The Culture Engine

Chapter 5Outline Strategies and Goals for the Coming Fiscal Year

This chapter explains what well-defined corporate strategies and goals look like. Leaders must clarify and consistently communicate strategies and goals, and then manage alignment of goals with strategies, values, and purpose.

Alignment ensures that talented, engaged team members know the right things to do and the right way to do them, and consistently deliver on them.

Your strategic plan is a formal statement of your company's desired path to success: what your customers want, what markets to pursue, what products or services to create, and how to deliver them profitably. Effective strategic planning and execution are built on cooperation among your organization's business units and support functions, sharing insights, opportunities, and even mistakes along the way.

Strategy is where the company's vision of the future intersects with the realities of the now, where traction is gained one product test and one happy customer at a time. Strategy provides a foundation for company goals, which outline the specific performance expectations for every team member, to ensure that the company stays on its desired path.

High-performing, values-aligned teams and companies are very intentional about strategic planning and goal setting. Goals cascade from company-wide targets (like “generate 10 percent market share growth in the next 12 months”) to division targets (where R&D sets goals for new product releases and the marketing ...