As a manager I can contribute to the management and execution of my organizations strategy by providing clarity, commitment, and accountability. All of which I think are very significant for an organizations success. Clarity is as simple as an employee knowing their job, what they are responsible for within the company. Commitment is an employees desire to contribute to the growth of the company. Lastly, accountability is having employees who you can deepened on, that come to work to do their job to the best of their ability. Strategic planning is defined as “the process of identifying a desired future state for an organization and a means to achieve it” (Buchbinder & Shanks p.107). Strategic planning is a dynamic verses linear process because its consists of mainly two activities, development and organization (Buchbinder & Shanks p. 108). The purpose of the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis is to “gather a snapshot of how the organization is currently interacting with the market in comparison to the internal capabilities and intended strategic direction of the organizations, and to identify market opportunities and threats that the organization may want to address in future strategic efforts” (Buchbinder & Shanks p. 108-109). It is best used in the healthcare planning process by identifying the companies strengths and weaknesses. This can be very beneficial because it will show where there is growth opportunities within the business, hence “weaknesses” and things that do not need to be improved, hence “strengths”. This can allow the healthcare planning process work on things that obviously needs improvement instead of wasting time on things that don’t. There is not much differences related to strategic planning in healthcare versus planning in another organization because, every organization has to have some sort of organization regardless if its healthcare or something outside of healthcare. Strategic planning is one of those things that can be beneficial all across the board. In fact, strategic planning has only been associated with healthcare since 1970 which isn’t long at all. Yes, I do believe that quality of care initiatives can be linked to the strategic planning process because they go hand and hand with each other.