Dandelion/Elephant Strategy Rubricfive days beforeI discussed the nature of conditions that encourage dandelion or elephant strategies,…Being Strategic

What does it mean to be strategic? It is a sort of practice, a thinking hygiene.

A strategy and a plan2021A colleague asked me this great question: “What’s the difference between a…The nature of the challenge2021While working on a strategy this week, I realized that one of…Generating ideas and strategy coherence2022Here’s the thing. In software engineering (as likely in many technology fields),…Simply put, being strategic means that the outcomes produced by our actions are not at odds with our intentions. Even though this sounds simple, it most definitely isn’t. Thankfully, Richard Rumelt has done most of the heavy lifting to unpack what strategy entails, so all I have to do is summarize.

1. OODA and Intention2021The ability to make predictions is an astounding quality of retained-mode systems.…Intentionality and meaning2022So far, I’ve been talking about intention as a fairly straightforward, singular…Letting My Purpose Find Me2019In my own clock, I spoke metaphorically about learning to listen to…It all begins with intention. There’s something in our environment – the world out there – that we would like to change. Formulated in terms of motion, this intention emerges as a question of “Where do we intend to go?”
2. To answer this question, we engage in the diagnosis of the problem, which produces a destination: where we decide to go. The next question that we ask ourselves is “How will we get there?”
3. Devising a guiding policy answers this question, allowing us to arrive at the approach we choose and move onto the next question: “How will we do it?”
4. The OODA Loop2021One of the lenses for which I tend to reach frequently is…Jankless2021Finally, when we Act, we mobilize and expend the energy we estimated…How to think and what to think2023We act on what we think, so “what to think” is close…At this step, we come up with a coherent set of actions. Finally, something we can do! As we observe ourselves taking these actions, we are asking ourselves: “What are the outcomes?”
5. Continuously Integrated Strategy2022Somehow, these amazing ideas don’t seem to extend to strategy. In the…Dandelion or Elephant?2022The contextual quality of the lens allows us to use it to…It is here where we usually encounter our first clear signals on whether we’re being strategic or not. Do the outcomes match the intention? The “What did we miss?” question is key, allowing us to compare what we see with where we started from – and repeat the cycle.

Chances to get it right2023In the world of technology, there is this concept of shipping: the…At every step, there’s an opportunity for error that puts our intentions and outcomes at odds with each other.

Organizational pathology2022I called this process a pathology because it often feels like a…The model underneath2021It will probably not come as a surprise to you that we…We are constantly tempted to confuse our understanding of the situation with reality (“it is what we see”) and more often than not, we forget that our diagnosis is more of a hypothesis.

Embodied Strategy2022I was having a great conversation with a colleague about organizational learning…We are swayed by our embodied strategy to choose approaches that are familiar rather than the ones that are called for by our diagnosis, veering us off course.

OO and DA2021As it usually happens, we find ourselves in a conundrum. When managing…Urged to act, we end up making up our set of actions on the fly rather than considering them deliberately.

Slow down2021I wrote this one primarily for myself, though I believe it’s good…We are distracted by the multitude of other things in front of us, failing to execute on what we’ve decided to do.

Sometimes you gotta hit the wall2023I’ve probably written about this a few years back, but I still…The expectation gradient2021The conflation of “what is” and “what should be” is not the…We forget to look back at the original intentions and check if the outcomes are incongruent, too exhausted to reflect on the evidence provided by these outcomes and improve our understanding of the environment.

A Solution2022

The System of Self2019Here’s a checkpoint for Archeology of Self, a marker of where I’ve…All of these forces are “water”. We are in them, surrounded by them. We are them.

Nudging Embodied Strategy2022The whole concept of the cone of embodied strategy is a bit…Being strategic means somehow finding a way to become aware of these forces for more than mere moments – and then find energy to countervail them. Being strategic means facing the headwind of what feels like “the most logical next step”. Strategic moves are usually the ones that aren’t easy. Confusingly, hard choices aren’t always strategic.

The only way to accomplish this is through regular practice. Just like brushing teeth or regular exercise, being strategic always feels like something we have to do in addition to all other things on our plate.

How would one know if they are being strategic? That one is simple. Here’s a test::

• Do I have a general awareness of the cycle and the headwinds outlined above? It doesn’t need to be this particular cycle. Any robust strategic framework will do.
• Do I purposefully navigate this cycle as I conduct business?
• Innovation frontier2023First, we need to know what our embodied strategy is. We need…Beyond conducting everyday business, do I have a regular practice that helps me improve my capacity to be strategic?

What the heck is strategy work?four days after, links hereSo what the heck is strategy work? At the core, doing strategy…Add one point for each “yes” answer. Scored 3 points? Congratulations! Otherwise, we still have work to do.