Strategy vs. Objective: What Is the Difference?

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The biggest difference between a strategy and an objective is that a strategy serves as a tool to help you achieve a goal while an objective acts as a short-term goal that measures your progress toward the end result. The strategies you use to achieve your goals can also depend on the objectives you set as part of your progress monitoring. The following information can help answer some frequently asked questions about the difference between a strategy versus an objective.

What is a strategy?

A strategy is a method or approach to accomplishing objectives and achieving goals. Typically, a strategy is a method of completing tasks that further help you reach your goals. For instance, if you set a goal to develop exceptional customer service skills, you might approach achieving this goal by using feedback or monitoring your progress through customer reviews. These examples can be considered the strategies you might use to help you achieve your goal.

Related: Understanding the Basics of Strategy Development

What is an objective?

An objective differs from a strategy because your objective acts as a smaller goal that you can accomplish to get closer to achieving your overall goal. You can set an objective as a way to measure your progress and identify areas where you can use different strategies to further develop in your career. For instance, in the example of developing exceptional customer service skills, an objective might be to achieve a customer rating of four out of five stars by a certain deadline. Setting objectives like this can allow you to develop the best strategies for achieving your goals.

What are the elements of an effective strategy?

The following elements can help you develop effective strategies in your career:

An end goal or clear vision of what you want to achieve

Developing effective strategies starts with setting a goal or envisioning the end result that you want to achieve. You can use the SMART goal method to set a clearly defined end result.

An understanding of the value of achieving your goal

Understanding your core values and why you want to achieve your goal can be highly beneficial in helping to identify resources and tools that you can use to help achieve your goal. For instance, you might question why developing effective communication skills is important in your job. When you determine your values and how they relate to achieving your goals, you can increase your motivation to reach the end result.

Clearly defined outcomes that demonstrate your growth

Effective strategies also integrate the objectives you set as a part of measuring your growth and progress toward your outcome. Setting objectives along the way can allow you to measure your progress each time you accomplish a task that moves you closer to accomplishing your goal.

Key performance indicators that measure your progress

Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) can also be crucial to developing an effective strategy. For instance, if your end goal is to write an exceptional business letter, you might set an objective to increase your overall business vocabulary. Then, you might set your KPIs as weekly quizzes to monitor your progress and vocabulary growth.

Developing an effective strategy can involve ensuring that you have a set goal in mind as well as an idea of how you will monitor your progress. 

Read more: Using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to Achieve Goals

What are the elements of a clearly defined objective?

The following information can help you evaluate each element of your objectives as you set them:

Specific and measurable criteria

To set a clearly defined objective, you should include specific and measurable criteria that can help you develop your strategies for meeting your objective. For instance, if your objective is to learn new vocabulary, you can clearly define this objective by being specific in the criteria that can give you an idea of how you are meeting this objective. So you might do this by setting a more defined objective to learn a total of 15 new vocabulary words.

Outlined conditions for the objective

Another key element for setting clearly defined objectives is to outline the conditions for your objective. For instance, in the case of learning 15 new vocabulary words, you might outline your conditions by setting a deadline for when you want to memorize the new words.

Strategies to help you meet objectives

Setting your objective can also require you to implement specific strategies that will help you make progress toward your end result. Using our example of learning new vocabulary, you might identify strategies like studying flashcards, taking online quizzes, writing letters or stories using the new words and other strategies that can help you achieve your objective.

Key results you want to achieve

A key result should be a number or value that is measurable and allows you to evaluate your progress toward meeting your objective. For instance, in the example of learning new vocabulary words, the first key result might be to learn a total of 15 new words in the first week. Another key result could then be to memorize 30 different vocabulary words the following week.

Setting clearly defined objectives that help you monitor your growth and development toward an end goal can involve setting short-term goals that measure your progress. Similar to setting SMART goals, setting measurable objectives can help you move toward your ultimate end result. 

Related: Guide to OKRs

Strategy development vs. setting an objective

Essentially, strategies are the tools you use to help achieve your goals, while your objectives serve as short-term goals that further aid your progress. Meeting the objectives you set can rely on the strategies you implement to help you achieve your goals. Additionally, both of these elements are highly effective tools for helping you achieve your career goals.