Even a bad strategy is better than nothing.
Everyone has dreams but few people seem to have strategic plans to achieve them. In fact, people seem to avoid being strategic about reaching their goals at all costs. I enjoy making strategic plans and watching them unfold, evolve, fail, and every now and then, succeed wildly. It is a natural part of planning my life and running a business but it isn’t that way for everyone.
A strategy is a unique, logical approach to solving a particular goal. There is nothing unapproachable or complex about that definition, except for perhaps the logic part. Let’s use losing weight as an example goal. One good strategy for losing weight is to consume less calories than you burn. When it is time to eat lunch a good tactic might be to eat some vegetables, for dinner another tactic aligned with the same strategy would be to have some fish instead of a cheeseburger. Easy, right? Another losing weight strategy might be to burn more calories than you consume. In that case your tactic might be to run fifteen miles every day and not worry about what you eat as long as you get enough calories to avoid exhaustion from the intense exercising.
Strategy seems complicated because it is most often talked about in the context of politics, war and business by people who have much to gain by making it seem like something only they can figure out for you. Leaders set strategy and the plebs and slaves follow it. We have thousands of years of social conditioning telling us to let the people who really know what they are doing (politicians, CEOs, and mass media?) come up with strategies that the rest of us should just follow. Sadly, when we follow leaders we actually lose the ‘Wisdom of Crowds‘ that normally averages out the making of bad decisions. This happens because we discard our personal biases and our own thinking and take on those of our leaders. If you are not setting your own goals and strategy the answer isn’t in self help books.
Another factor that complicates strategic thinking is lack of context. Our society has developed generic paths to success for almost every activity and they sound strategic. Dreams: “With hard work anyone can achieve their dreams.” Middle Class Ennui: “Get a good education, get a job, get rich, retire happy.” Education: “Reading, writing and ‘rithmetic.” While these platitudes might have some value to contribute to a strategy they are too general to have any real meaning. They lack the uniqueness of context required for a good strategy. Inherently, strategy is about dealing with competition, and that is why context is so important. If everyone is willing to work harder than you, hard work isn’t a good strategy. Without taking into account your individual context these sorts of pithy strategic statements just add to the confusion of what a strategy actually is. By the way, how’s that arithmetic working out for you these days?
Creating a strategy requires honesty with your yourself about what your strengths and weaknesses are and what to do with them. That is another reflection that people avoid. It also demands faith in the possibilities of planning for the future. “Planning for the future might pay off at some point but procrastination always pays off right now.” As cute as that cliché is, it isn’t a very good strategy for getting anything accomplished. Most importantly, coming up with a strategy demands getting out of the weeds and looking at the world around you and how you can add value and create something. This is what is meant by being a productive member of society not just a consumer. It is far easier to watch another show or read another Blog than to sit down and figure out what you are willing to do to achieve the things you want.
Not having a strategy is like driving to an unfamiliar destination without having a map. Or worse, not having any idea where you are on the map to begin with. This is simply a manifestation of insecurity. If you don’t commit to a specific plan you can’t be wrong if it doesn’t work out the way you planned. Thus, your identity is intact. You are still a ‘business owner’ or a an ‘artist’ trying to make it.
Being strategic is essential to developing the skills to recognize when you are succeeding and when you are failing. Knowing what is or isn’t working is the only way to improve. If you keep making the same mistakes over and over again there is something wrong with your strategy or lack there of. Change it.
