Blog Posts tagged with "vision"
Strategy at the Heart of the Matter
A few weeks ago, I referred to myself as a “strategist” during a speech. This prompted someone to ask me what “strategy” means to me. What a superb question! So often the word is overused…it seems almost everything is “strategic” these days. And yet, in our business and in my current job, strategy is at the heart of what we do.
Here I'm giving a speech at the ''NATO after Lisbon'' conference conducted by the National Defense Commission of the Portuguese Parliament Feb. 2. ©Sgt Sebastian Kelm (DEU-A) SHAPE PAO
As a matter of fact, I had two conferences over the past two days focusing on "strategy." One was in Stuttgart, Germany for the U.S. European Command hat, and the other here in Mons, Belgium, addressing the future of Allied Command Operations. In both cases, we looked forward and thought about how these two enterprises -- European Command, with 100,000 personnel; and NATO Operations, with 140,000 alliance troops -- can best serve as a force for good in this turbulent world.
The future looks complicated, as always. If we thought of the immediate post- Cold War period as the "New World," I would say we are today in a kind of "New, New World." It includes the discontinuities of the post-9/11 period, the focus on transnational threats to our societies, aging demographics in many European societies, the current "Arab awakening”, piracy, campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, emerging biological imperatives, and many other disparate challenges.
What a strategist needs to do is essentially five-fold:
Select a timeframe over which the strategy should apply. Open-ended strategies make no sense.
Develop a clear-eyed view of the future. This must be done with eyes wide open, receiving input from every imaginable source, and competed against the views and knowledge of as many other individuals and organizations as possible.
Know your goals. What do you want to be at what future point in time? Ascertain where a given organization desires to end up, and craft precise mission and vision statements that will guide you there. Use these as your touchstones, and keep looping back to these aspirations for the organization as you craft more precise goals towards fulfilling the mission and vision.
Formulate a plan. What are the ‘muscle movements’ needed to achieve the goals and ultimately secure the vision? Find the levers that move the system in order to position the organization to accomplish its mission and vision. This will invariably involve getting the right people on the team, intensive analysis of the environment and competitors, and identifying policies and activities that will move you forward.
Calculate the resources needed to execute the plan. Where strategy meets money is the most important place in any organization. It is crucial to know where that nexus occurs, how it is staffed, and what methodology is used in the calculation.
The next step, not part of strategizing, per se, but very important: Go out and sell your strategy. The best strategy in the world won't matter unless there is institutional belief in it and a persuasive narrative that convinces stakeholders to support it. This means, finally, that you need good strategic communicators to help with that fundamental step.
Books are written about strategy, and this is of course a cursory look at the topic. I’d love to hear from you -– what did I miss? How does your organization’s strategy impact your daily work? How can leaders do better in articulating and executing strategy?
(I've written more -- a whole chapter, if you think you can stand it! -- on the topic of strategy as it applied to my previous command, US Southern Command in my book Partnership for the Americas. It can be accessed through the publisher, NDU Press, here.)
We spent the better part of three full days working on these issues for my two organizations here in Europe, and the results will flow smoothly into our long range plans, which I'll talk about in subsequent blogs. It was time well spent!
Adm. James Stavridis
Commander, U.S. European Command and
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
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Focusing on the Fundamentals
I had a good series of meetings in Lisbon, Portugal on Monday. The gathering in Lisbon was with all of the Defense Chiefs from the 28 nations of NATO. We focused on two key topics for the alliance: Afghanistan and the Strategic Concept.
Comments: 11
Admiral, In addition to your thought that open-ended timelines are senseless, I would offer that a strategy's scope should be deliberately identified as well. Strategy is customarily developed within groups, and the final product often suffers from well-meaning strategists who expand missions when considering, "What else can we do." Regretfully, this approach can lead to an unwieldy strategy that disregards the limitations of national power. Good strategists outline what national power should do, but great strategists delimit what national power should NOT do. In today's zeitgeist of constrained resources and austerity measures, strategists will even have to identify what national power cannot do. Such strategic planning integrity supports your other five elements by: contributing to a clear-eyed future, determining goals, formulating a realistic future plan, and better allocating resources by identifying opportunity costs. It might even help in selling the strategy, because credibility is borne from realistic self-assessment and restraint. Best wishes and v/r, Joe
Admiral - I found your recent book enlightening and thought provoking. For the assertion of " .. underlying your assessment strategy, there also needs to be a clear understanding of 'that which really scares you' ... certain triggers, trends or metrics should be identified as critical to your organization's survival or mission accomplishment" is one of my take-aways. Laying out goals and objectives are one thing, making tactical and investment decsions based on performance metrics to move forward is another. Defining, socializing and making operational and fiscal decions based on enterprise performance metrics may be a good topic for futher discussion. Most respectully, Patrick (http://www.linkedin.com/in/knowwhere)
Admiral, It's clear to me how you have had a successful career. I have read your first book and thoroughly enjoyed it. I will read your most recent book. I enjoy your blog posts. Thank you for reinforcing the steps to successful strategic planning, it applies to my business as well as the military. Best Wishes! Bob
Admiral, Thank you for your thoughts on strategy. As I too consider myself a strategist, I would like to offer you one additional "fold" to the list of five you spoke of in your blog. I have come to understand that it is an imperative that the strategist selects a problem or issue (or idea) that that others can actually "SEE" as a problem or issue. I believe the first task the strategist must undertake is to describe the current (undesirable) state in a way that others will readily agree that it requires a strategy to effect some positive outcome on the problem or issue. I quite often see strategy without a clear and specific definition for what the strategy was designed to address--I think this is critical to rally others who most often than not do not see the problem or issue in the same way. Finally, as an extra thought, I would like to offer that the strategist must be prepared to muster every ounce of passion towards development and execution of strategy; they cannot develop the strategy and toss it over the fence to be executed. Just as I believe "leadership is a contact sport," so is strategy execution. v/r Chuck Georgo CTMCM(SS), USN, Ret. chuck@nowheretohide.org
Admiral, What a clear and understandable summary of strategy! I will use it in my Naval War College seminar, where we touch on strategy on one way or another almost every week. We have recently discussed various case studies (including my experience in GTMO!) using the framework of W4H. That's What, Who, When, Where and How. If What is your objective, then How is your strategy. The course I teach, National Security Decision Making, is not focused on Grand Strategy, but strategy at the operational level, and specifically Theater Security Cooperation. But the principles still apply. The texts refer often to your work in SouthCom. Thanks, and I hope we see you in North Florida soon! Best regards and very respectfully, BB
Admiral, If you were to change the word strategy, what word would you use that is fitting in todays environment? Historically speaking, the word has always been used in finding answers to a problem. But in todays complex world affairs, finding answers is not our main challenge, but how to make the many answers work together. Perhaps, instead of thinking just mathematically, we might have to think artistically in finding multidimensional solutions to this complex world of ours as we see it today. V/R Gedion
Sir - great posting. A sixth step one may consider is Monitoring and Evaluation. The successful implementation of a strategy is one that is continually monitored with clear measures that leadership can share in and outside the organization with true transparency. William Thomson, a Scottish mathematician, once stated, “When you can measure what you are speaking about… you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it... your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.”
Admiral, What books have had the greatest impact on you in regards to strategy? I've read a good number of books on strategy. But, out of all the books on strategy I've read, one stands out from the rest, far out in front. "Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd", by Frans P. B. Osinga, RNLAF. The work isn't original content from Osinga. It's commentary on how Col. John Boyd, USAF (ret) developed his strategic theories. If Sun Tsu were a fighter pilot in the 50s, he'd have been like Boyd.
Sir, Strategy is inherently adversarial, because it is about choices. Your metaphorical use of bridges works in this context, too, strategy acts as a bridge between policy (the desired consequences) and operations (the tactics and actions required). Clearly, sir, you are a strategist, and have been extremely successful, but in this post, I think it misses that strategists must be creative due to the adversarial nature of linking ends to means. As you clearly articulate, the future looks pretty complicated and we will have to make choices. It will be a difficult time for strategists over the next decade because their will be fewer resources with which to create solutions.
Right on!
Wonderful comments. Jon & Patrick, I agree wholeheartedly that monitoring & assessment are essential, and adjustments to a strategy will sometimes be required as changing circumstances dictate. Bob, glad you'll find some use for the piece! Ad, your point about creativity is a good one. I am a strong advocate for innovation within my organizations, and often quote the great British Admiral Jacky Fisher, "Now that the money's run out, we must begin to think!" And lastly, I agree also with Joe, who rightly points out that we must scope our strategy so that we're not attempting to boil the ocean...an inevitable exercise in frustration, to be sure. YN2 - fabulous question. Two classics on strategy that I keep coming back to on politics and war: Machiavelli's "The Prince" and Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"; a solid overview that provides good summaries and examples in the context of war itself: Robert Greene's "The 33 Strategies of War"; on personal strategy, less well known but fascinating (and perhaps the best of all) Baltasar Gracian, "The Art of Worldly Wisdom"; and lastly, on business strategy: Jim Collin's classic, "Good to Great."