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.
