#223: What is Strategy?

Good morning good people

I hope you’re well. The last few weeks haven’t had a lot of space for segues into art, wine and food, and today is not that different. I’ll be brief.

You may remember a year ago we moved to about an hour outside of Cape Town. It’s idyllic, but we’ve missed being close to some of our favourite wine bars, so we were excited to discover Furny’s Fine Wine and Taste Shop in nearby Chapman’s Peak (if you don’t know Cape Town, this is Chapman’s Peak – one of the best drives in the world).

Sommelier, Elton (‘like John’, he said), was welcoming, more enthusiast than expert (my kind of wine person).

We spoiled ourselves with David and Nadia Sadie’s Elpidios; a grenache-led blend, perfect for charcuterie on a temperate Spring day. We took home some of young winemaker Natasha Jacka’s Alinea Carignan (She recently won the Next Generation Award for young winemakers. You can read more about her journey here).

Incidentally, Alinea means ‘the beginning of a new train of thought’ which makes it perfect for Strategy, Soul, & Self.

/strategy
As you know, most of my work week is spent in conversation with clients in multiple sectors and locations. The themes, concerns and opportunities of those conversations drive this letter. My assumption is if they’re thinking about it, you probably are too.

A couple of weeks ago, one reminded me about Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. I agreed to read it again and weave it into our sessions.

This week, Rumelt came up in conversation with an old colleague who is taking on a new CEO role. We agreed it is a great guide to the theory of strategy, the ‘what’ it is, but must be twinned with Lafley and Martin’s Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works for a more detailed how-to-create strategy guide. And so here we are today, looking at what is strategy.  

He makes it remarkably simple, “A leader’s most important responsibility is identifying the biggest challenges to forward progress and devising a coherent approach to overcoming them”.

I will, next week, dive deeper into ‘bad strategy’, it is worth noting that Rumelt is annoyed what often gets called strategy.

He grumbles, “We have become so accustomed to strategy as exhortation that we hardly blink an eye when a leader spouts slogans and announces high-sounding goals, calling the mixture a ‘strategy’”.

He explains, “A good strategy does more than urge us forward toward a goal or vision. A good strategy honestly acknowledges the challenges being faced and provides an approach to overcoming them. And the greater the challenge, the more a good strategy focuses and coordinates efforts to achieve a powerful competitive punch or problem-solving effect”.

And elaborates, “A strategy is a way through a difficulty, an approach to overcoming an obstacle, a response to a challenge. If the challenge is not defined, it is difficult or impossible to assess the quality of the strategy, and if you cannot assess a strategy’s quality, you cannot reject a bad strategy or improve a good one”.

His caution, “Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does”, is powerful.

If nothing else, do that. When last did you say ‘no’?

If you’re always saying ‘yes’, if every business unit in your company is getting all they ask for, you probably don’t have a good strategy. Strategy is choice.

//soul
I’m trying something new today. When I started writing this letter in January 2020, I named it Strategy, Soul, & Self to reflect the integrated work of creating a life of joy, influence and impact.

But then in the writing, it felt easier to flow from strategy to self to soul, but I still preferred the sound of strategy, soul, & self (welcome to the associative pinball machine that is my mind).

The writing worked because we went from large theme to narrow focus and ended expansively. There was a rhythm, a pattern there that felt timeless. The name worked because soul was at the core. Today, is an experiment to see if it works to get the writing to reflect the name. It feels uncomfortable to do. Please let me know what you think.

Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos won this year’s International Booker Prize.

Set in East Berlin in the early 1980s, Katharina meets and falls in love with fifty-three-year-old Hans. She is nineteen.  

In its early pages Erpenbeck takes us into romance’s mystery.

“He thinks, as long as she wants us, it won’t be wrong.
She thinks, if he leaves everything to me, then he’ll see what loves means.
He thinks, she won’t understand what she’s agreed to until much later.
And she, he’s putting himself in my hands.
All these things are thought on this evening, all together they make up a many-faceted truth”.

Halfway through the novel Hans leaves her, then reconciles but not completely. He’s present but not entirely. She is drawn to and then makes love to a fellow student. Later, she reflects on her omissions and silences, “The lie as the preferred form of power for those who have no power”.

Hans finds out and begins retribution. He says “Henceforth, I’d like you to type all your letters to me. I can’t stand the sight of your handwriting”. She nods.

And so, unfolds months of cruelty hidden under a righteous veneer. He sends her cassette recordings in which he says things like, “You failed the test. Bad things can always happen. So if I’m to stay with you, I would have to be indifferent to you. Conspire with you in making a great thing mediocre. But is it even worth it?” and “You’re smart, but you’re soulless” and on and on.

He insists she replies, and she does. Until she doesn’t.  

In the background, is the East German state, holding its people close, torturing them in multiple ways, denying them all they could be,

In the closing pages, Erpenbeck tells us more. We see Hans more clearly. She reminds us that oppression’s horrors are infectious. Only then do we, and Katharina, see things as they were. It makes terrifying sense, and we should’ve known.

///self
Identifying challenges requires asking powerful questions. Jerry Colonna’s Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up gives us five that help us see ourselves:

• “How would I act were I to remember who I am? 
• What choices would I make, what actions would I take, if I regularly said the things that needed to be said? 
• Who would I become were I to be fully, completely, and wholly heard? 
• What is it that I wish the people in my life understood about me? 
• Who would I be without the myths I’ve told about myself; the stories that took hold when I was yearning to feel love, safety, and belonging?”

Best wishes

Karl

PS: My coaching practice is fully booked until Feb 2025. You can subscribe to this letter here.