Strategy

Definitions

Strategy has so many definitions you could write a book about them. Here are couple of them: ”A plan of action designed to achieve a long term or overall aim.” or ”A general plan or set of plans intended to achieve something over a long period of time.”

Strategy for individuals

I focus on strategy for individuals in this text. Strategy is applied in many organisations. Military strategy, business strategy, and corporate strategy are the most common applications. You can create a strategy for life or for some aspect of life. For example, you can create an investment strategy or a strategy for being the best you can be. You can create a set of principles that you use to guide your actions, thought processes, and decision-making to achieve a long term aim. These principles are your framework. Do not confuse strategy and tactics. Strategy is a common framework for achieving what you want. Tactics are the individual tools you use to make strategy happen.

Past and present

Even though strategy focuses on the future, your past has an effect on it. The knowledge, skills and talents you have today were created in the past. You also have to understand where you are now and to understand how you can get in a position in which you want to be in the future. You cannot create a strategy to get there without understanding your past and your present situation. You depend on them when you are defining the position you want to be in.

First, you need to know where you are right now. You need to know your knowledge, skills and talents and other assets you have like your relationships and finances. You have to understand what is unique about them. You also need to know what you don´t know, what you cannot do, and what is hard or impossible for you to accomplish. You have to find out brutal facts and separate them from your beliefs. You cannot figure all these things yourself. You need help. Ask your unbiased friends or have yourself tested. Consult professionals. When you know where you are, you can find the best opportunities to get where you want to be. And you can also see obstacles to get there.

If your strategy has an effect on other people, consult them about it. There are some things that you can figure out only by yourself. For example, what things make you feel great? What things make you feel weak? For example, I feel great when I can figure out how things are connected and feel weak when I have to communicate with the people I don´t like or know well. Nobody can tell you these things.

Remember that some of these things change. You are not the same person five years from now. Be prepared for changes. After you have figured out all the facts about things mentioned before, you can start designing a strategy for the future. You start with strategic vision and compress it to your strategic intent. Then you figure out your strategic objectives to accomplish your intent. Finally, you start executing your strategy.

Future

Your strategic vision tells you about where you want to be and when. You have to think what you can accomplish in the future, is it worth the effort, and it tells you what you want to accomplish and why you want to do it. It also tells you when you when you want all these things to happen. You make a vision for future that is many years from the date you finish it. Your strategic vision have to answer three sets of questions. First, what is the valuable and unique position you want to be in and what this position means to you and all the people it has an effect on. Second, what are the benefits you can offer them? What is the difference between these benefits and benefits your competitors offer to them? Third, what are your guiding values for achieving your unique position?

When you are done with your strategic vision, you have to compress it to strategic intent. Your stratetic intent has to be short and concise compared to your strategic vision. All the people who has to deal with it has to be behind it. It doesn´t matter whether they are your colleagues at work or your family. The best time span for it is from three to five years. It has to be challenging and visionary. A simple example of strategic intent is ”I want to be number one in X in region Y five years from now!”

After you have done your assessment of the present situation, where you want to be in the future and defined your strategic vision and intent, you have to figure out strategic objectives. They are initiatives to lead you from present to the future. These objectives are building blocks of the strategic intent. But they are for shorter period of time than the intent. Objectives need to be:

• Interconnected with the strategic vision and strategic intent;
• Large enough to get the desired result;
• Clear, compact, and desired;
• Specific about what you are trying to accomplish; and
• Quantitatively measurable

Finally, when you have put all these things together, you can define the action plan to get where you want to be and you can have your measurable strategic objectives ready for executing the plan. Be aware that in war no plan survives the first encounter with the enemy. The same happens to your strategy while you are executing it. You will probably have to change your plan and its objectives. You may even have to change your strategic intent.

To be fair, my knowledge and skills about strategy are very limited. Please be free to correct any mistakes in the text. I doubt it is complete enough for this mental model. I will get back to this theme when I understand and learn more about it.

-TT