Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

ON THE PRECISE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATING STRATEGY

—“Strategy is required when others might frustrate one’s plans because they have different and possibly opposing interests and concerns.”—

I disagree with the structure of the author’s argument, first because it’s imprecise in that it’s not causally informative, and secondly, it’s stated defensively as a cost rather than offensively as a benefit. So let me see if I can restated it as a on offensive benefit.

I’ve taught people for at least fifteen years, that in any organization, each individual makes thousands of decisions a day. Most decisions are unclear, or rather, tie-breakers. And they must use some means of determining how to choose among marginally indifferent decisions. Without some means of choosing they will either use what little information they have to make the choice, or they will choose what is best for them in the absence of alternative information about which choice to make.

If everyone understands your strategy then they choose to break the tie in favor of your strategy, and subordinates force their superiors to break ties in favor of strategies – and resist contradictions to the strategy, thousands of times per day.

For this reason, short, medium, and long term strategies should be well communicated in a single voice from the top on a quarterly or semi annual basis. this way, you supply everyone in your organization the means of making decisions which to them appear to be marginally indifferent, but which collectively and cumulativly provide meaningful progress towards your strategic goals.

In my opinion, the thousands of minor decisions, each of which moves microscopically in the direction of your strategy is very often, more influential than your greater more direct initiatives.

I have found that if I do it right, my strategy work can all but eliminate the rest of my job. There have been entire multiple-month periods where I have had nothing to do, and nothing I should do, because the organization is well enough informed to make decisions and to check each other’s decisions, without my assistance.

And the truth is, this gives individuals a sense of much desirable and appreciated sovereignty (feeling of being in control of their lives), of personal confidence in their decisions, and reduced friction from internal conflict and politicking. It also helps the organization identify and ostracize maladaptive individuals.

I know that the success of this approach is partly a product of the high trust society of the west, and the desire for sovereignty and heroic recognition, but having now experimented elsewhere, It seems to me that it is possible to train organizations in at least the eastern european countries, if not asia.

FROM “STRATEGY: A HISTORY”

—“This is why a strategy is much more than a plan. A plan supposes a sequence of events that allows one to move with confidence from one state of affairs to another. Strategy is required when others might frustrate one’s plans because they have different and possibly opposing interests and concerns.

…

Having a strategy suggests an ability to look up from the short term and the trivial to view the long term and the essential, to address causes rather than symptoms, to see woods rather than trees.”—