Goal Core · Strategic goals · Module
Strategic themes
The few coherent lines of effort the goals group into, so that separate goals reinforce one another instead of competing for the same people.
The idea
How it works
A set of unrelated goals divides an organisation’s attention. A set organised into two or three themes concentrates it, because work under one theme tends to make other work under the same theme easier.
Coherence is the test. If two goals could both succeed without either helping the other, they are in different themes, or one of them does not belong in the strategy at all.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Group by what reinforces what
Not by department, and not by size. Two goals belong together if progress on one makes the other cheaper.
- 02
Aim for two or three
More than three themes is the same problem the themes were meant to solve.
- 03
Name each in the firm’s own language
A theme people cannot repeat from memory will not organise anything.
- 04
Draw the causal links
Show which goals feed which. The links are the claim; make them visible so they can be argued with.
One level in
The components of strategic themes
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Orphaned goals
Anything that fits no theme, held separately until it is either connected or dropped.
Learn
The orphan list is a useful discipline. Goals that never find a theme are usually operational necessities rather than strategy, and mislabelling them costs attention.
The other modules in strategic goals
Diagnosis
A plain statement of the challenge the goal exists to answer — what is in the way, and why it matters now. Written before the goal, not reverse-engineered after it.
LearnTrade-offs
What is deliberately not being pursued, recorded alongside what is. The value of writing it down is that it is available later, when the excluded option returns looking attractive.
LearnHorizon and measures
When the goal is expected to land, and what would count as having landed. One primary measure per goal; a second usually means the first was not trusted.
Learn