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When Tactics Drown Out Strategy

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Seth Godin had an excellent post a few days ago on tactics drowning out strategy. I find it especially relevant because (1) my role is “director of strategy” and (2) I’m spending the entire day today on strategy (which, at this point at least, I try to do every Thursday — and as a result have to say no to a lot of good tactical stuff.)

New media creates a blizzard of tactical opportunities for marketers, and many of them cost nothing but time, which means you don’t need as much approval and support to launch them.

As a result, marketers are like kids at Rita’s candy shoppe, gazing at all the pretty opportunities.

Most of us are afraid of strategy, because we don’t feel confident outlining one unless we’re sure it’s going to work. And the ‘work’ part is all tactical, so we focus on that. (Tactics are easy to outline, because we say, “I’m going to post this.” If we post it, we succeed. Strategy is scary to outline, because we describe results, not actions, and that means opportunity for failure.)

“Building a permission asset so we can grow our influence with our best customers over time” is a strategy. Using email, twitter or RSS along with newsletters, contests and a human voice are all tactics. In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail before they embrace a strategy… and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place.

The next time you find yourself spending 8 hours on tactics and five minutes refining your strategy, you’ll understand what’s going on.

A lot of people don’t get this. The pressure is to simply “perform,” and time spent on strategy is looked at as slowing you down and wasting your time.

Others think that strategy just comes naturally if there are smart people on your team, so it should never take more than a few minutes of thought. Whenever someone says “why can’t you see that? It’s obvious!” it’s often an indication that, no matter how smart they are, they don’t have a clue. There’s always a twist. Almost always, that is.

Perhaps most significantly, there is the false idea out there that thinking you should have a strategy somehow implies that you also think you can somehow know the future. But it doesn’t imply that. In large measure, you are strategizing for the unknown. Strategizing because of the unknown.

Master More Than One Discipline

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From A Class with Drucker: The Lost Lessons of the World’s Greatest Management Teacher:

… Drucker went on to tell us that it was essential that business executives master at least two disciplines, and that one of them must be outside of the field of business. He said this was important in the preparation of an executive for higher responsibilities because, like the corporate attorney suddenly elevated to general management, one never knew what future responsibiliteis might be thrust upon one unexpectedly. Expertise in more than one field was good training for sudden responsibilities in yet another field, and was the only evidence that the manager was capable of mastering more than one discipline.

Peter said that mastering at least two disciplines would have a number of beneficial effects. First, the executive would have the self-confidence of knowing that he was not limited to a single field. That he could, if called upon, do something entirely different, and do it well. Moreover, Drucker continued, great advances in any field rarely come from a single discipline. Rather they come from advances in one discipline being transplanted to another sphere, which is totally unfamiliar with these procedures, ideas, or methods which have never been applied to problems in this other domain” (p 74).

This is worth repeating: great advances in any field rarely come from a single discipline; rather they come from advances in one discipline being transplanted to another sphere.

Seth Godin's TED Talk

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Seth Godin’s TED talk on tribes is now online. He argues that “the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change.”

(And for more on this, see also his latest book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us.)

Leaders Take Time to Reflect

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From Marcus Buckingham’s excellent book The One Thing You Need to Know: … About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success:

The best leaders I’ve studied all discipline themselves to take time out of their working lives to think. They all muse. They all reflect. They all seem to realize that this thinking time is incredibly valuable time, for it forces them to process all that has happened, to sift through the clutter, to run ideas up the proverbial flagpole and then yank them down again, and, in the end, to conclude. It is this ability to draw conclusions that allows them to project such clarity.

Brad Anderson [CEO of Best Buy] disciplines himself to take a two-hour walk every week. Yes, this helps to keep him fit, but it also gives him time to ruminate.

Sir Terry Leahy refuses to carry a cell phone [like someone else I know]. He has identified his time in cars, trains, and planes as his most productive thinking time and he guards it jealously. Besides, he says, people know where I’m going. They can reach me when I get there. [Note: I would recommend carrying a cell phone, but just not answering during those times of thought.]

Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-fil-A, disciplines himself to go into seclusion in his cabin in the hills of North Georgia once a quarter. When I asked him what he does during this day, he replied, “Nothing. I just use it as a time to remind myself of those few things that I am certain of.”

Do not be overcome by the temptation to think that the essence of your work is dealing with the urgent. It is not. You have to take time out to reflect. Just get out and think. The two hours (or more) that you take to do this will be worth far more than the two hours of tactical work that you would have gotten done otherwise. So discipline yourself to do this regularly.

And when you do this, get away from your desk. Go somewhere interesting. Go walk along the river, or drive someplace unique. Or just walk in the area. Whatever you do, don’t subscribe to the thinking that you have to be in your desk or even in the building to be doing real “work.” (And if your company thinks that way, point them here.)

Sometimes you need to be spontaneous with this as well. A few years ago when I was working on the website redesign for where I work, I had my biggest breakthrough when, after spinning my wheels for the morning on how to organize the content, I just left to go play a game of Frisbee golf at an interesting place. Those two hours were far more productive than anything I would have got done by staying at my desk.

One more thing: Note Buckingham’s point that this reflection time results in drawing conclusions. So many in our society are afraid of coming to conclusions and settled convictions on issues. That is a recipe for becoming a boring person. It is also death to leadership, because the most important attribute of a leader is clarity. And you will not have any clarity if you are afraid of coming to conclusions.

Six Different Styles of Leadership

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Here is a good, brief summary over at the Wall Street Journal of six different leadership styles, as summarized by Daniel Goleman (author of Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence). The six styles are:

  1. Visionary
  2. Coaching
  3. Affiliative
  4. Democratic
  5. Pacesetting
  6. Commanding

“The most effective leaders can move among these styles, adopting the one that meets the needs of the moment.” However, some of the styles need to be used very sparingly.

I think that these six styles probably do not capture the full range of useful leadership styles, but this is a helpful initial context.

What Makes a Great Leadership Team?

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The latest Gallup Management Journal has an article by the authors of Strengths-Based Leadership discussing what makes a great leadership team.

The article states:

One of the core principles of strengths management is that people don’t need to be well-rounded to succeed. It helps, however, if teams are well-rounded, say the authors of Strengths Based Leadership.

It then discusses the four domains of strength that each leadership team needs: executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking.

Read the whole thing.

Your Organization's Purpose Matters More Than Ever

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Also in the latest Gallup Management Journal is an interview with Roy Spence called Your Company’s Purpose Matters Now. Its point is that “in this rough economic climate, it’s more critical than ever that you and your customers know why your company is in business.”

Here are a few excerpts:

Purpose is not just a crucial differentiator; it’s the strategic structure that pulls companies through the worst of times. Companies should determine their purpose — “a definitive statement about the difference you are trying to make in the world,” Spence says — then craft their leadership, management, operations, strategy, and tactics to further that purpose. What’s more, a purpose-based approach simplifies many difficult decisions and makes an uncertain future easier to navigate. …

While everyone in corporate America is cutting costs and trying to stimulate new revenues, organizations that have a clear purpose won’t be looking for silver bullets or grasping at straws or just cutting cost with no clear focus. Instead, they will have more clarity in their cuts and more certainty on how to stimulate revenues. For example, though Wal-Mart and Southwest Airlines are going through this economic Armageddon like everyone else, they know that all cuts in cost must translate into lower prices so people can live better or into lower airfares so more people can go and see and do things. These are not just cuts for their own sake.

The article has a helpful illustration from Southwest Airlines of the centrality of purpose to creating real value for people.

Now This is a Good Vision Statement

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This is what Jeff Bezos said about the Kindle: Amazon’s Wireless Reading Device at a Monday press conference: “Our vision is every book ever printed in any language all available in 60 seconds.”

Here’s why that is a good vision:

  1. It’s simple.
  2. It’s clear.
  3. It takes things all the way: “every book ever printed in any language.” Yes! It’s not “most books” or “95% of books.” To be remarkable, you have to be bold and go the full distance. 95% does not inspire. But 100% — that’s amazing.
  4. Its fulfillment would be a tremendous service to the world.

Now, here’s something not so great:

Some publishers and agents expressed concern over a new, experimental feature that reads text aloud with a computer-generated voice.

“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”

Here we have a recommendation that the kibosh be put on a really great idea because “they don’t have the right to read a book out loud.” This is another example of how innovation is stifled and how good ideas get killed. Sure, there may be issues, but let’s figure them out. Let’s not point to process and say “well, this shouldn’t be done.”

What about the copyright law, though?

An Amazon spokesman noted the text-reading feature depends on text-to-speech technology, and that listeners won’t confuse it with the audiobook experience. Amazon owns Audible, a leading audiobook provider.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the Kindle, or a device like it, could by means of this audio feature bring great access to books into societies with currently low literacy rates? In other words, such a device could perhaps make it possible for those who can’t read to still “read” some great books by listening to them via the text-to-speech technology. And what if everyone was given one?

Someone could say “well, you would run into problems with recharging those devices because electricity would probably not be reliable or available, and beyond that if the literacy rate is this low, probably food and water are higher priorities. Also, people just might not be interested in that.”

Well, good points. But the way forward is not to then stop and give up on the idea (whether this one or any other), but figure out if there is a way to do it which overcomes the obstacles. Maybe not. But don’t kill ideas too early. At the very least, exploring them could lead to something different, more workable — and better.

It Can Be Done

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I just read this story to my kids last night from The Children’s Treasury of Virtues. It represents an attitude we need more of and that all of us should have.

The story is called “It Can Be Done.” Here it is:

Brave people think things through and ask, “Is this the best way to do this?” Cowards, on the other hand, always say “It can’t be done.”

The man who misses all the fun
Is he who says, “It can’t be done.”
In solemn pride he stands aloof
And greets each venture with reproof.
Had he the power he’d efface
The history of the human race;
We’d have no radio or motor cars,
No streets lit by electric stars;
No telegraph or telephone,
We’d linger in the age of stone.
The world would sleep if things were run
By men who say, “It can’t be done.”