Goals are not Strategies

From Weekly I/O#82


Setting goals is not a strategy. Focus on vision, mission, and values without identifying the key challenge and designing a coherent plan to overcome it is not enough.

Book: Good Strategy Bad Strategy

Many companies assume that stating a list of objectives and key results (OKRs) and having a vision and mission statement is equivalent to having a strategy. However, strategy is not just about setting goals. It's about identifying specific challenges or obstacles that need to be conquered and then creating a plan of action to achieve the desired outcome.

Good strategy requires three key elements: a diagnosis of the critical challenge, a guiding policy for overcoming it, and a set of coherent actions to carry out that policy. Statements of desire like "we will grow our sales 20% this year" or "we must put our customers first" alone do not identify the concrete path forward.

I take this as a personal reflection as well. While I set personal OKRs every quarter and year, it's also important to document my strategies and thought processes for achieving those goals.

And lastly, I believe the key to developing exceptional strategies at both individual and company levels is gaining insights distilled from transformed knowledge.


Want to learn things like this every week to understand the world better? Sign up below for my free weekly newsletter. You can also find all the previous learnings here.


You might also like