Title: What words are you using in your strategy plan?

I read a lot of strategy documents and most of them are written using common language. Words like the best, outstanding, leading, world class, and international have different meaning to different people. Consider a word like international. We shall be an international software company. Does international mean having representation in ALL countries in the world?  Or just more than one country? What if there was representation in all countries in the world except Greenland? Are you still regarded as an international company?

In public sector they also use some specific words that you can find in most plans. Words like make ensure, assist, help, bring, identify, encourage, and support are often used to describe something you want to achieve. I would like to use an example from a Norwegian government strategy plan. One goal/objective is, “make sure that the Norwegian film industry becomes a success”.

If you have such vague words in your plan you need to challenge the people that wrote the “political jargon” and state how do we make sure that the Norwegian film industry becomes a success?  What do we have to do to and succeed with to be regarded as a successful film industry? This challenges us to define WHAT we must do.

So if you are working in with people using words like these, start defining the words – what they mean – and what you have to do in order to become successful.

When I work with government sector clients, I have started to challenge them about the meaning of their political words. And the results are a living, actionable, and specific scorecard that defines the success criteria of such political jargon.

Good luck with cracking and de-coding the political jargon!

Author : Tor Inge Vasshus

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