Objective vs Strategies

Approximate three-minute reading time.

Introduction

This article aims to share my thought process on avoiding miscommunications or misunderstandings to aid in our problem-solving.  To begin, I hope to express my take on the distinction between our objective compared to that of our strategies in order to bring us on the same page.

The objective represents our principle, while the strategies arrive from our process of discussing our objective.

How does the objective gets confused with the strategy?

I believe the misconception occurs on an interpersonal level where we have to consider the individual views that make up the foundation of our discussions.  The purpose is more open-ended, whereas the strategies have a definitive course of action.

Misinterpreting the objective of the strategy can happen when everyone’s level of experience is different. Experience, in this case, refers to first-hand experience, the research process, and everything else rooted in the nuances of initializing and managing a project.  Based on each person’s amount of perspective makes it easy to misinterpret the context of the objective, thereby resulting in us taking the objective too literally and as though it’s the only thing that we need in order to approach a matter at hand successfully.  Our objective could be what someone interprets as the strategy, and their objective could be what we interpret as our strategy.

The social phenomenon of misinterpreting the objective for the strategy

In this segment, I want to provide an example to clarify my opinion from the previous section.  Previously, I have had questions from my company regarding an event, and I want to make an example out of those questions, especially regarding a former workshop I supported.  The workshop’s main themes revolved around entrepreneurship and leadership education.  They prioritized encouraging students to find their interests while providing an educational opportunity that aligns with their ultimate goal. 

After that program, I was informed that the presentation failed to meet many students’ expectations. Due to a contrast between the audience’s and the speaker’s background on the subject, some students assumed an excessively literal take on the contents of the presentation. As a result, they expected the presentation to instruct them on how to start a company rather than supply them with foundational entrepreneurship skills. This represents how a concept can seemingly be straightforward upfront but once we take into consideration that each person has to rationalize the input from their own standpoint and understanding of the idea, then that’s where the confusion comes into play. Some individuals might not have the perspective or be able to seek relevance in the material advised. This is particularly common in those starting in their field of interest.

Regarding the situation during the event, the audience misinterpreted the purpose of joining the event. The audience thought that the main point of the event would be rooted in how to found a company through a clear business strategy, but the speaker went in expecting to provide an opportunity for their audience members to identify their goals by enhancing everyone’s perspective. In this scenario, founding a company is the overarching motive or objective, and the event catered to elaborating on the objective. Still, to the audience, they interpreted the act of merely founding a company to be the strategy itself in an oversimplification of the motive. 

Conclusion

The objective has a process that leads to specific strategies. The confusion comes from the differences between how the speaker and the audience interpret the same topic based on their background knowledge. Creating a common understanding at the objective level is the way to avoid misunderstanding.

Coming soon

• Explaining the pathway to reaching the goal

• Misunderstanding the purpose of the report

• How to handle challenging environments

I consider these to be some extra topics that make the article complex, so I didn’t include them, mentioning more about arriving on the same page for instance, but if anyone has more questions feel free to ask me. I will reply to the comments.
Thank you for reading my article.

Supporter: Jiaxin Wu, Patrick Huggins
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