8-11-10 Are You Strategic or Tactical?

It shouldn’t surprise you when I say that the executive is the strategist for the organization. Much has been made in the popular press (and academic press for that matter) about how the new executive has to make the shift from tactical thinker to strategic thinker when he/she is promoted into the executive ranks. One of my survey participants did a very good job in describing this move. Remember that I asked all my survey participants to tell me the one thing that they wished someone had told them when they were promoted.

This executive talked about strategic focus. “Usually new execs are promoted because they are good at tactical mgmt, but the move to exec mgmt needs to also accompany a move to longer term strategic thinking. The task of tactical mgmt is to do the best with the project that you have, but does not consider whether or not the project should be part of our business. So the shift to strategic thinking requires the new exec to ask questions about why we are in a specific business and should we stay in that business. Alternatively, the exec should ask what other businesses we might enter.”

Please don’t misunderstand. Your tactical capability is still important. There WILL be times that you have to dust off your tactical management skills and put them to use. Perhaps when a project is in trouble or when you a teaching a member of your staff how to manage a project.

But this type of tactical management should not be the whole of your job or your skills. If you will recall, one entire section of the Executive Skills and Traits model pertains to strategy (12-30-09 Morphing to a Model and 1-8-10 I Have A Dream). The vision skills are definitely important.

The hard part comes from trying to discover your own vision skills and then putting them to use. Why? We are creatures of habit. And as my survey participant indicated, the executive is usually promoted because he/she is really good at tactical management. It is much easier to stick with what we know and are comfortable with. Tactical management is a concrete, “get your arms around it” kind of management tactic. You know how it works and you know what to expect at the end.

Strategic management, on the other hand, is one of the mushy, “don’t know what the hell I’m doing” kind of processes. In strategic management, you are asking the questions that don’t have one right answer. Or may not even HAVE an answer. You are plotting courses for a destination that only you might be able to see -- or you only have a vague idea that it even exists. You are realizing that the questions you used to ask will have no relevance in a strategic discussion. This same is often true for the data you used to gather in order to make a tactical decision -- often it won’t do much to enlighten you for a strategic decision.

In short, strategic management is hard work. But you have to do it. Because if you don’t, who will be charting the course for the next 3 to 5 to 10 years in your organization? If you abdicate this responsibility, you are leaving the future life of the organization to the whims of the marketplace. This is because your default strategy will be to react to whatever stumbles across your desk or field of vision. You won’t filter out the unimportant. And by reacting to anything, you will likely miss the most subtle, but often most important, impacts to your organization.

So suck it up and hone your strategy skills -- for your sake and for the sake of the people that depend on you.

Cheers!