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Why don’t we have a strategy?

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Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#91

Post by marcosdumay »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #78

I'm a strategic thinker. I have been, almost my entire career. I write software that lasts decades , and have authored systems that took ten years to mature. The issue is that I have almost never been allowed to express, communicate, or implement my strategies. "Strategic thinking" is an ego thing. Only "big bosses" are "allowed" to "think strategically." If those of us, down in the trenches, "dare" to think strategi…

> I remember being called a "Cassandra,"

It's off-topic, but, why do people throw that as if it's an offense? They are certainly not self-identifying as stupid ones that will refuse to see real problems.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#92

Post by AlbertCory »

jamiek88 wrote: post #80
AlbertCory wrote: post #53

There is an old engineer quote that appears a couple times in my newest book, where at 3Com the Microsoft LAN Manager alliance and OS/2 were considered "strategic," as was the Bridge acquisition: "Strategic" means "you don't make any money." So yeah, we were all deeply cynical about that word, because it means, all too often, the inchoate wishes that MBAs throw onto a bunch of slides. I'm all in favor of a really wel…

Was Android strategic for google or just reaction to an existential threat?

I always like to distinguish "with hindsight" from "at the time." Anyone can figure out what's strategic from hindsight.

At the time? I think probably Larry, Sergey, and Eric thought it was strategic then. Did they think it was more strategic than radio ads (a business long gone!) or TV ads (also gone!)? Not sure.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#93

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

marcosdumay wrote: post #91
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #78

I'm a strategic thinker. I have been, almost my entire career. I write software that lasts decades , and have authored systems that took ten years to mature. The issue is that I have almost never been allowed to express, communicate, or implement my strategies. "Strategic thinking" is an ego thing. Only "big bosses" are "allowed" to "think strategically." If those of us, down in the trenches, "dare" to think strategi…

> I remember being called a "Cassandra," It's off-topic, but, why do people throw that as if it's an offense? They are certainly not self-identifying as stupid ones that will refuse to see real problems.

Because it is meant as an offense. It is designed to make it plain that our input is not welcome.

The whole idea is to belittle someone else, and stop them from coming to you, with their ideas.

To be fair, there are people who get waaaaayyyy too obsessed with "not a problems." I have worked with many of them, over the years. In fact, I just got off a video call with one that suggested that we scrap our entire, near-ship-ready app, because we are not sure how well it will scale for millions of users, and it is highly doubtful that it will have more than a few thousand users, for the next three or four years.

This is an app that has been under development for two years, and is looking very good.

I completely understand why what I said to Marketing was not received well. Part of it was practicality. Changing course is difficult, expensive, and risky. Even a high-level person would be crazy to do it on a whim.

But the bigger part was ego. I know the people involved. In this community, tecchies are valued and listened to, but, if you are a small, technical team, in a marketing/sales/service company, you get used to being treated like Moss and Roy.

What is a good idea, though, is to evaluate who is bringing the news, and what it would take to start examining the issue. If my company had done that, then they would have been well-prepared.

That's something that many companies are spectacularly bad at.

Instead, they stuck their fingers in their ears, and sang "La-la-la-I-can't-hear-you."

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#94

Post by sthatipamala »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #85
vasco wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, you walked into Marketing and said "This is gonna be trouble". What would happen next? Was the person looking at you even able to decide anything about what Marketing was working on? When you foresaw this huge danger to your employer, ten years in advance, you didn't keep mentioning it to people, or if change companies to somewhere that you know, you don't have the knowledge that is gonna fail for sure due to you…

> Was the person looking at you even able to decide anything about what Marketing was working on? VP? Probably. > When you foresaw this huge danger to your employer, ten years in advance, you didn't keep mentioning it to people It only takes a couple of slaps to make us shut up[0]. They didn't want to hear from me, so I stopped trying to tell them stuff. Simple. In this case, what I did, was start learning about the…

People have said similar things about me as your Japanese peer. What follows is tough love for myself so take it for what its worth:

If no one listens to me when I'm right, that's my problem, not theirs.

Everyone has their own incentives and motivations. If my goal is to actually effect change, the onus is on me to translate my strategy into a plan that is executable by self-interested, messy human beings.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#95

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

sthatipamala wrote: post #94
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Was the person looking at you even able to decide anything about what Marketing was working on? VP? Probably. > When you foresaw this huge danger to your employer, ten years in advance, you didn't keep mentioning it to people It only takes a couple of slaps to make us shut up[0]. They didn't want to hear from me, so I stopped trying to tell them stuff. Simple. In this case, what I did, was start learning about the…

People have said similar things about me as your Japanese peer. What follows is tough love for myself so take it for what its worth: If no one listens to me when I'm right, that's my problem, not theirs. Everyone has their own incentives and motivations. If my goal is to actually effect change, the onus is on me to translate my strategy into a plan that is executable by self-interested, messy human beings.

I don't consider that tough. I'm much harder on myself than that.

There were many factors to consider. Factor One, was that I am not Japanese. Even though I had a level of "insider trust," that is very rare for westerners, I wasn't "one of them."

Second, if you are familiar with the way Japanese companies run, hierarchy is crucial. Once you are informed that your input is not welcome, you are expected to just shut up, and fall into line. Pick up a musket, and kneel on the front row. Even if you know you are doomed, you shut up and aim.

This has caused many problems. The Fukushima disaster was exacerbated by it.

Another factor, was that I am not Marketing. "Staying in your wheelhouse" is something that is not unique to Japanese companies. The VP I mentioned was not Japanese. I was ignored, because I wasn't Marketing. I could have been an intern in Marketing, and I would have had more cred.

I should also mention, that this was the same VP, that, in the 1990s, I mentioned that digital imaging was going to dominate, gave me a lecture about how film was never going to die. He was able to reverse course, quite quickly, on that one, though. The iPhone thing was a second chance. He didn't recover from that.

And, of course, there's the old "It's not a problem, if we can't predict it 100%, ten years in advance," or "If you complain, you also need to have the solution."

That second one is a killer. Many disastrously bad "solutions" come about, because the issue had not been explored enough, when the "solution" was presented.

Sometimes, it is best to not have an answer, until you understand the question.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#96

Post by danielmarkbruce »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #78

I'm a strategic thinker. I have been, almost my entire career. I write software that lasts decades , and have authored systems that took ten years to mature. The issue is that I have almost never been allowed to express, communicate, or implement my strategies. "Strategic thinking" is an ego thing. Only "big bosses" are "allowed" to "think strategically." If those of us, down in the trenches, "dare" to think strategi…

This doesn't read well. If you want to be heard, communication skills matter.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#97

Post by danielmarkbruce »

heymijo wrote: post #27

Any time strategy comes up I chuckle because it's Groundhog Day. Strategy discussions sometimes have no definition, sometimes lots of definitions, but never a shared definition. Strategy is conflated with vision or mission. People use the word as a noun, an adverb, and an adjective and all the while talking past each other. Its use across domains, history, and context all with different meanings make it rife for misu…

The lack of shared definition is the thing.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#98

Post by danielmarkbruce »

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.

There a lots of startups who execute reasonably well against a crappy idea.

Bad ideas are cheap. I'd argue that good ideas are rare and usually expensive - they come from a deep understanding of a confluence of things.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#99

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #85
vasco wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, you walked into Marketing and said "This is gonna be trouble". What would happen next? Was the person looking at you even able to decide anything about what Marketing was working on? When you foresaw this huge danger to your employer, ten years in advance, you didn't keep mentioning it to people, or if change companies to somewhere that you know, you don't have the knowledge that is gonna fail for sure due to you…

> Was the person looking at you even able to decide anything about what Marketing was working on? VP? Probably. > When you foresaw this huge danger to your employer, ten years in advance, you didn't keep mentioning it to people It only takes a couple of slaps to make us shut up[0]. They didn't want to hear from me, so I stopped trying to tell them stuff. Simple. In this case, what I did, was start learning about the…

If you told execs with 100% certainty that a problem would kill a company 10 years from now, many wouldn't care, even if they totally believed you.

Most execs don't see themselves at that company in 10 years time, so that type of problem just doesn't register for them.

Re: Why don’t we have a strategy?

#100

Post by danielmarkbruce »

AlbertCory wrote: post #92
jamiek88 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was Android strategic for google or just reaction to an existential threat?

I always like to distinguish "with hindsight" from "at the time." Anyone can figure out what's strategic from hindsight. At the time? I think probably Larry, Sergey, and Eric thought it was strategic then. Did they think it was more strategic than radio ads (a business long gone!) or TV ads (also gone!)? Not sure.

It was strategic. They needed to control the endpoints to protect search. Hence Chrome, Android, Daydream, watches and so on. Half of what Google does is an effort to control endpoints to protect search.
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