What does “strategy” mean in the context of business? Most folks are confused with all the jargons and how this word have been used in different context. 

Our fascination with using sports and war as analogy when discussing strategy has distorted the essence of the word. It’s easy to rally a group with a hero narrative, a perceive enemy or rival and declare some level of finality or finish line where the hero in most of the case the team you handle wins the day. This however is not the only analogy that could be related with strategy. 

Strategy is usually associated with the art of winning over an adversary, knowing that the adversary is trying to do the same to you. Don’t get me wrong, there is great value in healthy competitiveness. This spirit drives us to be better. The danger or pitfall here is mistaking that the ultimate goal is about conquering or beating an adversary. I believe we lost the plot. We lost track of what we are truly pursing or should be pursing in business. You also fall in a trap where folks suddenly feel your only good as your last number as teams realize there is no true deadline or finish line when it comes to business or even in life.

If I try to distil all of the learnings in my years on what strategy is in its simplest form is finding a way to bridge “Point A” and “Point B”. It is bridging a current state and a desired vision, a quest to achieve, a goal, a problem to solve, an opportunity to address because of a higher purpose. We then develop steps towards bridging that gap, deploying resources, and enacting the steps – we develop a plan. In bridging that gap we create “value”. The act of bridging, planning and executing creates value with incremental in each step which starts with identifying and the journey of solving “Point B”. 

By distilling this back to this view, we broaden it to not just about competition but also about the possibilities of cooperation with competition and other stakeholders. It is no longer just wining against an adversary, it may be also finding ways to cooperate for a common good within a broader community. This brings out a word not associated to a purely competitive lens … the word “empathy”. It drums up the need of putting yourself in others shoes so as either to bridge an understanding or predict and influence what the outcome might be due to the actions made by stakeholders in the community.

More importantly this definition centers the discussion again to the purpose and meaning of what we are pursuing - (Point B) … It orients companies to their mission or basically confronts companies on asking about whether they have a “higher purpose“ or are they authentic in what they declare as their purpose. This repositions competition to a friendly rival that pushes us to be better.

With this distilled view, take a moment to reflect on how your organization approaches strategy building and execution. If the prevailing lens in these processes is primarily competitive, consider what opportunities might be overlooked due to this potentially myopic perspective. Additionally, ask yourself how such a mindset influences your approach to crafting solutions for specific goals and, more importantly, how it shapes your character in the process.