Success Begins with Vision
What do you want? If you don’t know the answer to this question, you won’t achieve lasting success. It may be restating the obvious, but you can’t lead if you don’t know where you’re going.
Many organizations fail because they don’t do the hard work of figuring out who or what they are nor do they decide who or what they want to be. Vision is a clear understanding of this and is the most important element of organizational leadership.
Strategy and Tactics
Once you know what you are and what you want to become (Vision), you need to decide how to get there. These decisions form your Strategy and most of your organization’s activities should be designed to support it. The specific activities you undertake to implement your Strategy are called Tactics.
In summary:
Vision is knowing who or what you want to become.
Strategy describes how you plan to get there.
Tactics are specific activities or initiatives that help you implement your strategy.
Some examples:
A company’s vision might be to be the largest seller of their product in their market. This is a vision because it answers “what”.
The company may decide to get there by pricing their product lower than their competitors. This is a strategy because it answers “how”.
The company may distribute discount coupons through direct mail. This is a tactic because it is a specific activity that implements the “low price” strategy.
