If ever there was a contest for the most over-used word in language, ‘strategy’ would be on the short list.
The word came originally from the Greek word for ‘leadership in a military context’, and war has been the source of much thinking about leadership, as in how to conceive and craft a successful strategy against your enemy. You may have read quotes from the 6thcentury BC Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu (advocating strategies of insurgency and deception)[1], Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century AD (strategies of attacking the psychology of the enemy population through rapid manoeuvre and terror) and 19thcentury western thinkers such as the German Carl von Clausewitz (strategy is the employment of battles to gain the end of war).
Sticking with the military understanding of strategy for a little longer, the US definition of military strategy has some helpful elements for us: these include concentrating your resources, surprising your opponents by unexpected actions, and simplicity (not making complex plans, so they can be thoroughly understood).[2]
‘Strategy’ has long since permeated the world of governments, civilian organisations and companies, and in doing so it has become more sanitised. It tends to be used now to mean the overall programme of activities to achieve a desired objective, presenting these as simply a mechanical set of actions for getting from point A to point B.[3]This is a pity, because the essence of the original meaning – how to achieve something that will be resisted – is important.
We suggest that you think about your strategy in three parts
[1]The book attributed to Sun Tzu, ‘The art of war’, has thirteen chapters that together act as guidance on strategy: Laying plans, waging war, attack by stratagem, tactical dispositions, use of energy, weak and strong points, manoeuvring, varying tactics, moving forces, situational positioning, incendiary attacks, use of spies. See Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War
[2]See Wikipedia on military strategy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_strategy.
[3]Bureaucracies have a habit of squeezing the ‘conflict’ aspect out of project proposals. As a result, the final strategy consists of little more than wish-lists of technical actions that are unlikely to achieve the desired outcome. This problem is especially common in corruption reform, where organisations often present their reform strategies as technocratic, whereas in fact they ought to be recognising possible conflict in shifting power away from the status quo.
