and your team to know exactly when you want to accomplish them.
Having precise goals that are clearly defined for everyone to understand means everyone within your business will know what they’re working toward.
2Step Be realistic
As a business owner, it’s always a good idea to dream big. Finding the middle ground between big dreams and realistic goals is key to being a successful entrepreneur.
We’re not saying your strategic vision shouldn’t be ambitious. It should be. But being realistic is about knowing what resources, capabilities, and time you have in order to reach your goals.
The great thing about goals is that, once you reach them, you can always revisit your strategic vision statement and adjust accordingly.
3Step Align with your mission
As mentioned above, your mission and your strategic vision are different. However, the two should align if you want to see them be successful.
Ensure that whatever goals and timelines you set are in line with your mission. Misaligned statements can result in confusion and unnecessary conflicting actions within your business – this can negatively impact your company culture and even your financial performance.
4Step Adjust when necessary
It’s likely that, as you move toward your goals and along the timelines you’ve set out in your strategic vision, things will change.
You may need to pivot your business strategy to accommodate new developments in the market, or you may have discovered bigger, more impactful goals to lead your team toward.
Your strategic vision is a fluid statement that can be adapted and updated whenever things change. However, one thing needs to remain constant: You should always have a strategic vision in place to guide every aspect of your business.
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