We read an interesting article today that is an interview with Ari Weinzweig who co-founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen in 1982 with a $20,000 bank loan. Today, the company is an Ann Arbor, MI institution, and Weinzweig has branched out into a number of other businesses. You can follow the link to read the entire article but here’s an excerpt of what we found to be a great definition of vision and strategic planning. If your organization or even yourself personally hasn’t set a clear vision and a strategic plan to get there then you’ll never get where you want to be.
Vision and Strategic Planning…
Visioning is a huge piece of what we do here at Zingerman’s. The vision is a picture of what success will look like when you get to where you’re going at a particular point in the future. It’s got a good bit of detail—it’s a rich picture of what that future looks like, with plenty of detail about how big your business is, what you’re known for, what the people who work in it think about their jobs, how the community views you. It’s hugely helpful to do a personal piece as well—getting clear about how you feel about your work, what sort of work you do, how much money you make, how much you work, etc. is really valuable to know before you start.
There are no “right” or “wrong” visions—but if you’re not clear on where you’re going it’s pretty unlikely that you’re going to get to where you want be. A vision is not the same as a strategic plan. We do those too. But the vision is where you’re going; the strategic plan is how you’re going to get there.
