Strategy vs Tactics

If you don’t have a strategy, you are part of someone else’s strategy.”

— Alvin Toffler

“Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”

― Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War

How are strategy and tactics linked?

The best explanation of strategy vs tactics can be summed up by Sun Tzu, who said: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.

Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

They are both completely linked and cannot exist successfully without the other.

The Components of Strategy

The strategic theorist Henry Mintzberg provides a useful approach to thinking about strategy in adversarial situations.

According to Mintzberg, there are five key components or types:

1. Plan:   A consciously chosen series of actions to achieve a goal, made in advance.
2. Ploy:   A deliberate attempt to confuse, mislead or distract an opponent.
3. Pattern: A consistent, repeated series of actions that achieve the desired result.
4. Position: A considered relationship between an entity (organization, army, individual etc) and its context.
5. Perspective: A particular way of viewing the world, a mindset regarding actions that lead to a distinct way of behaving.

Geoffrey P. Chamberlain offers a slightly different perspective on the components of strategy, useful when the strategy is more about a personal goal. He identifies seven parts:

1. A strategy is used within a particular domain.
2. A strategy has a single, well defined focus.
3. A strategy lays out a path to be followed.
4. A strategy is made up of parts (tactics).
5. Each of a strategy’s parts pushes towards the defined focus.
6. A strategy recognises its sphere of influence.
7. A strategy is either intentionally formed or emerges naturally.

According to Rumelt, a strategy must include “premeditation, the anticipation of others’ behavior, and the purposeful design of coordinated actions.

As a general rule, strategy is more important in situations where other parties have the potential to thwart or disrupt actions, or where our plans are at risk if we don’t take meaningful steps to achieve them.

Good strategy requires us to both focus on a goal, and anticipate obstacles to reaching that goal.

When we encounter obstacles, we may need to employ what Freedman calls “deceits, ruses, feints, manoeuvres and a quicker wit”—our tactics.

By definition: 

• A strategy is a plan (and method) used to achieve a desired future state for the company.
• Tactics are the activities that take place to achieve the strategy, allowing the strategic plan to progress from milestone to milestone.

Is it a strategy, or a tactic?

The two concepts are easily confused.

So to clarify each definition:

Strategy describes:

• A pathway to a goal
• A plan for allocating resources
• Something that is typically (although not always) long-term in nature
• The ‘thinking’ aspect, that precedes the ‘doing’.

Tactics describe:

• The way in the plan will be delivered, in terms of specific actions
• Concrete actions that are usually Short-Term in nature, and which are found in resources, detailed plans and best practices.
• The ‘doing’ that follows the thinking.

There are three good acid tests to identifying whether something is a strategy or a tactic.

1. Order of play:

Strategy will always come first.

1. ‘Changeability’:

Strategies take time, research and careful planning to create because of their long-term vision.

This means that they can be changed, but not lightly or easily.

Tactics, on the other hand, can easily be adjusted to correct the course of action.

1. Nature:

Strategies are conceptual, but tactics are concrete.

What defines great strategies and tactics?

Every organisation will have its own approach to creating its strategy, ideally using a framework such as the Balanced Scorecard which ensures every necessary step of the process is correctly carried out.

But what makes these vital concepts great in practice?

A great strategy…

• Is built upon the organisation’s core values.
• Sets the foundation for everything that everyone in the organisation does – and guide decision making.
• Is created with input from across the organisation, so that all departments are aligned.
• Is clearly actionable.

Excellent tactics…

• Have clear a clear purpose and are inextricably linked to the organisational strategy
• Are finite within a clear timeline of specific, planned activities
• Are measured.

The challenges organisations face

Many organisations make the mistake of leaping to tactics first and gloss over the strategy.

Why?

Because it’s far easier to write business plans packed with goals, objectives and detailed tactical delivery plans. The hard part lies in getting the right people together to think theoretically and conceptually and agree on the ‘great unifying vision’ that will set the company’s course.

The danger of putting the horse before the cart is clear, however.

If you set tactics before strategy, your people will launch off and focus on the projects that really capture their attention and passion.

Without the unification of a strategy, departments will work in silos.

The scatter-gun approach means that the organisation’s course of travel will be unintended and difficult to correct.

The importance of measurement

Furthermore, neither strategy nor tactics have any value if they aren’t measured.

Businesses use KPIs to measure progress towards high-level goals.

KPIs will make use of quantifiable data that demonstrates progress and which flags up any area for improvement.

When measuring tactics, managers will set timeframes, define resources (and budgets) and capture milestones and actions that will ensure they are achieved.

Named individuals will be accountable for the delivery of each tactic.

When viewed in a plan, the progress towards strategic goals can be seen at any time.

In Conclusion:

Strategy is Long Term whilst Tactics tend to be shorter term.

Most businesses are NOT Strategic, they are Tactical, focusing nearly all of their energy on short term goals such as:

• Paying Rent
• Paying Salaries
• Acquiring The Next Customer.
• Looking At Lowest Price Instead Of Highest Quality.
• Making The Next Deal.
• Etc

Whilst the above is, important, working only tactically and not strategically will have serious long term effect on the business.

In order to be success you have to think Strategic and work Tactical