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Why don’t we have a strategy?

cutlefish.substack.com

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Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#41

Post by tmountain »

vendiddy wrote: post #22

Are there some historical examples of good strategies out there? I'm having trouble understanding the definition of a strategy and how it differs from a plan.

I think Apple launching the iPod is a good example.

- They saw a need in the consumer market that wasn't filled.

- They used the Apple team as "target customers" to help with needs analysis.

- They addressed UX/ergonomics issues present in existing offerings.

- They leveraged existing footholds to maximize value (iTunes, digital store, etc).

- They started with a niche market to gain influencer status with their offering.

- They ended with an ecosystem of products built around their original idea, some of which represented new innovations that weren't part of the original plan.

All of the bullets above can be folded into a plan, but at the macro level, they comprise a directional motion for the org.

"We're going to offer this thing to solve this problem to these people, our unique competitive advantages are X, Y, and Z, and we believe we're uniquely positioned as a result."

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#42

Post by dgb23 »

The quote from Richard Rumelt:

> "A good strategy includes a set of coherent actions. They are not "implementation" details; they are the punch in the strategy. A strategy that fails to define a variety of plausible and feasible immediate actions is missing a critical component."

Hints at something important. It is also assertive and convincing, dangerously so. Note that Rumelt is apparently smart and influential but also an academic.

The good part is that strategy is layered and gradual. There's probably no clear semantic line where strategy stops and operations or tactics start. The thing he criticizes here is a strategy that is too vague and incomplete.

The bad part is that he seems to fall into a very typical trap. The more concrete and detailed a strategy is, the more it bleeds into decisions that should not be made top down. A strategy that is too detailed fails to acknowledge the complexities of life and it dangerously assumes two things: Thinkers are smarter than they are, doers cannot make too many good ad-hoc decisions.

It might sound very good in the ears of some thinkers and decision makers, because it inflates their ego. Be wary of that. It's a red flag. It also sounds nice because seems to remove risk and the human factor, with a perfect strategy, you might assume that people are interchangeable. It's simply not the case.

A good strategy is simple and short enough so it can be taught in less than one hour or so and understood by everyone. The most efficient organizations, teams, armies, communities, groups etc. that have proven to succeed under the most adversity, pretty much all have rock solid, agreed upon core principles and plans that everyone executes dynamically in a decentralized fashion.

Don't be fooled by 'too big to fail'-type oligopolies. They are often past the point where they need to do anything more than risk mitigation and value extraction. Anything else is just keeping people busy. Look at how people survive or win 'against all odds', especially if they can pull it off consistently and over long periods of time.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#43

Post by duxup »

I'm the guy who reads that article and all these comments and if I'm in the meeting where they talk about this I just politely nod and have no idea what anyone is talking about. Meanwhile I"m thinking we're not even talking about a strategy, we're talking about what "strategy" even is... or not and just talking past each other.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#44

Post by Invictus0 »

A lot of people giving hot takes here about what strategy is, and ironically Rumelt wrote his book to give a clear definition on what strategy is. The author of the substack does us all a disservice by not quoting Rumelt accurately.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#45

Post by l33t2328 »

mihaic wrote: post #36

Any sufficiently useful strategy to handle complexity needs to have some amount of ambiguity, which needs to be filled in by people with a minimum of life experience and good intentions. I've become more convinced in recent years that even a well thought out strategy can't be implemented by the average post-modernist cynical office workers, and the secret right now is identifying how you can have a highly robust stra…

> A culture with good values that also punishes bullshit/imorality seems to be required.

CGP Grey coined an excellent term for these on his podcast, calling them “The Necessary Lies of Civilization.”

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#46

Post by the_af »

Ensorceled wrote: post #40
the_af wrote: post #25

I realize that this is a minor nitpick and I'm taking it out of context, but: > The theory goes that ideas are cheap, and execution is everything. This isn't wrong. In fact, it seems more right than wrong. All people, all the time, think they have ideas, some even novel. Not many can carry them out in practice. I do agree with the article that the culture of celebrating mindless productivity is mistaken.

>> The theory goes that ideas are cheap, and execution is everything. > This isn't wrong. In fact, it seems more right than wrong. I think the articles point is that somewhere between the "cheap" ideas and execution there is a place for strategy that is being neglected. Lots of people have ideas for social media platforms and lots of people execute on them. Only a few of the, often adhoc, strategies paid off and most…

Agreed, which is why I admitted the quote was taken out of context.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#47

Post by dgb23 »

oersted wrote: post #11
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

> The problem isn't that people can't think strategically. The problem is that real life has a way of making your strategy obsolete. As Mike Tyson said: Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Having a team that communicates effectively and and is agile (in the normal sense of the word) and executes effectively is more important than strategy.

It's not an excuse not to have a plan. Strategy is dynamic and iterative. When you get punched in the mouth, you just adjust your plan based on new evidence, you don't throw it out the window. Besides, business and engineering are not like fights and battles. Sudden shocks are rare and split-second decisions are not often called for. In most cases new evidence comes gradually, there is time to validate it, digest it…

> When you get punched in the mouth, you just adjust your plan based on new evidence, you don't throw it out the window.

I interpret the Mike Tyson quote differently than you. What he was saying that under high pressure you _will_ throw stuff out of the window, namely all the stuff that doesn't work under pressure, in difficult situations. This is why plans need to be simple. You need to be able to keep them in your head when shit hits the fan so you don't start flailing around like a headless chicken.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#48

Post by the_af »

tomlue wrote: post #32
the_af wrote: post #25

I realize that this is a minor nitpick and I'm taking it out of context, but: > The theory goes that ideas are cheap, and execution is everything. This isn't wrong. In fact, it seems more right than wrong. All people, all the time, think they have ideas, some even novel. Not many can carry them out in practice. I do agree with the article that the culture of celebrating mindless productivity is mistaken.

Mostly agree, but this position creates a sense of helplessness. If all ideas are bad, then the idea doesn't matter, and I shouldn't waste time evaluating ideas. As an example, people w/ decades of experience in the domain of your idea can sometimes quickly invalidate it. Years of life can be saved by seeking that feedback, particularly when that knowledge is difficult to obtain.

Totally. Note I don't think "all ideas are bad", it's just that the actual execution is often more important, even for good ideas.

The whole "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration" thing :)

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#49

Post by dchuk »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #19
dchuk wrote: post #14

The overwhelming majority of “strategies” are just rigid sequences of time bound outputs/shit you want to build, that always end up being wrong and needing to change because of new information coming in. Strategy needs to be: - We’ve identified this deep problem in the world that needs to be fixed - We want to bring the Vision to life where that problem is gone (a big bold future state of the world). - We believe bri…

i agree, but think timelines are a practical necessity of business. this is why we get so much half-baked/unfinished stuff being released. and this is where the trade-offs happen that dilute or misdirect an otherwise sound roadmap/strategy. some exec needs shit done so he can present to his boss and get his nice bonus, then jump ship before they realise its a clusterf*ck.

I don't disagree that timelines are important. However, here is the problem I consistently see:

Wrong Way: Most roadmaps contain timelines that are "We're going to build this specific thing and we're estimating it's going to take this long" (Even worse is if they're specifically bucketed by quarters with strict cut offs). Isolated estimates of how long something will take will always be wrong because it doesn't account for all the work in the system and the trade offs that brings with it. Basic Lean theory at work.

Right Way: "We're going to try and create this future state of the world, we'll know we're there as measured by x y z metrics, and we're going to budget this much time and this many resources to try and pull this off. Here's some high level ideas of how we can do this".

When you roadmap in the second way, you can still provide the business a timeline, but:

- You leave yourself the ability to pivot your approach along the way and still try and hit those measurables (futures not features, you want to be crystal clear about where you're trying to get without committing to how you're going to get there in any specific way)

- You transition the evaluation of your results away from a boolean (did you build this thing or not), to a discrete measurable, that still allows you to achieve some amount of success even if you didn't completely hit the goal ("Our target was a 60% reduction in support calls, and we were able to reduce by 40%").

I'd also argue that a kanban style roadmap (considering, planning, next, doing, done), is more than enough of a timeline even without dates, so long as each outcome seems reasonable enough to achieve in 2-4 month efforts. The reason why, is I can look at the right side of the roadmap and immediately understand that you've prioritized those Outcomes as being more impactful than the left side of your roadmap.

(Extreme caveat here: You have to have a leadership team that buys into this approach. Some leaders will look at this and just say WTF where's your Gantt chart. You can then either teach them the right way, do what they say and probably fail, or quit, your call).

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