It’s surprising how often leaders don’t truly understand strategy. The implications of not understanding good strategy are dire.
Professor Richard Rumelt re-wrote the playbook on strategy in his 2011 book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy.
Rumelt defines bad strategy as:
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Fluff
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Failure to face the challenge
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Bad strategic objectives – when they fail to address critical issues or when they are impracticable
Think of “bad” strategy as goals without a plan or roadmap.
In years of helping executive teams develop their strategic roadmap here are the most common fallacies and mistakes I see teams making when it comes to Strategic Planning:
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Mistaking “goals” for strategy – they are not the same
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Not valuing strategy at all, and just focusing on execution and lower level tactics
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Having a strategic roadmap, but not staying laser-focused on it and thus getting distracted by non-strategic initiatives
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Hunting silver-bullets (or “magic” bullets)
Let’s dive into the first one in more detail, mistaking goals for strategy.
A strategy is something altogether different than goals or tactics.
Think of strategy as the big-picture battle plan. It is not the finer details of “how” you’re going to accomplish something rather it is the “what”.
Strategy is the high-level 30,000-foot perspective.
For example, during WWII, General Eisenhower and the Allies’ strategy was to launch a stealth attack along the shores of France while distracting the Germans and luring them into thinking the attack would take place elsewhere. We know this as D-Day today.
That sounds simple, right? However, that strategy then involved a long series of goals and tactics to bring it to life. It was, to that point, one of the most complex and expensive military endeavors ever implemented.
That’s the beauty of a strong strategy. It’s deceptively simple, even if the implementation itself is complex.
Goals and tactics are the stuff of implementation. Think of the Strategy as the “what” we are doing and the goals and tactics as the “how” we are doing it.
That’s an important and non-trivial difference.
Many young leaders misunderstand “Strategy” and mistake it for “Tactics” or Goals. The reason is that they come from tactical roles and positions, so they haven’t been taught to think strategically. They don’t have practice being a General.
Good strategy takes practice, just like great decision-making of any kind.
Good strategy is very different than Bad Strategy. It follows a logical structure Rumelt calls the “kernel. The “kernel” is a logical narrative, a story, that follows a structure that makes sense even to a layperson. It involves:
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A diagnosis (of the challenge)
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A guiding policy
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Coherent action steps
I’d highly recommend watching this lecture that Rumelt gave at the London School of Economics. He even tells some stories from his friendship with Steve Jobs and how Jobs viewed strategy.
Where might you strengthen your strategic planning and avoid some of the common trappings of “bad strategy”?
