My Corporate Christmas Gift

It is a common tradition during the holiday season to send customers, prospects, colleagues and friends some variation of a Christmas / Hanukkah / Happy Holidays-type card.

While many of my friends will be receiving the same this year (in e*form of course), for some I want to do something a little different.

I’m thinking this year that I will buy a set of pocket dictionaries, tear out all the pages except for two and send those instead.  It will definitely be of more value to them in the long run.

The two pages will contain the definitions of two words, strategy and tactics, because a lot of people still do not understand the difference between the two.

On the inside of the cover, I will write the following quote:

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." - Sun Tzu

Yeah, I’m a little agitated … mostly because I am witnessing great opportunities go down the drain because people don’t understand the importance of both.

Here is how the Oxford Dictionary defines and contrasts the two:

strategy - the art of planning ….

often contrasted with tactics - a plan for directing operations and movements

In essence, strategy defines the measurable intentions and outcomes (the big picture) and the process of defining the steps necessary to manifest them while tactics includes the detailed components of the plan and how the plan is executed.

Common sense, right?  I thought so too … however …..

Despite the overwhelming amount of knowledge in the world that defines them and describes how to create them, people still confuse the strategy (which defines the end goal) with the tactics (the means to the end) or choose not to define one or both of them before setting out on their corporate journey.

For example, I know of one organization that has aspirations to be a major player in a specific space.  They have no measurable outcomes or intentions at all.  Their “trusted strategy advisor” tells them that the strategy for corporate success is based on how they define their website, right down to how the HTML will be structured to make best use of SEO (search engine optimization).  When you ask them what the organization actually wants to accomplish and by when, they don’t know.  When you ask what their exit strategy is, who their competitors are, who their markets are, etc, they have no idea.

They’re too busy defining the website rollout, without having any idea how the website contributes to the as-yet undefined ultimate objectives and intentions of the company.  So they have confused random execution (poor tactics) with strategy.

Another organization has decided that they are going to roll strategy and tactics together into one package, trying things at random without any measurable outcomes and intentions while hoping at some point to randomly land on success.  Why are they trying this hybrid role of tactics and strategy?  Because they were told that it is impossible to create a plan with measurable outcomes – the best way to achieve your outcomes is to try a lot of things until you are successful (success, in their case, not even being defined until it happens, after which you can define it).  Uhhhhhhh ….. huh?  They have skipped strategy altogether.

Anyone want to take any bets on the success potential of these two organizations?

I agree – which is too bad because they are both onto fantastic ideas.

By skipping the need for strategic planning or by assuming that “my strategy is to start doing stuff and hope it comes together”, they are doomed to lackluster results at best (if they last that long) or failure in the worst case scenario.

If one doesn’t use strategic planning to know where the organization is going and how / why it should get there, then one shouldn’t even start out on the journey.

Once one has a strong strategic intention in place, then one must turn towards creating intelligent tactical roadmaps to bring that strategy to fruition.

All that’s left then is smart execution of the tactical roadmap. :-)

It’s like driving from New York to San Diego without first consulting a map or GPS but knowing that the drive should take 5 days.  It is pointless to set out, drive randomly for 5 days and then stop and look out the window to see where I am.  I have a greater chance of NOT having arrived than I do of being able to breathe the sweet Pacific breeze.

And that is now how I like to travel!

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS Moving From Strategic Planning to Tactical Roadmaps

Many people struggle with how to create the tactical roadmaps necessary to manifest their strategic intention.  My website contains a complimentary diagram that explains the use of backcasting, a process growing in adoption that helps organizations create the tactical roadmaps necessary for sharp execution of their organization, rather than to randomly knock a plan together and hope for the best.   Please click here to obtain a copy. 

To your success.