Easier to define by looking at differences.
Aim vs Target/Objectives
| Aim | What we hope to get or what we want to do; might take a long period of time. |
| Target/Objectives | The exact result of what we want to get; it is tangible and concrete. |
Purpose vs Intention
The generally accepted definition is that an organisation's purpose is the reason or why it exists - why it does what it does.
Strategic intent focuses the Management's attention on tasks and activities that will fulfil the organization's purpose. Employee intention focuses an individual's attention on tasks that contribute most to the organisation's purpose. In an ideal scenario, employees' personal intentions for their life and career (core intentions) should dovetail in some way with the organization's purpose.
Stafford Beer proposed POSIWID.
| POSIWID | The purpose of a system is what it does. There is no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do. |
Systems theorists widely use the term to counter the notion that the purpose of a system can be read from the intentions of those who design, operate, or promote it. When a system's side effects or unintended consequences reveal that its behavior is poorly understood, then the POSIWID perspective can balance political understandings of system behavior with a more straightforwardly descriptive view.
| Purpose | The reason “why” we do what we do. Something we might have already done. It explains ‘why’. (e.g. I came here to see you.) |
| Intention | Something we want to do but have not done it yet. Focuses attention on making things happen. Example: I intend to go to the shops this afternoon. Intention shapes what we say and how we behave, which can result in getting results or achieving targets, but it’s not our overarching purpose. Intention is a way to get there. |
Intention vs Goal
The main difference between intention and goal is that intentions are vague and broad, while goals are comparatively more specific.
Goals involve the expectations, actions, and results of what we want to achieve.
Both intentions and goals describe what we want to achieve:
- An intention is an idea we plan to carry out.
- A goal is an aim or objective that we work toward with effort and determination
- We usually create goals based on our intentions.
Both intentions and goals have a time dimension:
- Goals are a destination or specific achievement.
- Intentions are lived each day, independent of achieving the goal or destination.
Intentions and goals differ on whether they are external or relational
- Goals are external achievements.
- Intentions are about our relationship with ourself and others.