Vision or a strategy - the important distinction for planning your tactics

While your strategy is the large-scale plan to make your dream happens, vision is the dream of what you want (the organization/the brand/you) to be.

Whether you are planning for the entire organization or just for your own business, the concept stays the same and only the scale is different.

A good start is with the vision statement and then, when you can visualize it - it is when and how you can begin developing an adequate strategy.

An overriding idea is the vision of what the organization would be (remember the dream you are aiming at). It could be for example, "the largest solutions provider for balancing diabetes and improving patient life expectancy in Europe" or "the choice for management consultants for tech-venture capitals in Ireland." The vision must be clear and concise so that everyone in the organization knows and understands it, and then they can all buy into it with passion.

Your strategy is one or more plans that you will use to achieve your vision. When you have decided on a strategy, you can develop tactics to meet the strategy. Tactics are the specific actions, as well as their sequences and schedules you will use to fulfill your strategy.

To be "the largest solutions provider for balancing diabetes and improving patient life expectancy in Europe” you may have to choose between buying other retailers of nutritional supplements and preventive medicine products or rather trying to grow a single retailer or even a combination of both choices. Alternatively, you may rather invest in research to develop your own breakthrough products. A good solid achievable strategy not only looks inward into the organization, but also looks outward at the market conditions and the competition. Your strategy must consider the overall business climate and find a solution that works and that is true to your vision.

We are living in a fast-changing world so that things change quickly and all the time. The concern is then how to cope and handle the changes, and even anticipate them. This is done with flexibility but also with firmness. Hold on to your vision, it is your Dream. Don't let it go away by the winds of change. Your vision should be the anchor that holds all the rest together. Strategy is a long-term plan, so it may need to change in response to changes, but strategy changes should only happen with considerable thought and not until you have a new strategy to replace the old one. Tactics on the other hand, are more flexible. If tactics do not achieve their intent, they would have to be changed or adjusted until they do.

Summarizing, "Strategy is about BEING DIFFERENT. It means deliberately choosing a specific set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value"(Hamel and Prahalad).

Remember to preserve the vision elements while your strategies and goals change and adapt to the market. You may modify your mission or values over time, but the intent stays unchanged. That way you will have complete clarity when making critical business decisions that impact your future.