The Choice is Yours … Maybe

What defines a good strategy? What does it mean? Strategy may be one of the most overused and subsequently confusing subjects in practically any realm we encounter. We hear about so many categories of strategy, that subjectivity has overcome objectivity in the usefulness of the word. Military strategy, business strategy, product strategy, life strategy, financial strategy, global strategy, marketing strategy, project strategy, retirement strategy … are among the near infinite categories.

Add to that the subject of planning … and it gets even messier. I believe that the two terms have been comingled sufficiently to take on whatever meaning one chooses and therefore beginning to approach becoming meaningless when evaluating or comparing between entities. Try testing this sometime. Ask 20 different people to define strategy, planning and strategic planning and see what you get. Expect to be amused, or maybe even confused. You may also discover that the responses will often predict what the respondent does and where they fit within an entity.

Add to that the confounding impacts of organizational structure and budgets, and, … maybe we begin to make it really hard to get clarity. Yep, I’m going to have a go at it ….

Let’s stipulate that all the stuff about goals and objectives is important and not up for debate right now. Let’s also stipulate that stuff is not free and we need to have control over resources and spend and therefore budgets are important. Plus, accountability, transparency, time, cost, and quality all matter too…

Strategy is what we do to create a future such that we maximize the choices and degrees of freedom along the way because some of what we believe or wish for is wrong. We could be wrong in what it will be like, what we actually want, what is going to happen,,, lots of ways. A strategy makes us think and consider the destination(s), the journey, and options for the detours and bumps in the road. Apply this to the categories above and see if it works. Strategies that reduce degrees of freedom and constrain choices tend to end up with calamitous consequences. Try it out on Betamax, the Peloponnesian Wars, mortgage backed derivatives, the Maginot Line, health care oligarchies, pension plans, hard wired enterprise systems, onerous controls and compliance requirements, procurement approvals …. When things do not play out as you expected, or wished, or sold, do you have the preparation and capability to adapt and exercise other choices? Decisions about Afghanistan, health care reform, even our next cell phone contract and provider choice would benefit greatly from this perspective (I believe..).

Planning is what we do to create confidence, not affirmation, that what we seek to do to deliver the strategy has legs. Planning is what bridges the activities between the present and the future so that we are capable to execute and adapt over time. It is about the verbs we will execute in order to secure the nouns and adjectives in our strategy.

So, my oversimplification would argue that we want confidence that we can get to the future we want, or emerges, with choices to make it better when we were wrong a little or a lot. Strategy gives us choice. Planning gives us confidence …

Thoughts?