A Vision is not a Strategy

I recently turned thirty. Coincidentally, this also marks a decade since I first dabbled in consulting. I think I learned a few things in these ten years of work and thirty of (sort of) life. I’ve definitely seen some stuff… And I have come out on the other end, above all, well-informed. I always wanted to write as a side-gig so this seems like a good moment to dive into that haze of verbose vocab and venting vociferation, armed with coffee, pent-up frustration, and some experience (a bit from me, but more from actual experts with whom I have had the pleasure of working) to share 30 lessons that mark me as being most poignant and worth the effort to write out. And which hopefully will resonate with my mostly consultancy-based LinkedIn network and help with your current or future endeavors/engagements/projects, whatever your firm calls them. I also just quit smoking, so I need to keep busy to keep the cravings at bay.

Alright then... here we go, lesson number 1.

A vision is not a Strategy

First off, a vision is indeed necessary. It is an aspirational statement meant to describe the long-term future state of a company. It is meant to engage with customers on an emotional level. It also can have varying degrees of connection to your actual strategy. “To make people happy”, is Disney’s vision, a beautiful vision, but one which we can agree is not useful to inform business decisions. Google’s, on the other hand, is “to provide access to the world's information in one click,” which indeed is several degrees closer to what the company’s overall strategy is.

Now, if a vision statement is all aspirational and long-term in its views, a mission statement is the opposite: it is grounded and more focused on the company’s current ambitions and capabilities. It is brief, written in simple language, and encompasses elements that define the company’s purpose, including aspects of its capabilities, culture, goals, and values. Disney’s mission statement is “to entertain and inspire through unparalleled storytelling”. It defines the company’s goal, to “entertain and inspire”, it clearly says how to achieve this, through “unparalleled storytelling”, and it provides aspects of the company’s values, such as being inspirational, having a love of stories, and wanting to bring joy to its customers.

Bottom line: a vision statement is what your company aspires to become; a mission statement is what it does to get there. Both are needed. Neither is an actual strategy.

Strategy is a decision-making tool: Here is MY TAKE on strategy: it is a holistic list of activities required to choose and maintain a distinctive position in your market. In short: it is a toolkit for making informed decisions. A vision or a mission on their own are not very useful as factors influencing a decision. Disney producers would find it quite difficult to choose between two movie scripts if all they had to base the decision on was that the movies should “make people happy”. Who are the “people” in question? What does “happiness” mean to them? How is it measured? Do others want to make these same people happy in the same way? A strategy is meant to help answer all those questions.

Strategy helps you decide what to do AND what not to do: My professor of Strategy at London Business School, Freek Vermeulen, once told us “If a decision does not involve a trade-off, then it is not a strategic decision” (I am paraphrasing here). And he was right. Since your strategy is tied to your chosen position in your market, it is meant to not only help you decide what to do, but also steer you away from what NOT to do. It implies limitations.

Strategy is meant to help handle difficult decisions: As such, deciding what kind of coffee to serve in the office cantina is likely NOT a strategic decision for most companies. But, if you are Starbucks, it might very well be. Because a strategy should align with your core company identity, pointing your teams in the same direction through aligned values, beliefs, and aspirations. It is represented by artefacts, visible around your offices and in your work. So, if you are Starbucks, choosing to have your own brand of high-quality coffee in the cantina to remind your employees of what they are selling and whom they are selling to is definitely a worthwhile strategic decision.

Strategy is not just a matter of looking forward, but also about cementing your company into the present: It must define and engage with your customers in the here and now, to consider their needs, wants, aspirations, and fears. Importantly, it should inform where your customers are and help you position close to them, whether this means physically (on the shelf) or mentally (being their top choice for solving a specific problem).

Your strategy should help define your relationship with your customers: Strategy, at the end of the day, is about FIT. Some will call this “product-market-fit” in start-up lingo, but it carries through to large corporates just as well. Once you know who your customers are and where to find them, your strategy should help you define what kind of relationship you want to have with them, which we at thinX call your “Levels of Separation” to your customers (more on that in a future blog post). Knowing your relationship with your customers helps you decide on your distribution channels, your brand identity, your communication, your visual design, and many other aspects that influence how, when, and with what you engage customers.

The X-Strategy Canvas

At the end of the day, Strategy should include the following elements, listed in our own X-Strategy Canvas.

the X-Strategy Canvas

It might seem… well like a lot. But your strategy should in fact be A LOT; an imposing piece of work into which a lot of thought and effort has gone. It is your company’s core, the basis of its identity and the main argument for or against any decision to be taken. It is worth spending time on! It is not something with which you can take shortcuts, and it is not something you can dismiss because “it’s just a PowerPoint”. That PowerPoint (or PDF or Word doc, use whatever you like – who am I to judge?) will save you immeasurable time and money down the line. Value it accordingly!