Some notes about strategy

• No-one has ever seen a strategy or touched a strategy. Every strategy is an abstract concept, a figment of some people’s imagination, or lack thereof. Rendering it on paper or a screen does not make it real, let alone interesting.

• Strategies are to organizations what blinders are to horses: they keep them going in a straight line, which can impede peripheral vision, where threats and opportunities often appear.

• While strategic planning is supposed to be a regular, systematic process for change, typically by making five-year plans on an annual basis, most of the time organizations should get on with pursuing the strategies they already have. Think of this as quantum: long periods of strategic stability interrupted by shorter bursts of strategic change. Of course, these long periods can distract management from realizing when change has become necessary, but so too can relentless strategic planning that numbs the organization to change that is sneaking up on its edges.

• SWOT is central to the conventional practice of strategic management: to develop strategy, an organization should assess its own strengths and weaknesses (or “core competences”) as well as the opportunities and threats in its environment. But I have been present at so many of these discussions that sounded empty—like “We are great at moulding plastics,” or whatever—that I have come to believe that it would be far better to assess successes and failures, namely what really has worked and hasn’t.