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It always shocks me how many leaders struggle with what a strategy is in the business world. Typically, as the author mentions, they either present a goal, “XXX

It always shocks me how many leaders struggle with what a strategy is in the business world. Typically, as the author mentions, they either present a goal, “XXX sales in Q1,” as a strategy or a checklist of tactics or actions. A strategy can be as little as a sentences or an entire plan, but it should be formalized. It is the “why” question. It answers the question of why you have people doing the things they are doing and keeps everyone on the same pages A simplified example might be: // Goal xxx sales in Q1 // Strategy Sell product at below competitor cost to capture market share and increase profit through efficiency of scale. // Tactics - decrease product price 10% - promote price difference in advertising - implement cost saving measures in customer support

doctor_eval 5y ago
I agree. It’s crazy how many senior people don’t understand strategy and can’t deal with complexity. Ex, I once worked at a company that required creation of a two sided market (buyers and sellers). I proposed that we bootstrap the market by creating a variant of our product to enter an existing, complementary market. By offering a cheaper solution in the complementary market with clear benefits for users, its likely we would have been able to establish a user base that we could then use to stimulate the seller side of the market, thereby achieving our goal of creating a brand new market. The strategy our management consultant CEO went with was to put ads on LinkedIn. Nobody works there any more.
- mattbuilds 5y ago
  My theory is that people have been trained and rewarded for being “not wrong”. Strategy requires you to take a stance and get specific. Sometimes the strategy will not work. I think we need to do a better job of encouraging this sort of thinking. I don’t remember where I heard but it was something along the lines of “we tell kids they can be whatever they want and then actively discourage them when they take the necessary steps to do those things by operating outside the box”. So this type of thinking becomes normal. Then when it comes to strategize people try to follow “best practices” and “proven techniques” which is kind of the opposite of strategy.
  - doctor_eval 5y ago
    Yes, I like this comment a lot. Any true strategy will need to have a specific outcome, and therefore can fail if the outcome is not reached. On the other hand, if you (or in my case the CEO) listen to any one of the thousand consultants who will tell you that, say, advertising on social media is a guaranteed path to sales, you can’t ever be wrong because you’ve implemented - as you say - “best practice” and “proven techniques”; you did your job but “for some reason” - externalities - it didn’t work. There was no strategy involved, but we don’t need to talk about that. This kind of thinking drives me nuts. Your theory also helps explain why people buy Exchange, or JIRA, or IBM in the olden days.
    - mattbuilds 5y ago
      People want all the rewards with none of the risk. But what’s funny is they are still taking the risk of failure. It’s more that they can fail and shift all blame away by saying “we did it all right, it just didn’t work”. It’s easier than doing the work themselves. I just think we would all be better off if we told people it’s OK to try and fail, as long as we learn from those failures. We need to support people trying new things. If we just follow prevailing wisdom, we can only tackle problems that are already solved.
      - gompertz 5y ago
        And I think these comments summarize why consultants like Accenture, KPMG, McKinsey, etc survive today. They are for leaders who want to shift strategy risk away from their own responsibility. Whether a strategy succeeds or fails; consultants have a finite lifespan with the organization
        mattbuilds 5y ago
        Yea absolutely. So much of it is a shell game (in some companies) where you attempt to shift blame and take credit for successes. Those type of consultancies help facilitate the game.
tgv 5y ago
Isn't strategy the answer to the how question? Why is usually called "vision", even though in many cases it amounts to "making money with the tools and knowledge we have."
- blowski 5y ago
  I define strategy as how you are going to leverage your strengths and overcome your weaknesses (in comparison to competitors) in order to achieve your vision.
- icegreentea2 5y ago
  From a top down perspective, strategy is a how. As you say, it is how you accomplish your vision. But from a bottom up (implementation) standpoint, it can also be a why. Why are you doing these particular actions? As part of the strategy to accomplish the goal. A well articulated strategy acts as a linking layer between ultra-high level goals and lower level decisions. We don't expect all actors in a large enough organization to re-derive all of their plans from first principles (nor do we want them to always do that), so a well defined strategy is essentially a pre-determined framework to operate in.

doctor_eval 5y ago

I agree. It’s crazy how many senior people don’t understand strategy and can’t deal with complexity. Ex, I once worked at a company that required creation of a two sided market (buyers and sellers). I proposed that we bootstrap the market by creating a variant of our product to enter an existing, complementary market. By offering a cheaper solution in the complementary market with clear benefits for users, its likely we would have been able to establish a user base that we could then use to stimulate the seller side of the market, thereby achieving our goal of creating a brand new market. The strategy our management consultant CEO went with was to put ads on LinkedIn. Nobody works there any more.

mattbuilds 5y ago
My theory is that people have been trained and rewarded for being “not wrong”. Strategy requires you to take a stance and get specific. Sometimes the strategy will not work. I think we need to do a better job of encouraging this sort of thinking. I don’t remember where I heard but it was something along the lines of “we tell kids they can be whatever they want and then actively discourage them when they take the necessary steps to do those things by operating outside the box”. So this type of thinking becomes normal. Then when it comes to strategize people try to follow “best practices” and “proven techniques” which is kind of the opposite of strategy.
- doctor_eval 5y ago
  Yes, I like this comment a lot. Any true strategy will need to have a specific outcome, and therefore can fail if the outcome is not reached. On the other hand, if you (or in my case the CEO) listen to any one of the thousand consultants who will tell you that, say, advertising on social media is a guaranteed path to sales, you can’t ever be wrong because you’ve implemented - as you say - “best practice” and “proven techniques”; you did your job but “for some reason” - externalities - it didn’t work. There was no strategy involved, but we don’t need to talk about that. This kind of thinking drives me nuts. Your theory also helps explain why people buy Exchange, or JIRA, or IBM in the olden days.
  - mattbuilds 5y ago
    People want all the rewards with none of the risk. But what’s funny is they are still taking the risk of failure. It’s more that they can fail and shift all blame away by saying “we did it all right, it just didn’t work”. It’s easier than doing the work themselves. I just think we would all be better off if we told people it’s OK to try and fail, as long as we learn from those failures. We need to support people trying new things. If we just follow prevailing wisdom, we can only tackle problems that are already solved.
    - gompertz 5y ago
      And I think these comments summarize why consultants like Accenture, KPMG, McKinsey, etc survive today. They are for leaders who want to shift strategy risk away from their own responsibility. Whether a strategy succeeds or fails; consultants have a finite lifespan with the organization
      - mattbuilds 5y ago
        Yea absolutely. So much of it is a shell game (in some companies) where you attempt to shift blame and take credit for successes. Those type of consultancies help facilitate the game.

tgv 5y ago

Isn't strategy the answer to the how question? Why is usually called "vision", even though in many cases it amounts to "making money with the tools and knowledge we have."

blowski 5y ago
I define strategy as how you are going to leverage your strengths and overcome your weaknesses (in comparison to competitors) in order to achieve your vision.
icegreentea2 5y ago
From a top down perspective, strategy is a how. As you say, it is how you accomplish your vision. But from a bottom up (implementation) standpoint, it can also be a why. Why are you doing these particular actions? As part of the strategy to accomplish the goal. A well articulated strategy acts as a linking layer between ultra-high level goals and lower level decisions. We don't expect all actors in a large enough organization to re-derive all of their plans from first principles (nor do we want them to always do that), so a well defined strategy is essentially a pre-determined framework to operate in.