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The problem with "Keep a high line and only let the defenders take time to pass" is still a tactic. Having recently started attempting to understand what a stra

The problem with "Keep a high line and only let the defenders take time to pass" is still a tactic. Having recently started attempting to understand what a strategy really is, I've understood the following. A strategy is tripartite. The Strategy, it's Guiding Principles and Actions (tactics) A strategy takes into account the environment within which one is working and to view it as a dynamic thing. In your football example we might be able to say that the dynamic part of the game is how the opposition arranges their players and who is in which position. Knowing this we can define some Guiding Principles for the individual game. One might choose a loaded and strong defence as your team's offence is not as strong as the oppositions defence. The guiding principle is "Defend our ground" Actions (tactics) would be "Keep the few strikers far forward and protect the defenders" Caveat: I'm not a footballer, and I wish I had written this to end up with the original tactic mentioned "Keep a high line and only let the defenders take time to pass"

kyllo 7y ago
Perhaps another problem with strategy is that we expect too much from it, because we neglect and devalue tactics. I often hear "strategic thinking" lauded and "tactical thinking" looked down upon by managerial types. But a strategy alone achieves nothing--you need good tactics to execute on it.
- MiracleUser 7y ago
  background: i make my living putting together quantitative analysis to support / reject strategic decisions I would not say a strategy alone achieves nothing - its actually quite the opposite the larger your "team" and scope of activity is. A lot of business decisions are not related to having a tactic but are a trade off between two important things (like cost and quality). Having a clear strategy allows people in your company to arrive at the same decision for which side of that trade-off to favor - which increases individual autonomy. For example, a high volume strategy leads to favoring low cost. A strategy to be scalable might favor higher upfront costs since cheap non-scalable options are removed from review. In both cases, when an option doesnt fit the strategy it is not considered an option. So your decision pool is reduced. Sometimes this reduction is enough that the choice is made for you. Especially when accounting for multiple strategies and company initiatives. Tactics are a different beast. Sometimes a tactic involves going against the general strategy, but is approved because there is confident calculation behind it and the expected result is wanted. The most important thing here is the calculation. It takes time and energy to develop and communicate a tactic. Those things are limited, so you can only be working on so many tactics at once, and only so many people are qualified to be doing that work (because those job titles are expensive). The critical factor here is that the volume of decisions that need to be made across an organization on a day-to-day basis are not bound by how much time you have to develop a tactic for each of them. So you have to trust the autonomy of your company hierarchy at each level to be able to make default decisions that dont interfere with company strategy. A strategy alone is enough to help keep a loose handle on things.. it goes a long way to preventing chaos. You might end up with a cashier accepting a return on something that is obviously not a valid return, but the overall strategy of being return-friendly is maintained. You also dont end up with a fist-fight between your cashier and the customer (extreme alternative example). When you have time, you develop a tactic for validating returns with order#'s or receipts, etc. but maybe your tactic team is busy dealing with warehouse optimizations this month
  - kyllo 7y ago
    Yes, flexibly applying situational tactics to follow the principle and spirit of the strategy rather than the letter of the rulebook, is what leaders generally want their people to do. They communicate intent and let good judgement do the rest. The way I have always thought of strategy, though, is that it should be directional. Say what input variables you think we should increase or decrease, in order to get closer to the optimum, relative to where we are currently. Taking your example of cost vs. quality. Obviously we want to find an optimum. If a manager can state which direction we need to move in and why, to make progress toward the optimum, I will take their strategy seriously. But if they just tell their people to "optimize," I dismiss them as having no strategy. A manager who's responsible for formulating and communicating a strategy, has to at least have an opinion about which side of the curve we're currently on. Early in my career I was an analyst at an ocean shipping company--lower rates meant fuller ships, higher rates meant better unit margin but lower utilization. Corporate's strategic message? "Fill up the ships with high-paying cargo." It became a joke among the employees.
lordnacho 7y ago
In all my reading I've never found a satisfactory distinction between strategy and tactics. Every attempt I've seen either doesn't provide a clear answer or falls on some simple contradiction. My current thinking is that people tend to think of strategy as higher level than tactics, but that there's never a clear line that tells you which you are looking at. It's more the importance you want to give some decision that determines what you call it.
- ScalaFan 7y ago
  Here is an example within the world of chess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#Strategy_and_tactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#Strategy_and_tactics They are very well understood and delineated within that context.
  - lordnacho 7y ago
    > These two aspects of the gameplay cannot be completely separated, because strategic goals are mostly achieved through tactics, while the tactical opportunities are based on the previous strategy of play.
    - ScalaFan 7y ago
      And yet when you ask a chess player whether the situation has a tactic or a strategy in it (in some cases both), they can tell you which choice is a tactic and which is a strategy. Tactics are so well recognized that you can practice them: https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rated https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rated

kyllo 7y ago

Perhaps another problem with strategy is that we expect too much from it, because we neglect and devalue tactics. I often hear "strategic thinking" lauded and "tactical thinking" looked down upon by managerial types. But a strategy alone achieves nothing--you need good tactics to execute on it.

MiracleUser 7y ago
background: i make my living putting together quantitative analysis to support / reject strategic decisions I would not say a strategy alone achieves nothing - its actually quite the opposite the larger your "team" and scope of activity is. A lot of business decisions are not related to having a tactic but are a trade off between two important things (like cost and quality). Having a clear strategy allows people in your company to arrive at the same decision for which side of that trade-off to favor - which increases individual autonomy. For example, a high volume strategy leads to favoring low cost. A strategy to be scalable might favor higher upfront costs since cheap non-scalable options are removed from review. In both cases, when an option doesnt fit the strategy it is not considered an option. So your decision pool is reduced. Sometimes this reduction is enough that the choice is made for you. Especially when accounting for multiple strategies and company initiatives. Tactics are a different beast. Sometimes a tactic involves going against the general strategy, but is approved because there is confident calculation behind it and the expected result is wanted. The most important thing here is the calculation. It takes time and energy to develop and communicate a tactic. Those things are limited, so you can only be working on so many tactics at once, and only so many people are qualified to be doing that work (because those job titles are expensive). The critical factor here is that the volume of decisions that need to be made across an organization on a day-to-day basis are not bound by how much time you have to develop a tactic for each of them. So you have to trust the autonomy of your company hierarchy at each level to be able to make default decisions that dont interfere with company strategy. A strategy alone is enough to help keep a loose handle on things.. it goes a long way to preventing chaos. You might end up with a cashier accepting a return on something that is obviously not a valid return, but the overall strategy of being return-friendly is maintained. You also dont end up with a fist-fight between your cashier and the customer (extreme alternative example). When you have time, you develop a tactic for validating returns with order#'s or receipts, etc. but maybe your tactic team is busy dealing with warehouse optimizations this month
- kyllo 7y ago
  Yes, flexibly applying situational tactics to follow the principle and spirit of the strategy rather than the letter of the rulebook, is what leaders generally want their people to do. They communicate intent and let good judgement do the rest. The way I have always thought of strategy, though, is that it should be directional. Say what input variables you think we should increase or decrease, in order to get closer to the optimum, relative to where we are currently. Taking your example of cost vs. quality. Obviously we want to find an optimum. If a manager can state which direction we need to move in and why, to make progress toward the optimum, I will take their strategy seriously. But if they just tell their people to "optimize," I dismiss them as having no strategy. A manager who's responsible for formulating and communicating a strategy, has to at least have an opinion about which side of the curve we're currently on. Early in my career I was an analyst at an ocean shipping company--lower rates meant fuller ships, higher rates meant better unit margin but lower utilization. Corporate's strategic message? "Fill up the ships with high-paying cargo." It became a joke among the employees.

lordnacho 7y ago

In all my reading I've never found a satisfactory distinction between strategy and tactics. Every attempt I've seen either doesn't provide a clear answer or falls on some simple contradiction. My current thinking is that people tend to think of strategy as higher level than tactics, but that there's never a clear line that tells you which you are looking at. It's more the importance you want to give some decision that determines what you call it.

ScalaFan 7y ago
Here is an example within the world of chess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#Strategy_and_tactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#Strategy_and_tactics They are very well understood and delineated within that context.
- lordnacho 7y ago
  > These two aspects of the gameplay cannot be completely separated, because strategic goals are mostly achieved through tactics, while the tactical opportunities are based on the previous strategy of play.
  - ScalaFan 7y ago
    And yet when you ask a chess player whether the situation has a tactic or a strategy in it (in some cases both), they can tell you which choice is a tactic and which is a strategy. Tactics are so well recognized that you can practice them: https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rated https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rated