Strategists Build to Be Great

The Power of Practicality: A Strategy for Real-World Impact

Strategy – it’s a word that gets thrown around boardrooms and business meetings, often with grand gestures and lofty ambitions.

What does strategy really mean?

How does it translate into the real world?

Join me in challenging the conventional wisdom and pushing the boundaries of “strategic” thinking. Let’s not just strategize, let’s build. Let’s create something tangible, something practical, something that stands up to the unforgiving test of reality. Realizing our outcomes is where strategy meets success.

Let’s go….

The Strategy Disconnect

In the world of strategy, there’s often a disconnect between the abstract and the concrete. We spend hours, days, even weeks, crafting intricate plans, devising innovative solutions, and predicting future trends. Yet, how often do we step back and ask ourselves, “How will this strategy translate into something tangible and practical?” Many of us strategize with the intention of seeing something become reality but more often than not, there is a lot that we miss. I enjoy strategizing and believe having a strategy is fundamental to any kind of organizational activity. The challenge here is when people strategize for the sake of creating a strategy. Ideas are great but they remain ideas unless we take them to action.

The purpose of strategy is to offer a potentially achievable way of overcoming a key challenge. What does a good strategy actually consist of? According to UCLA business professor Richard Rumelt in his book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, a good strategy has at its essence three parts:

• “A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical.
• A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge. This is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis.
• A set of coherent actions that are designed to carry out the guiding policy. These are steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy.”

Rumelt cautions against bad strategy, which can be identified by its four hallmarks: fluff, failure to face the challenge, mistaking goals for strategy, and bad strategic objectives. – Reference: Richard Rumelt  

The Unforgiving Nature of Reality

Reality is unforgiving. It doesn’t care about our beautifully crafted strategies if they don’t result in something real and useful. A strategy that cannot be implemented, no matter how brilliant, is merely an intellectual exercise. It’s like building a castle in the air – impressive to look at, but ultimately, it’s not grounded in reality.

The Power of Practicality

Building something real, something that has a practical use, forces us to confront the complexities and challenges of the real world. It pushes us to think beyond the theoretical and engage with reality. It’s a test of our strategic thinking, a way to validate our ideas and assumptions.

When we build something practical, we’re not just creating a product or a service. We’re creating value. We’re solving a problem, meeting a need, or providing a benefit. Overcoming a challenge should result in something that we can measure. While we can measure things that are abstract, if these are not real, they will not have the same utility.

It is important for everyone who does any strategic work to do something outside of work that has a practical aspect to it. For example, if people are musicians they may think about and write a real song. If someone is an artist, they may think about something to create and go through the process of creating and building it from scratch. The same for developers or any kind of creative outlet. If you love cooking or cross-stitch, it is important to practice. If people live in abstract concepts that never see their way to creation, they won’t be able to learn through the failure and challenges of the unforgiving real world.

The Lessons of Failure

Building real things exposes us to the possibility of failure, that’s a good thing. Failure is a powerful teacher. It shows us where our assumptions were wrong, where our execution fell short, and where our strategy needs to be adjusted. It’s an opportunity for learning and growth. It is necessary as we can’t be effective in strategy if our plans are hard coded without room for flexibility.

Conclusion

To all the strategists out there, I challenge you: don’t just plan. Build. Create something real and practical. Embrace the challenges of the real world. Learn from your failures. And watch as your strategic thinking becomes more grounded, more relevant, and more impactful.

Remember, a strategy is only as good as its execution. Execution is all about making things happen in the real world.

So, let’s get building!