Social isn’t a strategy. – Thoughtfaucet

Whether or not social helps small business compete with big box stores will depend on strategy.

Yes, and it is only leaders who have strategy. You may not think of yourself as a leader, but once you have a strategy you become one. It only takes one “second dancer” to create a leader. There is a great clip on YouTube showing the power of a second dancer, if anyone is interested.

 Let’s dig in a little, in the spirit of the great conversations I have with these guys.

Yes, as you say, “Let’s”.

I think the best way to start is for you to define “leader” for me.

While it is my term and not yours, I think you will agree with me when I say that only a leader has strategy.

There are a few things to unpack in this definition of strategy and since I’ve come this far I may as well unpack them.

• Strategy is an art because it involves personal choices.
• Strategy is a science because there are often visible and repeatable results.
• Maintaining resources is about conservation and growing.
• Deploying resources is about spending and taking action.
• Freedom is your ability to execute your plans at will.
• Flexibility is your ability to respond, react and pivot when required.
• Winning means to continue operations.

Yes, your bullet points all point to a leader (you) being the one of strategy, as all your clients are lacking in at least one of these points.

So to start off I will define leader.

To me a leader is one that commands the crowd controlling the movement.

Yea, I could go on, as you did, about art vs scientist (as type of leader); resources being the “means” of the “end”; deploying, freedom, flexibility, and winning as the “way” towards the “end”; but basically you (as the leader) command the crowd. You do this through the coin of the realm, give Caesar what’s his, ect…..

Like strategy, the best answers are always simple, at least to start out with.

To keep it simple, all control is self-control, so what controls the crowd is the collective”self” of the crowd. The leader can only command.

So if the leader can only command, there is nothing more to be said, unless there is something else that connects the Command to the Control.

That something else is the vision of the leader that controls the crowd.

Does that mean that the OODA loop is a process by which a vision can be formed?

via Social isn’t a stategy. – Thoughtfaucet.

What Is Strategy?

"@HBSExecEd: Can You Say What Your Strategy Is? http://t.co/Kz0AlSQn" – 1st Define Strategy, what is it?

— Nigeria what is new? (@Nigeriawhatsnew) June 24, 2012

I have tried to answer this question, “What is Strategy”, for myself many times and failed. After looking at the prices for classes dealing with strategy, perhaps defining it  is something worth thinking about.

Of course I am kidding, but after looking at one of the classes listed: (Risk Management for Corporate Leaders; Integrating Best Practices for Superior Strategy Execution) the definition of strategy could come from understanding what this course is about.

It appears from the title that strategy is for leaders (in this case Corporate),  something that can be executed (in seemly superior and sub-superior manners), and is executed in something called practices (executed in an integrating manner between the best instead of the worst).

Some of the “practices”  (and seem to be mostly human practices) taken from the course’s “Key topics” are:

• Behavior
• Management
• Processes
• Events
• Risks
• Functions

So almost all the practices can be considered Ways of people.

As all Strategy covers three domains (End, Ways, and Means), this course’s key topics are the Ways of strategy, which the course’s statement: “…explore the many ways that strategies and enterprises can fail” seems to imply that the Means to failure is usually in the Way of humans. In my way of thinking, strategy’s End comes from the leaders, the Means is in the execution, and the Way is in practices.

So the program “Means” of controlling the “Way” of humans should be within the End of strategy, if this was a course in strategy. In strategy there are two Ends, the beginning of the End and the end of the End. The End is a explicit image as the word “recognize”  in the sentence, “…as well as how to recognize ” suggests. But it is the leaders who “recognize”, so perhaps it is safe to say that all “Ends” come from leaders.

From the program’s statement,,”You will learn how to develop and implement effective risk management processes”. To me the statement implies that the program doesn’t really teach Strategy–it teaches process. The “process” is the in “Way” of executing the  “Means” of strategy. The “Means” are all the resources available to the leader. This course teaches how to process the “way” of strategy. The resources in the process are mostly human, according to my bullet points.

Process, like planning and practices, is a part of strategy, but it doesn’t really answer the question: ‘What is Strategy”. After taking this course and learning the process that integrate the Means with the Ways, a person can still only hope to have a clear image of the End of strategic thinking. To get that, would take some kind of leadership course, so the definition of strategy can’t really come from this course.

Which leads me to ask another question, “Do they still have leadership courses at Harvard, if you are only going after a MBA?”