I am so tired of this word. Strategy is probably the hottest topic on every executive’s table. Business schools rage wars to just flood the world with papers and research about strategy. Strategy consultants never stop to amaze me with their fictional work. Back home, everyone is talking about strategy, government departments, businesses, the grocery shop, the tea boy. Linking strategy with excellence is everyone’s motto, not that I know what it really means.
If you ask most of the people who use these terms, they probably can’t even define them. In fact, you will get a million definitions and you will end up being confused.
I recently read in the news a government official stating that “we will strategically serve our customers.” Tell me please what does that mean?
In the academic domain, where I am living now, it is even worse. It seems that every professor has got his own definition of strategy. What is even funnier is when you ask them to define these terms; they end up contradicting their own definitions. Many of these business schools are on a mission to brainwash you with these definitions.
It seems that this is going to be part of everyone’s hot discussion point with more sophisticated definition and implementation ideas for a while.
Frankly speaking, I would just recommend the old school definition of strategy being” a plan of action.” If you are so confused like me now, you can even call it a plan. Before you get brainwashed, with “strategic this and strategic that”, try to think about what really matters in the future, and you will see that it is the present that matters the most. That is why when someone gives you a gift he or she calls it a “present.” Don’t get me wrong, you need to think about the future, and think a lot about it. But, you need to remember that decisions you make today or can make today are the most important, since they are within your control. They will decide the future for you. If it gets too complex to learn, then it will become too complex to understand, and hence too complex to implement.
If you are confused like me, I hope that I have not added to your confusion, but please don’t be brainwashed by this wave of “strategic everything”. And you do not need to be strategic at everything, some things are just simply the way they are. Certain things are routine, certain things need common sense and certain things in life just happen.I would not be surprised to read one day, that you need to have a strategic relationship, a strategic family, a strategic health and strategic life!
Amen brother 🙂