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2016 Strategic Plan • St. Anthony Village, Minnesota <br /> <br /> <br />Long Term Vision/Priorities | 7 <br />LONG TERM VISION/PRIORITIES <br />Facilitator Bruce Miles presented the group with information intended to assist the group in <br />forming a mindset on a long-term, strategic focus: <br />Strategic intent captures the essence of winning <br />The Apollo program—landing a man on the moon ahead of the Soviets—was as competitively <br />focused as Komatsu’s drive against Caterpillar. The space program became the scorecard for <br />America’s technology race with the USSR. <br />Strategic intent is stable over time <br />...one of the most critical tasks is to lengthen the organization’s attention span. Strategic intent <br />provides consistency to short-term action, while leaving room for reinterpretation as new <br />opportunities emerge. <br />Strategic intent sets a target that deserves personal effort and commitment <br />For a challenge to be effective, individuals and teams throughout the organization must <br />understand it and see its implications for their own jobs. Companies that set corporate challenges <br />to create new competitive advantages (as Ford and IBM did with quality improvement) quickly <br />discover that engaging the entire organization requires top management to do the following: <br />• Create a sense of urgency, or quasi crisis, by amplifying weak signals in the environment that <br />point up the need to improve, instead of allowing inaction to precipitate a real crisis. <br />• Develop a competitor focus at every level through widespread use of competitive intelligence. <br />Every employee should be able to benchmark his or her efforts against best-in-class competitors <br />so that the challenge becomes personal. <br />• Provide employees with the skills they need to work effectively—training in statistical tools, <br />problem solving, value engineering, and team building. <br />• Give the organization time to digest one challenge before launching another. When competing <br />initiatives overload the organization, middle managers often try to protect their people from the <br />whipsaw of shifting priorities. But this “wait and see if they’re serious this time” attitude ultimately <br />destroys the credibility of corporate challenges. <br />• Establish clear milestones and review mechanisms to track progress, and ensure that internal <br />recognition and rewards reinforce desired behaviors. The goal is to make the challenge inescapable <br />for everyone in the company. <br />From: <br />Strategic Intent <br />by Gary Hamel & C.K. <br />Prahalad <br />Harvard Business Review <br />July-August 2005