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"Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” – J K Kennedy
Ambition and Aspiration need practical boundaries for success but in a similar vane if you don’t shoot for the moon you will not achieve greatness.
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We have been reinforcing the need to consider that your strategy is also a story-telling process. In the Background step we started with the “once upon a time there was a company….”.
We provided an overview of the company and the context for the strategy.
We synthesised the Strategic Drivers that must be taken into account, so we have now set the scene to start to consider the direction we want to take for the next 3+ years.
Let me digress for the moment regarding this point.
Strategies aren’t tactics.
We are trying to set a direction far enough into the future but not too far that other events overtake us. Two years is in our opinion too close as it is too close to the annual budget rounds. Three years requires you to look slightly over the horizon.
We set Direction with two classic statements. They are very important when it comes to Storytelling.
The first Statement is our Mission
I am sure many sci-fi people will know by heart the mission of the Star Ship Enterprise:
"*Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. file info*"
A company’s Mission statement is a statement of fact, it can be dead pan, it can inspire but whilst it can reflect what the company has been doing in the past it does take some care in shaping for the future.
You will note from the example that a Mission Statement lasts a reasonable length of time, it’s not something that changes that frequently.