4 ms·

So I'm not saying strategic vs tactical is a binary; it's a spectrum. And where to fall on it is hard; I think we're in agreement here. But, you mention you've

So I'm not saying strategic vs tactical is a binary; it's a spectrum. And where to fall on it is hard; I think we're in agreement here. But, you mention you've been overridden by bad executive fiat on occasion, and also made forays where you shouldn't have because you didn't have the bigger picture. The 'right' course of action to address both of those as your manager would be to make sure you understand the bigger picture, and then to let you (or whoever bears the effect of the decision) make the decision, not to make it for you, nor to let you stumble blindly into a bad one. In terms of Jobs, Musk, Ford, Bezos, strategy informs tactics, and tactics inform strategy; as you say, you have to ask questions and seek to understand; you also need to communicate and help people connect the dots. But that's different than daily status reports and directives. Seeking to understand the why, rather than endlessly try and stay up to date of the what, is the goal. If you've built a healthy org, they'll raise up concerns about the what when they need to; even when they do, the fix for a bad situation is never focusing on the situation ("still in the hole?" "yep"), it's helping navigate a way out of it ("quit digging; here's a ladder, our new goal is climbing out"), and then figure out how to avoid it in the future ("how did we get in that hole? Why did we keep digging ourselves deeper? WHERE DID ALL THESE SHOVELS COME FROM?!"). And, yes, strategy is often boring and predictable; given the same knowledge, the same set of inputs, most people would make the same decision. It's one reason why I don't think executive pay is justified; I'm not intending to mythologize it or something. Just point out that as you climb a management hierarchy, your concerns move along the strategy/tactical axis toward the strategy side, and that oftentimes bad, poorly informed decisions are due to execs moving too far toward the tactical.

jollybean 5y ago
The example I gave involved information persistence, lawyers and and government national security apparatus i.e. way above my pay grade. So many issues transcend the narrow scope of some product, which is why 'the effect' as you say, generally goes pretty far, meaning, executive leadership input which is essentially necessary. It's also a good example of how circumstances can create existential scenarios that have nothing to do with classical strategy and yet take up so much time and be pretty important to a companies evolution. To me, strategic issues like acquisitions, major product extensions or internalizing parts of the supply chain (i.e. Apple doing cars, their new ASIC chips) are big, CEO level things, those are not general executive strategic things. The VP at Apple in charge of desktop software products has a 'strategy' that is not going to remotely sound like a 'strategy'. I believe that the iPhone, since it's inception, has evolved along the lines of efficient product operations, not strategy. Or rather, their 'strategy' would be summarized by choosing 1-3 major consumer issues to focus on, having a new physical design to support that, and all of the marketing, carrier sales, ops and production issues resonating efficiently around it. Their 'strategy' is in a way just 'effective and coordinated product, product marketing, manufacturing, marketing operations' etc..
- lostcolony 5y ago
  "The example I gave involved information persistence, lawyers and and government national security apparatus i.e. way above my pay grade." My reply still stands. "Hey soandso, we need to change our persistence strategy for this information due to regulatory compliance" "Uh, okay. What are the specifics?" "I'm not entirely sure; I've already reached out to soandso in legal/whatever to let them know we're working on this, reach out to them" "Got it" You haven't been blindsided, nor have you been told what to do by fiat; you've been informed about a new stakeholder and been empowered to collect requirements from them.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    So you wouldn't be in a position to know this - but that would be a dramatic oversimplification of the situation, though my anecdote is specific, I think it highlights how scope is often broader than we think in general. 'The situation' involved legal overview of ambiguous legal statutes, to the point wherein we had to engage specialized, outside law firms. Even just making that determination, and the wherewithal to know hat we needed outside help, the type of help, the firm to use ... way beyond me. We're dealing with a government agency using those 'backdoor' channels within the bureaucracy, very sensitive, political, relationship based. In that context, the 'product part' (my job) was frankly the easiest, most obvious thing. It was all of the 'other things' that made it very difficult to navigate. In the other anecdote, where I was 'blindsided' by an executive requiring a specific thing for a product without much discussion, there were broader issues at play, I think your assessment of 'context' might have helped, but even then, it still would have required coordination. So these things all touch each other, and where they do, there's an VP involved, having to make decisions, every day. I'm really wary of some of the commentary here that is dismissive of the kind of work executives do, I think those comments lack a kind of organizational maturity. Director and VP level jobs are the most brutal kinds of work, they're very stressful and operationally oriented, they are not these 'big office grand strategy' type jobs that I think maybe some people think they are. Though obviously 'it depends'.
    - lostcolony 5y ago

jollybean 5y ago

The example I gave involved information persistence, lawyers and and government national security apparatus i.e. way above my pay grade. So many issues transcend the narrow scope of some product, which is why 'the effect' as you say, generally goes pretty far, meaning, executive leadership input which is essentially necessary. It's also a good example of how circumstances can create existential scenarios that have nothing to do with classical strategy and yet take up so much time and be pretty important to a companies evolution. To me, strategic issues like acquisitions, major product extensions or internalizing parts of the supply chain (i.e. Apple doing cars, their new ASIC chips) are big, CEO level things, those are not general executive strategic things. The VP at Apple in charge of desktop software products has a 'strategy' that is not going to remotely sound like a 'strategy'. I believe that the iPhone, since it's inception, has evolved along the lines of efficient product operations, not strategy. Or rather, their 'strategy' would be summarized by choosing 1-3 major consumer issues to focus on, having a new physical design to support that, and all of the marketing, carrier sales, ops and production issues resonating efficiently around it. Their 'strategy' is in a way just 'effective and coordinated product, product marketing, manufacturing, marketing operations' etc..

lostcolony 5y ago
"The example I gave involved information persistence, lawyers and and government national security apparatus i.e. way above my pay grade." My reply still stands. "Hey soandso, we need to change our persistence strategy for this information due to regulatory compliance" "Uh, okay. What are the specifics?" "I'm not entirely sure; I've already reached out to soandso in legal/whatever to let them know we're working on this, reach out to them" "Got it" You haven't been blindsided, nor have you been told what to do by fiat; you've been informed about a new stakeholder and been empowered to collect requirements from them.
- jollybean 5y ago
  So you wouldn't be in a position to know this - but that would be a dramatic oversimplification of the situation, though my anecdote is specific, I think it highlights how scope is often broader than we think in general. 'The situation' involved legal overview of ambiguous legal statutes, to the point wherein we had to engage specialized, outside law firms. Even just making that determination, and the wherewithal to know hat we needed outside help, the type of help, the firm to use ... way beyond me. We're dealing with a government agency using those 'backdoor' channels within the bureaucracy, very sensitive, political, relationship based. In that context, the 'product part' (my job) was frankly the easiest, most obvious thing. It was all of the 'other things' that made it very difficult to navigate. In the other anecdote, where I was 'blindsided' by an executive requiring a specific thing for a product without much discussion, there were broader issues at play, I think your assessment of 'context' might have helped, but even then, it still would have required coordination. So these things all touch each other, and where they do, there's an VP involved, having to make decisions, every day. I'm really wary of some of the commentary here that is dismissive of the kind of work executives do, I think those comments lack a kind of organizational maturity. Director and VP level jobs are the most brutal kinds of work, they're very stressful and operationally oriented, they are not these 'big office grand strategy' type jobs that I think maybe some people think they are. Though obviously 'it depends'.
  - lostcolony 5y ago