strategic intent

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Definition

Gary Hamel's and C.K. Prahalad's term for what guides and shapes an organization to achieve strategic success. It's goal is to ""fold the future back into the present.""

Elements of a strategic intent --

  1. Goal: folding the future back into the present
  2. Clarity about ends, flexible as to the means. Establishes the criterion against which employees can pretest the logic of their initiatives. (Vision, BHAG)
  3. Focus is on both meeting financial targets and delivering on the broad direction implicit in the strategic intent (Deliver on the Vision)
  4. Creates an extreme misfit between resources and ambitions, whose gap is closed by systematically building new advantages. (Provide Direction)
  5. Result: new capabilities are produced in pursuit of the strategic intent.

Source: Hamel, 1989

See strategic planning for a comparison of strategic planning and strategic intent.