If event professionals – the efficiency experts – need to understand and act more like business professionals – the effectiveness experts – in order to deliver more value for their stakeholders, then it’s in their best interests to understand the difference between planning and strategy.
Planning and strategy are often used synonymously despite the fact that they are two distinctively different activities.
A plan is a detailed proposal for doing something.
A strategy is a set of guiding principles used for decision making.
That may not seem like much of a distinction so let’s put them in context for better perspective.
Here are some key business building blocks:
The Mission Statement
There is no “right” way of doing this but when starting a business, most businesses professionals start by defining their mission – the reason why they exist. The mission defines their purpose and serves to inspire key stakeholders.
The Vision Statement
Once you know your mission – your reason for being – you develop your vision – a statement of where you see yourself in the future. This projection of your current state (mission) to your future state (vision) helps your stakeholders focus on where you’re headed; where you want to be.
The Values Statement
Another key business building block is a values statements. Values statements are core beliefs that guide employee actions and help you connect with consumers. Values are also instrumental in creating a cohesive organizational culture.
Strategy
Once you know why you’re in business (mission) and where you want to end up (vision), you develop a strategy for getting there. Your strategy, like the definition above suggests, dictates a desired pattern of decision making and the allocation of resource in order accomplish your key business objectives. A good strategy is like a roadmap that defines the actions people should take and what they should prioritize in order to achieve their desired goals.
Following the logic above, you can’t really develop an effective strategy without first thinking through your mission and vision.
Goals and Objectives
Next comes goals and objectives. Like planning and strategy, these two terms are often used synonymously yet represent two distinctively different activities.
Goals are brief, clear statements of an outcome to be reached within a long-term timeframe, generally 3-5 years for most businesses. A goal does not say how to achieve an outcome, but rather what the results will look like. Generally speaking, a goal answers “what” is the main aim of the business.
Examples of common business goals are: grow profitability, maximize net income, improve customer loyalty, etc. Notice the brevity of these goal statements.
Objectives are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound conditions (S.M.A.R.T.) that must be attained in order to accomplish a particular goal. Generally speaking, objectives answers “How” something is to be done and the most effective way of doing it.
Examples of common business objectives are: increase revenue by x% in 2020, reduce overhead costs by X% by 2021, etc. Notice how these objectives are more specific and provide more detail.
Simply put, a goal is where you want to be and objectives are the steps you take to reach your goal.
The Business Plan
Finally, we get to our plan – our detailed proposal for doing something. A business plan is a written document that explains how a business is going to operationally and financially achieve its strategic goals and objectives. Because of its level of specificity – and the fact that it’s the synthesis of the steps that came before it – it’s the last of the key business building blocks.
Distinctively different yet intimately related
So planning and strategy represent distinctively different activities and they are intimately related to each other.
Strategy precedes planning because the strategy informs your business plan. Without strategy, planning is aimless. Without planning, strategy is useless.
Without a strategy, a company will run in too many different directions, squandering precious resources. Without a plan, a company will never achieve its objectives.
Most importantly, strategy provides the framework for decision making about how a business delivers value. Strategy doesn’t answer the question of how to implement or deliver that value – that’s what planning is for.
Planning is to efficiency as strategy is to effectiveness
Efficiency is the relationship between the results achieved, and the resources used – making things the best way using the least amount of resources.
Effectiveness is the relationship between the expected results and the obtained results – the best way to achieve the expected results.
There’s no doubt that event professionals are extraordinary planners. They have an intimate understanding of every aspect of event operations – from registration to housing to transportation, etc. Their understanding of these processes make them efficiency experts. For any event of importance, event professionals save event owners significant time and money.
However, event professionals have traditionally not been involved in formulating event strategy. That’s traditionally been left to the business professionals – the effectiveness experts – if it’s been done at all.
And this is the greatest challenge facing business professionals and event professionals
Business professionals are hosting events that lack a strategy informing a proper plan. That makes those events aimless.
Event professionals are planning events that lack a plan informed by a proper strategy. That makes those events useless.
Summary: Strategies and plans that support them are essential business building blocks. They are also essential event building blocks. Event professionals are executing event plans often without the benefit of a coherent event strategy. That means there are a lot of events out there that are being run efficiently but are not effectively delivering business value.
