However, my basic observation is that while strategy involves making decisions, not all strategic decisions look decisive. A strategy might involve being indecisive about many things!
To riff on this, I see two very common misconceptions about strategy:
- It is a separate activity (likely undertaken once a year) that only clever and/or important people do.
- it is possible to not have a strategy.
In a sense the “execution is everything” team are right. But whatever you do, you will have made strategic choices. You may just have made them without knowing it.
Another question is whether you view the world as an engineer or a manager. An engineer sees the world as a set of problems to be solved. The manager sees the world as a set of predicaments to be lived thru.
Beautifully (and messily) argued. No surprises, but I think you're spot on.
Perhaps one factor is that when a bet really catches on, it often leads to the org hiring a bunch of people who have a clear remit, a feeling of confidence and (reasonably) reliable growth. And that _feels_ like what having a "clear vision" and "good strategy" should feel like. It then follows that if you _don't_ feel like that it's "because there's no clear vision and the leadership are bad at strategy". But it's just a different strategic season, as you point out.
"Be careful what you wish for!"
"Imagine a leadership team that follows a framework, makes "the hard decisions," and creates the focus everyone wants. It's equally likely the choices were wrong, and the pressure to converge did them in. Sometimes, it's better to admit what you don't know. The pressure to be decisive and have clear answers can be harmful if you aren't careful."
THIS. And it can be even worse for the person clamouring for focus, because often a business will choose to focus in a way that goes against what they would like to have happen, and makes their role redundant.
One of the big pushbacks I come up against when working with companies to operationalise multiple parallel probes is "but how do we manage that?". I'm pretty sure it's not a question of capability – they mostly have tools that could work, and they're mostly already doing more parallel threads than we're talking about anyway. I think it's more that they don't like the feeling of messiness?
Imo people mix strategy and vision. You don’t need a full fledged strategy if you have a proper vision in place. Something that people can work towards to. The strategy can be vague and provide just enough guidance. With a good vision people can then make good decisions when they need to decide.
If the vision is hardcoded into the strategy upfront, there is no wiggle room when reality hits.
To riff on this, I see two very common misconceptions about strategy:
- It is a separate activity (likely undertaken once a year) that only clever and/or important people do.
- it is possible to not have a strategy.
In a sense the “execution is everything” team are right. But whatever you do, you will have made strategic choices. You may just have made them without knowing it.
Another question is whether you view the world as an engineer or a manager. An engineer sees the world as a set of problems to be solved. The manager sees the world as a set of predicaments to be lived thru.
https://tempo.substack.com/p/dont-tell-me-your-strategy-budgeting
Beautifully (and messily) argued. No surprises, but I think you're spot on.
Perhaps one factor is that when a bet really catches on, it often leads to the org hiring a bunch of people who have a clear remit, a feeling of confidence and (reasonably) reliable growth. And that _feels_ like what having a "clear vision" and "good strategy" should feel like. It then follows that if you _don't_ feel like that it's "because there's no clear vision and the leadership are bad at strategy". But it's just a different strategic season, as you point out.
"Be careful what you wish for!"
"Imagine a leadership team that follows a framework, makes "the hard decisions," and creates the focus everyone wants. It's equally likely the choices were wrong, and the pressure to converge did them in. Sometimes, it's better to admit what you don't know. The pressure to be decisive and have clear answers can be harmful if you aren't careful."
THIS. And it can be even worse for the person clamouring for focus, because often a business will choose to focus in a way that goes against what they would like to have happen, and makes their role redundant.
One of the big pushbacks I come up against when working with companies to operationalise multiple parallel probes is "but how do we manage that?". I'm pretty sure it's not a question of capability – they mostly have tools that could work, and they're mostly already doing more parallel threads than we're talking about anyway. I think it's more that they don't like the feeling of messiness?
Also I explored the challenges of being straightforward that “our strategy is to try things until we figure out what works” in this one
https://triggerstrategy.substack.com/p/tumbling-into-the-vision-chasm-part-6f0
Great article on the topic.
Imo people mix strategy and vision. You don’t need a full fledged strategy if you have a proper vision in place. Something that people can work towards to. The strategy can be vague and provide just enough guidance. With a good vision people can then make good decisions when they need to decide.
If the vision is hardcoded into the strategy upfront, there is no wiggle room when reality hits.