What strategy isn’t

It was great to speak at the VID21 conference last week. One of the fab things about a virtual conference is that the audience participates in the online chat and the commentary has left me with so much more to think about. Yep, I’m a strategy tragic!

One of the things I talked about is what strategy is not.  All too often, I see strategy described as a process. It’s not.

It’s also not:
•    templates and frameworks
•    business planning and budgets
•    initiatives and actions
•    strategic planning
•    a strategic plan.

All of these things are useful and have their place.

But they are not strategy.

I think of strategy as working out what really matters and making a decision about where (and then how) you can make the biggest impact.

For a commercial company profit might be the impact you seek.

For a not-for-profit the impact is about the difference you can make for those you are here to serve.

For a team, it might be about how to become truly high performing to drive the organisation’s strategy forward.

And personally, it’s about defining what’s most important to you. The impact you want to have on the world. 

That’s strategy.  Not a fancy matrix.