Goals and Objectives, Strategies and Tactics
Posted by Joseph Thornley on August 3rd, 2006
Over the past 20+ years, I’ve seen a lot of communications plans. And I have marvelled at how often the authors of these plans have been unable to discern the difference between goals and objectives or strategies and tactics.
In a recent episode of Inside PR, Chris Clarke asked asked listeners if they could explain the difference between communication goals and communication tactics.
Shel Holtz provided an answer that linked strategies and tactics to goals and objectives. I found his explanation to be one of the most useful I have ever heard. Simple clear and concise.
Of course, because it was an audio comment, you had to hear it. And because podcasts aren’t as readily searchable as blogs, I’ve decided to write down the essence of Shel’s explanation so that I, the people I work with and other practitioners can refer to it in future.
Shel recalled a presentation by Wilma Matthews, the Co-Author of On Deadline: Managing Media Relations. In her presentation, Wilma described a four step strategic planning model:
- Set a goal: the business outcome. What you want your communications to achieve.
- Establish strategies: The broad approaches you are going to take in order to achieve the goal.
- Define objectives for each strategy. Objectives are the measurable tasks that will be undertaken in order to realize the strategies.
- Develop tactics - the tools that will be used in order to achieve the objectives.
Wilma used the example of World War II in order to illustrate the application of these concepts.
- Goal: Win the war.
- Strategy: Surround Germany to choke off the resources that fueled its military force.
- Objective: Invade France. This is measurable. You’ll know if you’ve succeeded and to what degree.
- Tactics: What will you use to do this? e.g. ships, planes, soldiers, etc.
In summary:
- Goals = the broad outcomes
- Strategies = the approaches you will take
- Objectives = the measurable steps to achieve the strategies
- Tactics = the tools you will use
Makes sense to me. What do you think?
August 5th, 2006 » 1:13 pm
Thanks for sharing this with us. I popped over on your recommendation in the comments at Communication Overtones.
I always like Shel’s clear explainations, and this is also clear. The only thing I added was identifying and prioroitizing your publics, since we are communicating and not attacking. Still, even in this example, you have to pick Germany and France somewhere in the process.
August 7th, 2006 » 7:35 pm
Great stuff Joseph – this will certainly be useful.
August 8th, 2006 » 10:41 am
Reminder: Goals, Objectives Defined…
In the ongoing circular conversation about communications, Joe Thornley records Shel Holtz’s comment to the Inside PR podcast about a presentation made by Wilma Matthews, of Arizone State University.. As described by Shel, Wilma Matthews summed up the…
August 16th, 2006 » 8:08 am
Joseph, thanks for recapping it. When I heard Shel speaking on FIR I was at the gym. I planned to replay the segment and write it down, but of course did not!
So glad YOU did!
Cheers
Donna
August 16th, 2006 » 8:09 am
OOPS. I meant Inside PR, not FIR!
December 11th, 2006 » 9:39 am
Great post – I’ve seen my share of communications plans that have made this mistake as well.
I’ve also noticed in both the PR and the ad world that there are a number of people who don’t understand the difference between a strategy and a plan.
June 16th, 2008 » 8:17 pm
This article although short and sweet really helped me complete a paper in which i had to make a communicationplan for a virutal organizaiton. thanks for the simple and well said info.
July 5th, 2008 » 9:49 am
This summed up the meaning of goal, strategy, objective and tactics very nicely. Very user friendly as it were. Thanks for sharing this information.
September 30th, 2008 » 6:09 pm
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
This concise summary of strategies and tactics has made clear to me what my instructors and textbooks could not.
March 9th, 2009 » 8:02 am
Thank you so much for this. I have been receiving conflicting information in my classes and this clears things up for me so much. I only wish I had received this information weeks ago.
May 8th, 2009 » 6:06 am
Great! Simply put! elegantly understood!
May 19th, 2009 » 10:59 am
Great recap and summary. Clear and simple. In describing Tactics, I think it is useful to not only include “what” tools will be used, but also “how” and “when” the tools will be used
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