Strategic Planning: Setting And Achieving Goals

Setting and Achieving Goals

Successful organizations require their leaders to set and achieve goals on a consistent basis. In order for these organizations to meet their goals, their leaders must actively and carefully plan on how to meet these goals. There are many types of plans that successful organizations can and do use regularly to meet their goals. I feel that the strategic and tactical plans play the largest role in achieving goals because they lay out clear and structured plans in where organizations want to go in the immediate and long term future. Other types of planning are often used to carry out more specific, compartmentalized goals that support the entire picture, yet are less impactful to the organization if not carried out.

Strategic planning often includes the desired outcome for an organization throughout a long period of time, possibly over a decade. Top level managers often design these plans to paint the picture of the company’s mission and lay out a framework for the entire company to achieve (CSU Education Portal, 2014). Strategic plans are particularly important to organizations because the convey a clear message of what exactly, the intended goals and missions are over extended periods of time to all team members, shareholders and even to the public. Laying out a strategic plan allows for all involved parties to know what their exact role is in helping the organization achieve its long term goal (Simerson, 2011). Strategic plans often include long term financial goals, expansion or downsizing goals and achievement goals. An example of a strategic goal is, to become the number one convenient store retailer in the United States by 2021. This is a goal of the company that I currently work for, Kum and Go. This goal was expressed to me and my colleagues in May of 2014, by the CEO of the company, Kyle Krause. After expressing this goal, Mr. Krause proceeded to give my colleagues and I specific examples of things that needed to be executed at our direct level of management to achieve this goal. As time has progressed and things have changed within the organization, the General Managers of my company, understand the

For example, if a company is just starting up, it would benefit them to set a long term goal of where and how they would measure success five, or even ten years into the future. This will allow them to continue to adapt to changing markets and trends. If an established company is doing a self -assessment to examine their success over a period of time, and realize that they have not been as successful as anticipated, strategic planning would be exceptionally useful to get them back on track in meeting their goals. After the strategic plans are established, tactical plans can be used to execute, short term goals. When an organization is just starting out, tactical plans can be used to create procedures and identify roles for different parts of the organization to start up. If a company is struggling and establishes a new strategy, tactical plans can be used to restructure roles of departments, associates and teams to get the company heading back in the right direction. In the case of my company, Kum and Go, tactical plans are used at the mid management level to continue to support the strategic plan of expanding the company and overall goal of becoming the number one convenient store retailer in the United