Differenciate strategic stretch and strategic intent?

Today’s business landscape has changed, fundamentally… tomorrow’s environment will be different, but none the less rich in possibilities for those who are prepared strategic thinking is the new normal!

Strategic Intent  is the high-level statement of means by which your organization will achieve its vision. It’s a statement of design for creating a desirable future (stated in present terms). According to ‘Vadim Kotelnikov’; Strategic intent– simply put, is your company’s vision of what it wants to achieve in the long-term: Strategy must be a stretchexercise, not a fit exercise. The strategic intent must convey a significant stretch for the company; sense of direction, discovery, and opportunity that can be communicated as worthwhile to all employees. A strategic intent creates a picture of the customer’s daily life and describes discontinuities and anticipated changes from the world of today. It describes future customer’s needs and success factors required for meeting these needs.To achieve great things, you need ambitious visions… It does not matter that vision cannot be laid out in details, right now… it’s the direction that counts.

Strategic Stretch  is a goal that cannot be achieved with– what is known, today. Strategic stretch pushes the boundaries of what is assumed to be impossible to strive for… Only when you aim for impossible, something that cannot be achieved with existing practices, is there pressure to come up with radical new ideas, instead of just work harder. According to ‘Frank Buytendijk’; strategic stretch is very much like working with an elastic band. If you only pull it from one side, the other side will move in the same direction. You can only stretch it if you pull from both sides. And the harder you pull in multiple directions at the same time, the more space you create, which is the objective of strategic management. The metaphor of elastic band is very appropriate because it implies that you can’t stop pulling, otherwise it goes back to its neutral position. It’s the same with strategy; you need to keep working on creating strategic stretch, otherwise, the organization will fall back to average results.

Strategic intend is something you intend to do.  It might be difficult, but it's achievable.

Strategic stretch is about something which may not even be possible.  Once example of strategic stretch is US President Kennedy's speech, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."   At the time, nobody knew for sure whether this was possible or not. (Note that this was still a SMART goal: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Result-orientated and Time-bound.)

In summary, Strategic Stretch refers to the planning period adopted by an organisation or company while Straregic Intent refers to the sratement of desired organisational leadership that an organisation intends or wishes to achieve in future

I agree with both Ghada's and Emmanuel's narrations

Agree on Mrs. Ghada's Answer.

Thanks

Totally agree with your answer Mrs. Ghada