Differences Between Organizational Objectives And Strategies Critical Thinking Examples

Objectives

Objectives are what organizations aim to accomplish they are the end results they aim to achieve in a time frame. Objectives are milestones arrived at in realizing some goals. They are concrete statements describing the things the organization wants to achieve. Objectives help an organization convert the goal statement from a wide or broad vision into plans and projects (Pinto, 2007). For example, expanding the distribution channels is an objective to attain the goal of raising the organization’s revenue.
Objectives should be lowly designed so that they can be evaluated to ascertain whether they were achieved. Objectives are said to be well-worded if they are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bounded). Each objective is also linked to a certain goal except that an objective is more specific and concrete than a goal statement.
Objectives are extremely valuable to an organization as they provide a sense of purpose, direction and unity. They also form a basis of making decisions in the organization. Objectives encourage strategic thinking and give a foundation of evaluating and managing performance in the organization.

Strategies

Objectives pinpoint what is beneficial to an organization in realizing their goals, but strategies give the means to attain those objectives (Pinto, 2007). Strategies are a high-level group of directives which articulate the way an organization will achieve the set objectives and goals in the long run. A strategy is action oriented, its result assisting to attain the objectives in an efficient and timely manner.
Each strategy needs a sequence of tasks to be done and may be outlined on a monthly basis over the given timeframe. These tasks are quite specific and aid the management in assigning responsibilities to the implementation of the strategies.
Therefore, a strategy is a scheme or plan to realize the given objectives.

References

Pinto, J. K. (2007). Project management: achieving competitive advantage (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.