Jeffery D Whippo Explains the Terms “Policy,” “Objective,” and “Goal”

1. Jeffery D Whippo Explains the Terms “Policy,” “Objective,” and “Goal” Jeffery D Whippo is a professional educator and organizational leadership with a Doctorate in Business Administration and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. He defines the terms - policy, objective and goal as there has been a lot of misunderstanding and mixing up of these terms in the workplace. A policy, he explains, is a written statement of intent, and is implemented by a company as a procedure or protocol in an effort to regulate certain actions & decisions. Policies, on the other hand, are usually instituted within companies in order to avoid some negative effect which has been noticed in the organization, or to seek some positive benefit. For Instance, many large companies have policies that spending above a certain amount of money must be performed via a purchasing process which would include the development of a formal purchase order by the purchasing or finance department. This way, a company is able to limit unnecessary spending and standardize the way large purchases are made. Jeffery D Whippo continues that in business, an objective is defined as a statement of long-range purpose that is neither quantified nor limited to a specific time period. Usually, companies have a number of objectives that cater to the stakeholders’ varying interests. Talking about Objectives, Whippo says that they can commonly be divided into three classes; measurement objectives, growth/survival objectives, and constraint objectives. Both objectives and goals shouldn’t be based purely on facts and data; rather they should also be based on the values and feelings of the company and its stockholders. Jeffery Whippo further explains that in contrast to a business objective which is neither quantified nor defined by time constraints, a company goal is a measurable objective of the business that’s constantly judged by management and is identified to be attained at a specific time through a series of planned steps and actions. An example of a company goal would be to achieve a 10% reduction in overall cost over the next three years. Strategies and tactics would then need to be developed and continuously managed to make sure the company is able to achieve these results.