Why bother with setting goals? The old adage
says it best, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road
will get you there.” Having clear, well-defined goals can help focus
energy and effort. While this may not guarantee success, it does
make it more likely. Doing the right things right is the key to
getting to where you want to go.
The strategic risk-management process, or SRMP, describes a
method of managing the farm or ranch operation as a whole, rather
than as separate, unrelated parts. It provides a step-by-step method
for working within the framework of information overload and
multitude of risks ag managers face on a daily basis.
The process begins by determining your financial health and risk
tolerance, then with setting goals for the operation. The first step
in goal setting is to determine who is on the management team. Is it
mom, dad, daughter, and her husband? Perhaps it’s a mixture of
parents, uncles, brothers, sisters, and spouses all joined together
in a corporation. It may be just an operator and their spouse. Once
it is learned who is on the team, everyone should be involved in the
goal-setting process. Remember if the members of the team do not
have ownership of the goals, they probably won’t be working hard to
help reach them.
Mission Statement
The second step is to visualize where the operation should be.
Form a picture of what the future should look like. Some experts
claim that we can program our minds to help bring about the things
we really want to achieve.
The operation may want to capture this vision in a mission
statement: a list of all the things the operation wants to be and
do. A mission statement is a description of the purpose of the
operation. It should describe what the management team sees the
operation becoming for the individuals, the family, and for the
team. A mission statement should specify what the operation will
focus on in the long run. Written mission statements help build
strategic goals that work for the operation.
Strategic Goals
With a mission statement in hand, the next step of drafting
strategic goals can begin. These might best be viewed as a roadmap
to follow to reach the destination set for the operation. Strategic
goals are long term goals. They are specific steps for reaching the
general goal(s) described in the mission statement. Strategic goals
are typically written for 10-20 years in the future.
Where the mission statement is the destination, strategic goals
form the roadmap. They are supported by the mission statement and
are nurtured by the principles it contains. They represent the
specific steps the operation must accomplish to reach its final
objective. To do this, strategic goals must be prioritized.
Resources available to most operations are limited. Thus, not all
goals can be reached at the same time. Prioritizing the goals is a
way of making sure the most important things are done first.
Tactical Objectives
Tactical objectives provide the framework for achieving the
strategic goals. They identify a sequence of events or
accomplishments required on the way to reaching longer term
strategic goals. Tactical objectives generally describe “how” the
strategic goals will be achieved and the order in which those events
need to occur. They help to outline what needs to be accomplished in
the near term, as well as into the future, usually the period
three-10 years from today.
Operational Plans
Operational plans are concerned with describing the specific
steps and timetable required for accomplishing the tactical
objectives. Operational planning deals with the “how” and “when” of
the process. This step refers to planning the activities that must
be accomplished in order to achieve the tactical objectives and the
timing of these activities over the coming year. Operational plans
often include a listing of the action steps, a timeline for
completion, who is responsible for completion of each step, and some
indicator to show the step has been completed.
