Is it really so hard?

I recently had a chance for some in-depth discussions with some folks from a strategic group within one of the largest companies in the world. This is a new group that's supposed to be doing something totally different from what this company has done in the past; they aren't supposed to be pushing the company's product--they're supposed to be leading in the arena of ideas.

The talks were good--this really did seem to be something new. But then cracks started to show in the facade...structure this, framework that, process x, construct y... These would be fine if they were looked at in terms of the outgrowths, realization, or implementation of strategy, but they began to be looked at as strategy unto themselves.

At the end of the day, I realized that this huge company was seeking to sell strategy as a product rather than building strategy as a service. This is not uncommon. "Doing" strategy is hard and understood by only a few. Often, organizations settle for systematic application of processes rather than the development of strategy. It's OK to use a process to develop your strategy, but the process isn't strategy in itself.

With enough time and resources, tactically-built plans can overcome many of the limitations of a lack of good strategic planning. You can stand on the shoulders of others' thought-through methods for implementing strategy and accomplish a lot. But it turns out that the relationship between strategic and tactical is a lot like the relationship between leadership and management:

• Strategy and Leadership are more rare and are difficult to teach; they tend to be innate when they're most excellent
• Good tactics and Good management, practiced by experienced hands, can appear to be strategy or leadership
• Strategy without good tactical follow-through winds up being an unread position paper.  Leadership without good management of the team tasked with achieving the objective winds up being forgotten ideas.

It's important to be able to put ideas in to practice and follow through, but cultivating a truly strategic mentality takes deliberate work and a separate focus.  Take some time to make sure you understand the distinction for your organization and how you can foster it.  You might be surprised.

Know when to hold 'em

There's a big flap in Washington today and a "whodunit" mentality about the leak of the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan's warnings of failure without a large, new infusion of troop strength. In the wake of the "leak," Secretery of State Clinton has called the general's assessment "the exact opposite" of the assessment of other "experts."

Don't worry--this isn't an attempt to stir up controversy or shed opinions about the current political situation.

Instead, it's to ask a simple question: If you have limited resources (in the above example, it's political credibility and sway), where and how should you use them?

When setting out the strategic framework for your company, you evaluate your industry, unique capabilities, drivers, and vision. You develop your list of products and services and identify your target customers and markets. Looking at what you offer and your available markets, you determine which goods and services will be of most appeal to which parts of which markets. Then, you make sure your people and processes support the goal of selling in to your target--current and future--markets.

Not every group in your organization needs to have input in to every process for every product in every marketplace. This is why you develop an overall strategy but then filter it as it gets downstream, applying the scarce resources of your organization where they'll provide the most benefit.

We don't all have the blank-check "freedom" of the Federal government and the mentality of unchecked growth and involvement that seem to go with it. We have to be a bit more careful with our resources, and "know when to hold 'em..."

Why is this such an elusive idea?

Strategy isn't hard--it's life. It's thinking about the things you want to do and deciding how you're going to do them. When you apply that to making money, it's business strategy. When you apply it to conquering or defending territory, it's military strategy.

So why is it so hard? It's because most of us really can't separate building the strategy from the reality of what it means--making or continuing with a change.

Change is--or can be--hard. We like to stick with what we know. But--even though it's hard, hard things can be good.

Let's have a conversation. Let's talk about strategy. This isn't a fishing expedition--this is a real-life look at how things get done and...maybe...how they can get done better.

Mostly we'll probably talk about business--people, processes, systems, products, markets, tools, relationships... Sometimes, we'll talk about world events, politics, and what's going on in the neighborhood--you might be surprised at how much you can learn about making your business successful by thinking about how things work well with your neighbors or even in your own family.

At the end of the day, let's see if we can talk about what works, and how a common-sense approach really does work, even when "the paradigm" is constantly shifting.