Sunday, April 16, 2017

Blog #3: Vision versus Goals. What’s the difference?

The terms vision, mission, goals and objectives have great importance to startups and big organizations alike. Understanding these terms will lead to having a significant impact on both short term and long term success of a business including its performance and processes.

Vision: Vision refers to an image or a concept. It’s the ability to anticipate possible future events and developments with imagination and wisdom. To put it simply, vision refers to where an organization wants to be in the future.

Mission: The purpose of an organization is known as its mission. It focuses on the purpose of an organization through a statement describing the reason of an organizational existence - It answers the question why the organization has been established.

Objectives: Objectives are predetermined; they provide clear direction to the activities and results to be obtained from the planning process. Objectives must be SMART (Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely). Objectives must be clearly defined, so that the works become goal-oriented and the unproductive and unsystematic tasks can be avoided.

Goals: A Goal is simply something that somebody wants to achieve. Simply speaking, goal refers to the purpose towards which the efforts are made or endeavors are directed. Goal has a timeframe which is generally long term. So, it’s a long term plan. What differentiates between goals and objectives is the time frame. And the objectives, being specific, support in the attainment of a goal.

Vision is aligned with your deepest values and priorities. It is of what you believe in or what you want to become or create. It is your desired future. Vision inspires, motivates you, and keeps you excited to do what you do. You can set vision for what you want to have, to what you want to do and what you want to be. When you have your visions ready, ask yourself, how can I achieve it? Setting goals will help you with this.

Goals are set as a specific target that move you towards your vision. Goals help you to stay focused and on track. It is good to check at times that goals you set still serve you, whether your circumstances or world around you has changed, so be flexible by adjusting them or creating new ones. As you write your goals make them very specific and quantifiable in some way. It is also important to express them positively: write what you want, not what you want to avoid.

What I have noticed is that, once you have visualized what you want to achieve, setting the individual goals can be incredibly gratifying, as is achieving them. Do you agree? What examples can you illustrate to elucidate the difference between vision and goals?

Sources:

No comments:

Post a Comment