3 steps to craft a strategic intent that can make 1000 decisions

I was very excited when I first learned about strategic intent a few months ago. The original article in HBR introducing this concept tied together many of my previous thoughts in a coherent manner. When used correctly, it could be a powerful tool to propel your team forward.

So what is a strategic intent?

It is an easy to remember statement that combines the essence of an inspirational vision or mission statement with tangible concrete objectives.

You can evolve your strategy into a strategic intent by incorporating the following 3 elements in one succinct sentence in order to create more useful and compelling strategies that motivate progress.

Describe the essence of winning

Iterate until your strategic intent can answer the following questions.

• Will we know when we are done?
• Does the end state described deserve the effort and commitment that’s needed to inspire action?

Coca-Cola has done a great job describing their strategic intent: “put a Coke within arm’s reach of every consumer in the world”. As you probably noticed, there’s no mention of a revenue target or market share goal. It is to motivate every Coca-Cola employee towards a shared future. And when Coca-Cola arrives at that future described by the strategic intent, they will naturally reach their business targets.

[Parallels well with article urging more outcome metrics and less output metrics.]

Provide concrete direction

If needed, iterate again until your strategic intent can answer the next 2 questions.

• Can this help the next 10 people that pass by to consistently arrive at the same conclusion to choose project X over project Y?
• Is it clear what we are not trying to do?

Once your strategic intent can answer the above 2 questions, it will help drive alignment and trade-off decisions over a prolonged period of time in order to make focused progress towards a consistent goal that is “really clear” (instead of just “pretty clear”).

[Parallels well with article showing how we can use principles with personality to drive decisions and rallying focus to drive speed to value as some of the top 10 PM super powers.]

Not prescribe the means

Something worth working hard for is usually not quickly achieved. For something that takes time, the environment and context often change as progress is made. Therefore, a great strategic intent is flexible over time regarding the means to achieve a worthwhile end so the team can adapt according to the rapidly changing landscape.

It is also worthwhile to call out here that it is common to mix up tactics with strategy. Sun-tzu describes the difference well when he said: “All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which great victory is evolved.”

Once you’ve written your strategic intent, the last 2 questions to incorporate are:

• Is this specific about the ends but not prescriptive about the means?
• Does this describe “why” I’m doing it or “how” I’m doing it?

Conclusion

It is unlikely you will get the strategic intent right on the first try. It takes iteration and commitment to achieve a well articulated strategic intent to satisfy the above questions.

The hard work will be rewarded if you get it right. The strategic intent will be the one decision you make that will set the path to make your team’s next 1000 decisions easier and more coherent towards making faster progress.